Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

I have wrote here before, it was about contact with my grandsons, the ombudsman now has taken the case so thanks for the advice.
Now my next issue is all four of my daughters children were taken, the youngests case has just been heard. They are all in long term care now and we are of course devastated. There was many mistakes made by social services and also solicitors and the courts.
First: As both parents are deaf they should have had an Intermediary from the first time in court. They had none until 6 months in court proceedings.
As their family we were not allowed any input .
The social workers lied about several things.
The social workers involved in the case from first contact did not know BSL or had worked with the deaf.
The support the parents looked to social services for was never the correct support .

We continually told ss that the problems with the 2 eldest children also deaf were long standing and nobody ever assessed them. Until the problems got out of hand and ss became more involved were assessments done. The findings being 1 child has mental health problems and the 2nd deaf child diagnosed with autism.
Nobody listened instead putting behaviour down to bad parenting when in fact there was underlying causes. This had a detrimental affect on the younger 2 hearing children.
They were totally failed by the system and discriminated against because of the lack of understanding of deafness and deaf culture.
Personally I think the Social worker who was also relatively ñewly qualified was determined to win at any cost. I do not say this lightly but the way the parents were treated was totally out of order.

I could go on and on there was so much that was wrong. So if there is any advice what to do next I would appreciate.

Dear Nannygems

Thanks for your further post.

You are clearly still very upset about the outcome of the case relating to your grandchildren. I know the case for the youngest ended recently and all the children are now in long term foster care.

The court hearings would have been the appropriate time for any inaction or mistakes on the part of children’s services to be considered. It would have been for those representing your daughter to put her case to the judge. There are legal requirements that have to be established before a judge can made a care order in relation to the children. One important thing is that the threshold criteria has to be met.
This means:

‘If it is satisfied that, when Children’s Services first got involved in protecting the child, s/he was suffering or was likely to suffer significant harm, and that the harm was due to the parents’ care not being what is normally expected of a parent.’

The main and first consideration for the court is the welfare of the children, so if the threshold is met and the judge believes that the best thing for the children if for a care order to be made then, as here, this is what will happen.

It is understandable that you are of the view that if the parents’ had appropriate support they may have been able to care for the children better and although you may be right in your thinking the court considered all the evidence from all parties and reached its decision.

If your grandchildren’s parents believe that the judge’s decision was incorrect then they can discuss with their legal representatives whether they have grounds to appeal that decision. For an appeal, it would need to be shown that the judge made an error in law when reaching his or her decision. An appeal should usually be made within 21 days of the order being made.

Advice may already have been given to the parents regarding an appeal but, if not, then they should seek advice.

It is inappropriate that the parents did not, as you say, have adequate support to meet their particular needs at court. Did their solicitors not ensure that they had the right support in court or bring it to the judge’s attention.

A care case lasts approximately 6 months so am uncertain what you mean when you say they did not have an intermediary until 6 months into the court proceedings.

Regarding what you can do next, since you were not a party (involved directly) in the care proceedings, there is not very much you can do. It would be for the parents to appeal the court decision. Also, if they believe that children’s services did not conduct their investigations fairly, then they can make a formal complaint as you did about your contact.

The only other thing that is possible would be for the parents to address the concerns that led to the children being removed from their care and, in time, could make an application to discharge the care order. It is important to note however, that an application can be made only after 6 months from the original order.

I have included a copy of our advice sheet about Reuniting children in the care system with their families.

It is understandably a very difficult time for your family at the moment but I hope you will all continue to have good contact with all the children soon.

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie

Thank you so much for your response I really appreciate it.
As to the question about not having an intermediary until 6 months into the case, the case took at least 52 weeks in total. I would assume that was because of the complexities of the case.
We did not know anything about intermediaries until months later from the start of proceedings . In actual fact it was my niece who herself is an interpreter that mentioned about it as we were not aware. When shortly after we found out an intermediary was then awarded the case, which have stated was 6 month into proceedings. Nothing was stated by either parents solicitors with regards to intermediaries so we were quite surprised when my niece first told us. Had my daughter and her husband not kept secret from family apart from myself we would have know from the onset. They did not want the wider family and friends knowing as they felt ashamed understandably. This was easy to do as our family are distributed about the country.
I have also had the outcome from visitation with the younger boys and they still deny me saying the boys do not wish to visit me at home. I am astonished by this as had a very close bond with them and they visited me often before this.
I am prepared to go to court but my financial situation will not allow me this. I am a pensioner and also disabled.
Thank you for all your advice it is very much appreciated.
Nannygems