Length of SGO support plan

[Monty123]

Hi all
When we got a SGO for our two grandchildren we were given a support plan , approved by court, stating that the LA was responsible for the support for 3 years . If after that time we had moved, the relevant council we had moved to would be responsible. At the time we were thinking of moving but that has been put on the back burner for now. Seeing as we haven’t moved , is the original support plan still in effect till they are 18 from the local cs . The reason I ask is that the birth father says that the plan was valid for only 3 years and now he’s asking for a lot more contact, unsupervised and over night which we are uncomfortable with . Am I correct in assuming that the original support plan is still live and valid ?

[Robin D]

Hi Monty123 and welcome.

I think you need to dig out the original support plan and the order made by the court and check the specific wording of both. You should have been given copies, but if not, check with your solicitor if you used one.

There are so many variables here that it's difficult to advise.

The alternative is to go back to the Local Authority and ask their advice. In the meantime. They should have a SG support team.

It's entirely your call on the subject of increasing contact as you can exercise PR to the exclusion of all others. If you are uncomfortable that increasing contact is not in the best interests of the children, then you should resist it. It then falls to Dad to seek leave of the court to take the matter back to seek a ruling if he is so minded. However, my understanding is that to get leave, he would have to show their has been a significant change in circumstances. I could be wrong in that if the application is only for more contact, so please do not take that as fact.

Hopefully the FRG advisor will be able to confirm or correct the above.

Good luck ... Robin

[Monty123]

Thanks for the reply Robin.
We did call the LA and they said that it was put in so that if we didn’t comply move back then , the new LA would take over after 3 years and it would be nearer for us . They confirmed that in their eyes the plan was till they were 18 . However, the devils in the detail and this wasn’t mentioned specifically in the court papers only that they agreed with the support plan still.birth father is bashing us over the head with this saying the plan was only for the 3 years and now he can basically bully us into what he wants . Do you think we Could ask the LA to send us a letter confirming that the plan is for the full 18 yrs ? I’ve never heard of a support plan for just 3 years .

Hi Monty123 and welcome.

I think you need to dig out the original support plan and the order made by the court and check the specific wording of both. You should have been given copies, but if not, check with your solicitor if you used one.

There are so many variables here that it's difficult to advise.

The alternative is to go back to the Local Authority and ask their advice. In the meantime. They should have a SG support team.

It's entirely your call on the subject of increasing contact as you can exercise PR to the exclusion of all others. If you are uncomfortable that increasing contact is not in the best interests of the children, then you should resist it. It then falls to Dad to seek leave of the court to take the matter back to seek a ruling if he is so minded. However, my understanding is that to get leave, he would have to show their has been a significant change in circumstances. I could be wrong in that if the application is only for more contact, so please do not take that as fact.

Hopefully the FRG advisor will be able to confirm or correct the above.

Good luck ... Robin

[Robin D]

That's as good a place to start as any. They may prevaricate though, but if you don't ask, you will never know if the simple solution will work. You should perhaps put your request in writing using reverse logic. If you write and say that when you contacted them on [date], their position was that the plan was intended to last until the children were 18. Could they please confirm that in writing? That forces them to either do so, or deny in writing that is what they said. If the latter, then you have grounds for an official complaint.

Good luck ... Robin

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi all
When we got a SGO for our two grandchildren we were given a support plan , approved by court, stating that the LA was responsible for the support for 3 years . If after that time we had moved, the relevant council we had moved to would be responsible. At the time we were thinking of moving but that has been put on the back burner for now. Seeing as we haven’t moved , is the original support plan still in effect till they are 18 from the local cs . The reason I ask is that the birth father says that the plan was valid for only 3 years and now he’s asking for a lot more contact, unsupervised and over night which we are uncomfortable with . Am I correct in assuming that the original support plan is still live and valid ?

Dear Monty123,

Welcome to the kinship carers’ forum. My name is Suzie and I am the online adviser for Family Rights Group. I can see you have had some helpful advice from RobinD already, and I hope that the following information and advice is also helpful. You can click on the hyperlinks below to take you to more information on our website.

