CAO- ISSUES WITH PARENTS/THREATS

[KM2022]

Hello,
I am looking for advice please, We have a CAO 'resides' with order for our 2 nieces 7 and 9, and the court order states to follow the schedule of expectations laid out by social services surrounding future contact with the children and birth parents which we have been upholding and this is causing upset with the birth parents.
we are constantly being threatened and sworn at, had malicious referrals made against us including consistent complaints about our care to early help social care, which the birth parents felt was an attempt at mediation and are now being told and threatened we are being sued for breach of their parental rights. They have stated numerous times they will be removing children from us by any means and dragged back to courts every 6 months or until our money runs dry.
Our decisions are in the children's best interest with the knowledge we have that some services are not privy to. We can produce some evidence to defend our stance on our decisions with chat logs, emails, and even a police log for verbal harassment and malicious referrals but would this be dismissed if taken back to court? can we be sued?
we are no longer under social services and they have stated the children are closed to their services so no contact centre or supervision would be offered through them. I have located family active centres close to birth mother and it is within a 5-minute walk and at £12.00 an hour which they refuse.
The children do not want to be under social services and are happy with the contact arrangements as they are even when it causes some dysregulation and regression in behaviour (one child diagnosed SEN needs) we feel however that lowering the contacts would not be in their best interests.
The children want it to be maintained in the wider local community and do activities. the schedule states children should not be expected to travel except while the Birth mum is suffering from agoraphobia so her contact should be in her local area until she is well and can travel closer to the children's local area. (33.5 miles each way for them to travel) birth father is expected to travel to the children's area 2 times a month for 4 hours each time with a plan of activities. he dropped this immediately to 1 a month and is only around 2 hours on average. They do not work and claim separate claims of UC but live together and state they cannot afford to do contacts and cite time/travel/weather as factors for cutting time while stating we are unreasonable and stopping or limiting them.
we do have our children with disabilities at home to also look after and arrange when doing family contact, this was also considered by the social services when making the schedule of expectations.
We will not consider moving away from the schedule as it was made knowing the birth parents would complain and threaten at a later stage. we have constant threats of having the children and our own removed from our care.
The birth parents are cancelling and not upholding the times for contact as it is yet stated we are the reason they get no quality time.
Is there anything we can legally do or prepare for It is causing a fair bit of stress.
kind regards
k

[Robin D]

Hi KM2022 and welcome.

Sadly an all to familiar story with the exception of the threat to sue that I have never heard before. On that point, I am not a legal expert, but if you think about it, the order was made by a court, not by you. I am confident that a court decision cannot be sued!

Yes, keep any evidence of the parents poor behaviours (and good ones if there are any), plus any communications between you including the refusal to use a local contact centre. The events you detail sound almost as though they amount to harassment, but that 's not a path I would pursue if it can be avoided as all the parent will tell the children is that you got them a criminal record. If the police have been involved that is certainly something that could be put before the court in the event that they do take the matter back although I suspect it's 99% wishful thinking. If I can offer some further advice, try to keep it as a diary of incidents and NEVER throw it away. In our case, allegations were made against us on one occasion almost 40 years after the initial placement. Stunned silence after we were able to produce documentary evidence that showed the claims were likely to be false and definitely malicious.

It sounds as though the parents have never been able to accept the court decision, and are unable to put the needs of your nieces above their own. However, I am sure you are aware that maintaining some form of contact is important long-term if it can be done without upsetting the children. Managing contact is rarely easy and it's extremely disappointing that the Local Authority seem unwilling or unable to assist. That may be something, that Suzie, one of the trained advisers here, can offer an opinion on, as I wonder if that in itself is grounds for a formal complaint?

I also wonder if you should consider applying for a Special Guardianship Order as that would give you enhanced PR and allow you to exercise it to the exclusion of others, but again Suzie is much better placed to advise than I.

Finally, you might like to see if there is a support group nearby that could give you some much needed additional local support. Sometimes just having someone to talk too that understands the difficulties can make the whole situation more bearable. See https://frg.org.uk/get-help-and-advice/ ... ort-group/.

Keep the girls at the centre of your thinking. They need you, and I am certain you are doing a great job under extremely testing circumstances. However, as they get into teenage years that may present you with new challenges!

Hopefully giving you a quick response gives some reassurance? I am confident Suzie from Family Rights Group will also respond in due course. Please always take her advice rather than mine if there is any point of difference. I'm just a silly old fool with many years of experience going back a long way and happy to help where I can, whereas Suzie has been specifically trained and is aware of the current legislation, regulations and good practice.

I wish you all the best on the difficult road ahead, but remember who you are dong it for. I don't know them but give them a hug.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear KM2022

Welcome back to the kinship carers’ forum and thank you for your post.

I am very sorry to hear about the difficulties you and your family are currently experiencing.

