Family Rights Group | Kinship carers’ Forum

I don’t know how to start this as there’s so much happened …
My daughter has 4 children and only one of the children has contact with their dad. My daughter has always shown love for her children even although she wasn’t a domestic goddess the children were loved, fed, clothed & looked after. She did struggle but coped.
However around 3 years ago she moved house and has been involved with some undesirable men. When these different men were in her life we weren’t allowed to come to the house or see our grandchildren very often or at all ( we also live far away which was also a problem) .At times we were banned from seeing them altogether . Things progressively got worse, we couldn’t FaceTime the children , she wouldn’t answer phone calls and when she did , it quite often ended in arguments. We weren’t allowed to bring the children their birthday or Xmas presents. So things with her were very strained. She would ring us if she wanted money from us , saying the children had no food and we’d give her money. We then discovered that the group she was hanging around with were on drugs and the money we’d been giving her was being used for her drug taking. We said there was no more money and if the children needed food we’d buy the food. This didn’t go down well and again we were banned from contact with the children. The only time she would let us into her life was when her relationships finished .

Fast forward to this summer and a family member went to her house and the group were in the house doing drugs ( with the children present). Social services got called but as far as we were aware they visited and deemed that the children were safe ( according to my daughter )The social services were allegedly popping in but everything was fine. My daughter also has a close elderly family member that helps with the children and she said my daughter wasn’t on drugs ( even although she is).
Now in the past few weeks it seems that my daughter has lied( which she does constantly) about the situation and the children have been taken from her ( under a voluntary care order) as her boyfriend has a prison record of violent behaviour and the social services say the children are at risk( although there could be much more but my daughter has told Social she doesn’t want any details pertaining to her discussed with us) . They also questioned whether the house was being used as a drug den, the children had been locked in their bedrooms while this was going on & many other issues have come to light. The boyfriend has totally wrecked the house on two occasions that we know of (with the children present) . My daughter says she’s finished with him ( as per the care order says she needs to do) but we know she hasn’t and is still meeting him & arranging to do drugs together. He has got a court order to stay away from her but they are still meeting up but she is still lying about it.
An elderly relative ( ex wife’s family) now has the children ( apart from one who is now with the biological dad)and my daughter is only allowed to see them for a few hours a day,we can’t get any information about what’s happening from anyone. The social services won’t speak to as due to confidentiality, the elderly relative believes that my daughter is telling the truth even although she’s seen the evidence to the contrary but is protecting her.
As we have the evidence that she’s not following the rules & have told her this , we say we want to help her but she’s got to follow the order . All that she seems focussed on is the evidence to show she is still seeing the boyfriend.My daughter has become aggressive towards me on the phone and is having a meltdown ( we’ve told social services that she’s got mental ill health issues but as my daughter isn’t admitting to this or the drug taking) We aren’t allowed to be involved by social work, my daughter said she’d rather have the children put in care than be with us, the elderly relative is protecting my daughter and isn’t t allowing us to see our grandchildren either .
We have written an email to the social worker asking that if my daughter or the elderly relative are unable to care for the children then we would like to have them . Social work have contacted us and said my daughter is still refusing to name any one who she’d like the children to go to. A court case is immanent as my daughter hasn’t followed her PLO plan . She’s not turning up for meetings. Reading between the lines we think the children are going to be taking off her and as the elderly relative has been deemed too old to have them. As we have put our name forward to social services we think we would get them and they won’t end up with strangers in foster care( which we don’t want). This leads us to believe we would be classed as kinship carers so if anyone has any advice on this we would really appreciate it.

Dear Gasman,

Welcome to the kinship carers’ forum and thankyou for your post. I am sorry to hear about the difficulties that you and your family have been facing and hope that the following is of some help.

You say that three of your grandchildren are living with an elderly relative under a voluntary arrangement (also known as a Section 20 arrangement). You think that is it possible that you may end up caring for your grandchildren if children’s services initiate care proceedings due to the concerns you describe. If children’s services place the children in your care (either under a care order, or as a voluntary arrangement) then you would be classed as kinship carers. I would suggest that you read our website pages for kinship carers as they have lots of helpful information about what this would mean, what financial and practical support you would be entitled to, and the law around kinship care. If you have any further questions as a result of reading this information then please do post again (or you can call our helpline – details below).

It is good that you have contacted children’s services in writing to let them know that you would like to care for the children if your daughter is unable to. Children’s services should complete an initial assessment (sometimes called a viability assessment) which will help them decide whether you may be a realistic option to permanently care for the children. They do not need your daughter’s permission to begin this initial assessment. You can see more information about this here. If the initial assessment is positive then children’s services should complete a more detailed assessment (a full fostering assessment). See more information here.

If children’s services refuse to do the assessment then I would suggest:

1) Asking children’s services to put in writing that they have received your request to be assessed and

2) Asking children’s services to put in writing whether they are agreeing to assess you. And to send you written reasons if they are not.

3) If there is a child protection conference taking place or a child protection plan in place, you may want to write to the conference chair to say you have asked to be assessed but have not had a response.

It is important to know that children’s services do not need to have completed the assessment before the children come to live with you – if they come into your care in an emergency for example, then children’s services should complete the assessment as soon as they come into your care. Children’s services cannot delay the children coming into your care just because they haven’t completed the initial assessment. As well as this, children’s services have a duty to try and place the children with family or friends before they consider placing them with unrelated foster carers.

Has a family group conference been held? It may be worth enquiring about this as if there are concerns that a child is not safe at home then children’s services should look at what wider support family and friends can offer (and a family group conference can be a good way to do this). Statutory guidance says that children’s services should be doing this at an early stage. See this webpage for more information about this and extracts from the relevant statutory guidance which you may wish to use when speaking with the social worker or manager.

It sounds as if you are not having any contact with your grandchildren at the moment. Your daughter still retains her parental responsibility under a Section 20 arrangement, so if she is not in agreement for you to have contact with the children then children’s services cannot override this at the moment. However if children’s services do initiate care proceedings and a care order is issued (an interim care order or an emergency protection order for example) then children’s services will share parental responsibility with your daughter and will have a duty to promote contact(where safe) between the children and their family (including grandparents). In this situation (and if the children are not placed in your care) I would advise you to contact the social worker, their manager and the independent reviewing officer as soon as possible to request that contact is arranged.

You don’t say what ages your grandchildren are but as looked after children they are entitled to an advocate. An advocate works independently of children’s services and helps to make sure the child’s views are heard. This may be something that would be helpful to them now or in the future.

Of course if the children return to your daughter’s care and you have any safeguarding concerns about them (for example if you know that the violent boyfriend is still coming to the house) then you should report these to children’s services as soon as possible. If you wish to remain anonymous then you can speak with the NSPCC and they will pass on your concerns.

I hope that this is of some help. Please post again if you have any further queries. You are also welcome to call our advice line on 0808 801 0366 (Monday to Friday, 9:30am – 3pm) to discuss in more detail with one of our advisers.

Best wishes
Suzie