Help with case

[Raja2A]

Hi hoping anyone will read this and be able to offer some advice. My niece was removed from her parents care in February - they are addicts. She was in a foster placement while we underwent an assessment for an SGO. The assessment was positive and she moved to us last month. there have been 2 “final hearings” but every time it just gets adjourned. No one can/ will tell me why this is. Our current social worker is never available/ doesn’t answer the phone. I’m just feeling lost as technically I don’t have the parental responsibility right now but i am raising her? Is there something going on as it feels like there must be a reason that we keep getting adjourned?

[Robin D]

Hi Raja2A and welcome here.

I am just another user here, so what follows carries no legal weight. Suzie, on the FRG staff, will hopefully be able to provide more information.

I am assuming you are not legally represented, if you are, then your solicitor should be explaining. Equally it sounds as though you are not 'party' to proceedings as in that case the court should have told you why the delay. I strongly suggest you contact the court office and get them to help you apply to be party before the next hearing, They may also be able to tell you from the court record why the hearing was adjourned. Unfortunately there is a fee (£184 I think, but don't quote me) for the application but the big advantage is that you get to see and hear everything that goes before the court. In the interim, if the child is separately represented, or there is a court welfare officer, contact that solicitor or the welfare officer and ask if they can explain what the adjournments are for, as you have been unable to contact the social worker.

To be fair, its quite common for these things to be adjourned in my experience, usually because someone, often Children's Services, has not completed the work the court has requested!

I hope this helps.

Robin

[Raja2A]

Thanks for your reply Robin, I do believe at the last hearing, there was missing evidence etc. Although this is my brothers child I do believe it is right that she was removed, she was neglected, hungry, left alone twice etc. we are on our 4th social worker since the case began and I struggle to get any contact from this one, I have a few concerns regarding our case but maybe you will be able to help….
1.Child’s mum is now expecting again what will happen with this baby?
2.i have been asked to be a family foster carer from now until December (next hearing date) what does this mean?
3. When our niece came to us she was extremely clingy (still sits by the bathroom door while I wash etc) I left my job as it quickly became apparent she couldn’t manage with nursery or anything at the moment. I wasn’t too worried as was told we could apply for SGO allowance and universal credit as only 1 income. Surely I can’t have SGO allowance without having the SGO? Worried how we are going to get through the next few months on only one wage

[Robin D]

My thoughts to your bullet points.
1. Impossible to say, but most likely is that the local authority will start care proceedings before the birth, and the child is therefore likely to be removed almost immediately unless Mum is assessed as being able to cope with support. If the child is taken into care, and you want to care for it, you would need to move quickly to keep the siblings together as the LA are likely to be considering placing the baby for adoption.
2. I've not come across the term 'Family Foster Carer' but @Suzie, the FRG advisor may have done and be able to advise. I am assuming they mean you will be assessed as foster parents for this child. If that is the case, they must pay you the full fostering allowance.
3. I agree, the allowance is given with the SGO. However, if point 2. comes to fruition, the fostering payment should continue until the SGO. The SGO allowance is unlikely to match the fostering allowance, and is reassessed on a regular basis and may reduce or be stopped completely at any review. MAKE SURE YOU GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING. If a SW promises something, write immediately after to them saying that 'during you visit on {date} you promised to do x and said that a payment of {amount} would be made. Send it 'signed for' and keep a copy with the signed for proof from Royal Mail!. If they do not immediately reply with a 'you are mistaken, I actually said' then you have evidence that they failed to dispute at the time. If this sounds like I do not trust them, you would be dead right, and I am far from alone in having dealt with broken promises.

You don't say how old your niece is but I am guessing under 5. The little ones behaviour is normal for one with such a disrupted start in life. She either failed to attach to either parent, or did, and then had that attachment broken. She is clearly desperate for the security of a secure attachment to you and, from experience, it will take an awful long time (years maybe) for her to gain the security of being loved and nurtured. Sorry if that's hard to swallow, but I would rather be honest with you. We had a few 'Clingons' over the years, and it can get very tiresome sometimes, but you just have to accept that it's nothing you have done. There are also likely to be events that retrigger her insecurity through her childhood and possibly into adulthood. At these times you may see very difficult and odd behaviour, even uncontrolled anger, and she will challenge you to dislike her and push her away. You just have to be constant and caring and hopefully she will come through relatively unscathed from her early years experiences.