You have a Child Arrangements Order(CAO) for your two young nieces to live with you. You are also parenting your own children who have disabilities. You are working very hard to keep to the recommended contact arrangements for the children to see their parents. Unfortunately, the parents are not cooperating with the arrangements and are behaving in an intimidating way to you, making threats that your nieces and your own children will be removed from your care, making referrals to children’s services, and saying that they will sue you for breach of their parental rights.
Understandably, this is causing you considerable distress. You are worried about the threat of being sued and unsure how to manage the situation.

I am sorry that you are being put through this. You are doing your best care for the children, meet all their needs and facilitate the right level of contact for the children and their parents in an appropriate environment. It is not your fault that the children’s parents are not happy with this or that their expectations may not be realistic.

You have already had some helpful and supportive advice from another kinship carer which I hope has been useful and provided you with some reassurance. I agree with the suggestions provided e.g. that you should:

• Continue to keep a record of all correspondence, proposals and responses between you and the parents. They demonstrate your commitment to helping the children spend time with their parents in a way that is safe and suitable for them.
• Consider whether you would be interested in applying for a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) to replace the CAO as it is a more robust order and would give you almost exclusive parental responsibility. The threshold for parents to take you back to court is higher.
• Consider accessing a support group for kinship carers for advice and encouragement in managing the difficulties.

In addition, I would suggest that children’s services could offer more support to you and the children. You say that the children do not want to be under children’s services which is understandable. However, you are kinship carers and the children living in kinship care which means that as a family you can be offered child in need support with issues that arise including these current difficulties Social work support could help mediate a solution. However, as they have said, this is unlikely to include funding or arranging contact.

If the parents continue to be unhappy with the arrangements for contact they could make a court application e.g. to vary an existing CAO (for contact) if there is an order in place already or to apply for one if there is not a CAO (for contact) already in place. But they would have to offer you mediation first.

So if they are threatening court action it would be in relation to a CAO for the contact arrangements. Their comment that they will sue you for breach of their parental rights is a baseless threat. They do not have the power to remove the children from you. Only a court could end the CAO that you have for the children to live with you. A court would only do so if that were necessary for the children’s welfare. The court decided that you should care for the children and it sounds as if you are doing so to the best of your ability, in difficult circumstances.

If the parents offer you mediation or make a court application in relation to the contact arrangements you can get legal advice about this private law matter from Child Law Advice. Their contact details are: 0300 330 5480, Mon to Fri 10am to 4pm, email or webchat. If you needed to represent yourself in a family court case then Advice Now’s guides may help. You may also be able to get support with the process and procedures from Support through Court.

And just to say, that the court can make an order prohibiting repeated court applications without the court’s permission, if necessary.

I hope this has been helpful. If you need any further advice about children’s services then please post back or contact the advice service via one of the options here.

With best wishes

Suzie

[KM2022]

Thank you both so much for your quick replies and the information in them, it has helped. It is my understanding it is not just idle threats and a solicitor has been paid for and advised I am going to be sueable on no less than 5 counts of breaching parental rights and not ensuring the children have a right to their family.
I am lucky that contact was daily until I was blocked by the birth parent online via fb so all chat history is stored and dated and time stamped. the same with the emails and texts received. I did take a few notes at contact that is supervised by my husband and me, but BM was hostile to me and banned me from attending so my husband took over all communications and supervision.
This decision was because previously Bm's moods have impacted children's contact and they have cancelled on those grounds before, it seemed best to just keep a distance to allow the contact to continue.
we have made a police log for harassment because they threatened my biological children to get taken from us but only as a log for our own records.
I failed an initial SGO and was legally advised not to challenge by my solicitor or lose the girls (she stated specifically in an email that a judge would not like it and I would lose the CAO order proposed by social care at the time) as the children had been placed with me some months before the ICO and court I did not want this to happen so did not challenge the false history that was being used to create the negative assessment.
would I need new assessments and can they use the old assessment and all my history again if a judge has granted a CAO,
will the fact we have been granted a CAO strengthen a new SGO application? can the parents block this application also as they will try to?
kind regards
Km

[Robin D]

It's all a horrible situation for you and you have my utmost sympathy.

Unless and until you hear directly from a solicitor acting for them, I would ignore the threats to sue. What solicitor in possession of the facts would say there are such grounds I cannot imagine. Nor can I imagine any solicitor worth their salt would even consider such action, and as already stated, there would appear to be no legal basis for doing so. I think it's all bluff, bluster and wishful thinking. It's possible they have used one of the on-line quasi legal advice forums, possibly American, where the grounds for suing others are extensive. Such an enquiry would almost certainly result is the suggestion to sue, but they cannot sue you in the American courts.

If they are unhappy with an order made by a court, their only recourse would be to appeal it, or make an application that it should be set aside. From what you write, I suggest any such application would have an incredibly low chance of success.

