contact order

[livingonthebreadline]

Hi,
My child is currently in voluntary care (section 20). The father who I am divorced from has a contact order for 6 hours unsupervised contact a week. Since my child has been in care the father was offered supervised contact for two hours a week but after a few months he stopped the contact completely, no contact of any kind has taken place since January. SW is indicating that maybe in the future after my child is returned to me permanently that instead of the 6 hours unsupervised contact the father could have a friend of his to assist him with his contact. Is this even legal? Surely if the father asks for it I have to let the father have 6 hours unsupervised contact? If the SW is concerned he should apply to the court to have the contact order changed shouldn't he? The previous SW was indicating the order ought to be changed in court. I don't want my child to come to harm, which is a possibility, I can't go into details it would be too identifying. Should I insist the SW goes to court to change the order?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear livingonthebreadline,

Welcome to the Parents forum.

I can see that your son is in accommodation but there is a plan for your son to return home.

Before a child returns home from care, there should be a social worker assessment to see what support might be needed to help everything run smoothly.
Part of the assessment would be of dad role in your son’s life.
Dad has a contact order for 6 hours a week but this has not taken place whilst his son was in care.

The social worker has said that it is in your son’s best interests for one of dad’s friends to assist with contact. You also have concerns about dad. You are worried that your son might be harmed if contact goes back to 6 hours a week unsupervised.

Does the social worker know about your worries about dad? If not, it is very important that you let her know, so she can assess the risk. That would be helpful to you.

Even though there is a contact order, you can overrule it, if you are worried that dad might harm your son.
It will be then up to dad to go back to court, if he did not agree with the suggested contact arrangements.

I suggest you;
• ask the social worker to let dad know her views on contact or
• get a copy of the social workers assessment and refer dad to the paragraph about his contact needing to be assisted by a friend,
• or ask the social worker to send an email setting out her view about contact. You could then show this to dad.

You cannot insist that the social worker goes to court. Children services cannot make a private law application to vary a contact order. This can only be done by either you or dad.
The court can ask the social worker to prepare a report, if it was needed.

I hope this advice helps but please post back if you have any questions or call our advice line on 0808 801 0366.

Best wishes,

Suzie

[livingonthebreadline]

Thank you Suzie, that was very helpful indeed.