Hopefully this is of some help. I wish you luck. It's a very important thing you are doing for her, but it's not the bed of roses some of the adverts for adoption and fostering show.

Best wishes ... Robin

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Raja2A

Welcome back to the kinship carers’ discussion board. Thank you for your posts. I will reply to them all here. You have already had some useful and timely advice from another kinship carer which I hope you have found helpful.

You are now caring for your niece full-time. My understanding is that there are ongoing care proceedings and that children’s services have an interim care order (ICO) for her. If this is not the case, please do post back to clarify.

You have been positively assessed as a special guardian. But the court has not yet made the SGO due to the adjournments that you describe. Therefore, you do not have parental responsibility (PR) for your niece yet, children’s services share PR with her parents (if they have an ICO) but in effect they are the main decision makers. They cannot pay you a special guardianship allowance as you are not yet a special guardian.

If your niece is a looked after child under an ICO then you must have been temporarily approved as her kinship foster carer. You will also need to be fully approved. This will end once the SGO is made. I think that ‘family foster carer’ is the term used in your niece’s local authority for a kinship/connected foster carer.. As a kinship foster carer you should be paid a fostering allowance from the date your niece was placed with you and until you have the SGO. Please see here for information about national minimum fostering allowances to give you an idea about the minimum amount that you should be paid.

You are unsure why your niece’s case has been adjourned. Please see my previous response on the ‘final hearing’ thread. Another kinship carer has also provided explanations and suggested that you could seek clarification from your niece’s Guardian. He also suggests applying to become a party to the proceedings. You can find form C2 here if you wish to do this. The court will consider joining you to the proceedings; usually this is if you have a different case to put forward.

I am sorry that you had to give up your job and that children’s services have not put in the right support. It is unacceptable that you have been put in this position. As explained, you should receive a fostering allowance, backdated to when your niece moved to live with you. We have a template letter (4) that you can use if you need to, to formalise this.

The social worker should have assessed your support needs including a special guardianship allowance. They should provide you with a written copy of this draft support package for comment. It is important that you are given the information in writing about what children’s services propose to pay you as a special guardian, as RobinD suggests. If you join the proceedings, you may qualify for legal aid to have a solicitor help you negotiate for the best package of support. If not, children’s services should pay for you to get independent legal advice which you could use to agree the support package.

You can find a copy of your local authority’s family and friends care policy here.

You may be interested in our campaign Same Love, Same Leave .

Please see Practical and financial support for special guardians and welfare benefits for kinship carers . Page 9 sets out the rules for foster carers in applying for universal credit.

Your niece’s mother is pregnant. You query what will happen. Children’s services are likely to do a pre-birth assessment and, they may begin care proceedings if the baby is at risk of significant harm. They will need to assess the baby’s parents again but will also look to extended family for potential kinship carers for the baby if the parent/s cannot care for them. In care proceedings for a baby, children’s services must consider a plan for adoption but the court will only agree this as a last resort, where nothing else will do. So, if you were willing to be assessed as a potential kinship carer for the baby, which would also keep the two children together, you should let children’s services know. It is best to be a kinship foster carer before becoming a special guardian.

You are having real difficulties getting updates from your niece’s social worker. They are the key worker for you and your niece so good lines of communication are important. We have some tips about working with a social worker that might help but if you continue to experience difficulties you could raise with the social worker’s manager or your niece’s Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) .

The social worker should support you with managing your niece’s behaviour. As your niece is young, her health visitor should also be able to give you advice and encouragement. Your niece’s needs form part of the special guardianship assessment as do your support needs in relation to this. Please raise any issues now and ask the social worker to include this in your draft support package.

I hope this is helpful.

Please post back if you need any further advice or contact the advice service via one of the other options linked to here.

Best wishes

Suzie