If you do decide to apply for an SGO, the local authority does have to do an assessment and report to the court before an order can be made. They will of course have access to any previous assessments and may draw on them for any changes since that was done, so I would not be unduly concerned about that. If the same social workers are involved, you can ask that someone new does the assessment. That's likely to be the case anyway knowing the way many local authorities structure their teams. At the end of the day, the key issue is the welfare of the children. It cannot be to their benefit to be in the middle of all this stress that is being created by the birth mother. I suggest you do read the section in Suzies's response especially the bit about Child in Need. I appreciate also that the children do not want to be involved with social workers, but their involvement should be relatively minimal. Any SGO assessment would need to capture their needs and wishes.

It's a horrid position you find yourselves in, but many of us have been through similar with birth parents unable to accept the situation. I still have a pile of abusive letters from one mother, and the father of baby we looked after overnight stood on my doorstep threatening to smash the door down if I didn't let him in. The social worker was in the house with the mother and baby and both were terrified. I tried hard to calm him down before eventually telling him to go or I would be forced to call the police. He didn't. I did. The police turned up and arrested him. Mother and baby were quickly moved to a safe house while he was detained. Some parents really struggle to face the reality that they do not 'own' the child. I can empathise with any parent whose child has been removed from their care, as emotionally it must be terrible. However, our job as carers is to put the needs of the children first, even when the parent proves unable to do so. Your nieces need and deserve that lave and security.

[KM2022]

I have now received more solicitor threats and today it is demanding to remove a Facebook profile connected to my husband's profile to be able to manage it so he is admin, that we have made for the birth parents to have their online contact - face time /call contact and all other updates and photo requests they demanded without receiving multiple messages directly to me. This is completely privacy locked to the father and paternal nan (all sensitive data such as medical appointments are locked to the father only so each album of information is secure and set individually on top of the page visibility privacy) medical letters were added with visible name and dates so parents can not state we are making the appointments up etc which they are likely to do) nothing at all is even visible through my own profile as a non-friend. this was tested and checked thoroughly before any information was added with a picture of my husband and checked by external friends.
friends and requests are not accepted through this profile and this is not a personal profile of the children themselves but solely made to streamline information for the parents who have stated I do not share this with them.
The police stated in our harassment log that this profile poses no GDPR issues and we have not done anything wrong. It is named *childrenssurnamegirls for ease of parents locating the page as we blocked them from our personal pages. will I have to comply with this? I would rather keep it as it time stamps and dates all information and logs messages. they are stating it could breach their details if hacked but so could an email and it has 2-step verification as well.
will a solicitor accept that it is not a child's profile and the children have no access, therefore I do not wish to close it.

[Robin D]

Has that come from a solicitor directly as a letter? If so, reply saying you have discussed the matter with the police who confirm that there are no issues with GDPR. I would add a line at the end to the effect that you are close to thinking that the constant threats amount to harassment, and would they please advise their client to desist.

However, if this is only verbal information from the parent(s), simply ignore it. They can say whatever they like, but it doesn't mean it's true?

They are really determined to press your buttons.

[KM2022]

Hello, so far not from a solicitor no, but I do expect the letters will start.

[Robin D]

A solicitor may take on the case if they are told the same untruths. If they write, you just reply with the facts. It's likely the solicitor will then advise that they do not have grounds for any of their proposed actions.

I understand your worry, but please try not to burn yourself out emotionally unless and until the letter arrives.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Thank you both so much for your quick replies and the information in them, it has helped. It is my understanding it is not just idle threats and a solicitor has been paid for and advised I am going to be sueable on no less than 5 counts of breaching parental rights and not ensuring the children have a right to their family.
I am lucky that contact was daily until I was blocked by the birth parent online via fb so all chat history is stored and dated and time stamped. the same with the emails and texts received. I did take a few notes at contact that is supervised by my husband and me, but BM was hostile to me and banned me from attending so my husband took over all communications and supervision.
This decision was because previously Bm's moods have impacted children's contact and they have cancelled on those grounds before, it seemed best to just keep a distance to allow the contact to continue.
we have made a police log for harassment because they threatened my biological children to get taken from us but only as a log for our own records.
I failed an initial SGO and was legally advised not to challenge by my solicitor or lose the girls (she stated specifically in an email that a judge would not like it and I would lose the CAO order proposed by social care at the time) as the children had been placed with me some months before the ICO and court I did not want this to happen so did not challenge the false history that was being used to create the negative assessment.
would I need new assessments and can they use the old assessment and all my history again if a judge has granted a CAO,
will the fact we have been granted a CAO strengthen a new SGO application? can the parents block this application also as they will try to?
kind regards
Km

Dear KM2022

Thank you for the update.

Your main questions ask whether you should seek a to make an application for a Special Guardianship Order. Here is our advice sheet about seeking this order in private law situations. I hope it will be helpful, it outlines the process in some detail.

Child Law Advice may be helpful to you. I am not sure whether you still have a solicitor, if not the Law Society has a database, you can find it here.

Best wishes
Suzie