The support plan remains valid whilst the children are in your care under a special guardianship order. If there is a significant change in circumstance then the support plan should be reviewed, and it should also be reviewed annually to ensure that it still meets the needs of the children and the special guardian. But if no changes have been made to it in the last 3 years then the original support plan remains valid (and will continue to do so until it is altered, or the children turn 18, or the SGO is discharged).

Please note that it is standard practice that if a special guardian moves then the local authority which was responsible for the child before the SGO was made is responsible for providing non-financial support services for a period of 3 years. After this the responsibility for support passes on to the local council area in which the child now lives. This is all laid out in Regualation 5 of the Special Guardianship Regulations 2005. Therefore there is no implication that the support plan would only remain valid for a period of three years; it is just a question of which local authority is responsible for providing the support. You can read more about this on page 9 of our advice sheet ‘Practical and financial support for special guardians’ which you can find [url=chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://frg.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2 ... 250819.pdf]HERE[/url].


Regardless of what is laid out in the support plan about contact, it is ultimately up to you to make decisions about what contact you think is in the best interests of the children. You hold the majority share of parental responsibility and so, as Robin D has explained, you do not have to agree to increasing contact if you feel it is not in the children’s best interests. The father can return to court if he is unhappy with this, and the court will consider this. Equally, if you felt that the level of contact laid out in the SGO support plan was not appropriate anymore (for example if there was a new serious safeguarding concern about the father) then you could make the decision to reduce, change or stop contact. If he is unhappy with this, the father could return to court. Please do not feel pressured by the father to make changes to contact if you believe that this would not be in the children’s best interests.


I hope that this is of some help. Please post again if you have any further queries or you can call our free, confidential adviceline on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm). We also have a webchat which is currently open on Monday and Thursday afternoons.

Best wishes,
Suzie

[Monty123]

Thank you both for the advice . Our minds are a lot easier now . We did contact a solicitor for some advice when we agreed to mediation, which I feel is trying to show willing to hear the birth father out , and we voiced our concerns. They suggested that because of the sporadic contact with him , we could suggest that if he wants more contact with the boys , he could have it at a children’s Center . This would be observed by an independent person from the centre and a report given to us . That way we are not leaving ourselves open to more stress and false allegations from him . It was suggested that he would have to pay for this and so would go some way to prove that he was serious about contact. The welfare of the boys is paramount and I’m trying to be fair to all parties. Does this seem like a reasonable request to make . Never being in this situation before, I’m not sure if this is a realistic thing to ask for .
Many thanks

[Robin D]

I suggest the solicitor has made a good suggestion. We have had to use them I think three times with different children. The advantage is that the parent does not feel you are judging them, yet are still being supervised. In two of the three cases we were able to move forward to a less stressful contact arrangements after each parent realised that the contact centre report aligned closely with our own observations of contact, and its benefit or otherwise to the child. The social worker in one case actually sat the parent down and made the point that our observations were less critical than those from the contact centre. After that attitudes softened and our relationship with the parent improved beyond recognition.

In my view, contact is the most difficult thing we have to do when caring for other peoples children. There is often an absence of trust, in both directions, and that hardly starts things off in the best possible way. However, knowing their parents, when possible is crucial and important for the child's sense of being. If the adults concerned can make it work it really does help the children.

However, on the other side of that coin, we had a child snatched by his mother and new boyfriend during a contact visit, and we had to get the court to give a recovery order. Both the snatching, and the recovery with police assistance caused untold damage to the child. That particular case had been in a contact centre and had not long moved to a more relaxed arrangement where we met up somewhere. Following that, it reverted back to a contact centre for a long time!

I would also suggest you talk through the options with the social worker or the SGO support team. They can guide you to appropriate contact centres.

Best wishes ..... Robin

[Monty123]

Many thanks robin. Will contact SGO team
Kind regards