Worried about my nephew

[Trinitron]

My sister split with her husband 2 years ago and to be quite honest they’ve both made a pretty good job of messing my nephew who’s 12 right up emotionally by playing tit for tat with each other and using him a a pawn in their hatred for each other. Ss have become involved after someone reported my sister for emotional abuse after some things they had heard (it was a neighbour) and subsequently they have now had their second child in need meeting. My nephews dad is in an physically violent relationship with a new girlfriend and my nephew has witnessed them being physical against each other. He also has no rules or boundaries at his dads and does as he pleases, doesn’t eat well there and gets into trouble. My sister has been engaging with ss going to meetings etc but the father won’t even take a phone call off ss.

At the latest meeting the ss told my sister she should stop her son having contact with his dad. Being the selfish person she is she’s ignored this advice and is still letting him stay there 3 days a week. Her reasoning being that the father would make her life hell, that her son would kick off and that she needs a break at weekends to see her boyfriend!

I’m livid!

I just don’t think she actually understands the consequences of not following ss advice and would like some opinions advice or own stories to get an idea of what could happen next

[PerfectlySafeDad]

Difficult situation, and hard to know what to advice apart from the usual 'roll over and do everything they say', but this inevitably means being bullied and even literally signing over parental rights (if it gets to the stage of signing child protection plans etc) to the local authority. The only thing that will happen next for sure is that Britain's social services will make a difficult situation worse, and introduce many more angles of pain and stress into the situation, and they'll pass it off as 'support' until they have built up and twisted a case of risk after risk to your nephew, and then they won't even pretend to be supportive but it'll be endless coercion and spoken and unspoken threats.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Trinitron

Welcome to the parents’ discussion board and thank you for your post. My name is Suzie, Family Rights Group’ online adviser. As you are a relative our family and friends’ carers’ discussion board would be a better place for you to post so if you are posting back please use that forum.

I am sorry that we have not been able to respond to your query sooner and to hear of the difficulties your nephew is having.
There is a child in need plan in place for your nephew. His mother is cooperating with this, to some extent, but his father (about whom you have a number of concerns) is not.

If your nephew is being put at risk by witnessing domestic violence in his father’s home and his mother is not complying with the social worker’s recommendation that she should stop contact then this is likely to lead to a child protection investigation and if he was found to be suffering or at risk of significant harm an initial child protection conference could make a child protection plan for him.

This would be due to concerns about father’s parenting (including being domestically violent), the harmful effect on the child of witnessing the domestic violence and also that his mother is not keeping him safe from this although she is fully aware. In addition there are the concerns which lead to children’s services becoming involved in the first place.

It may be that the child’s mother needs more support and legal advice to help her as she may be worried about what her ex-partner would do if she does stop contact. She can get advice from a domestic violence service and she can get legal advice from Rights of Women or Child Law Advice .

She may find our domestic violence materials for mothers useful; they include FAQs on contact arrangements too.

It is important that she cooperates fully with children’s services and that they have up to date picture of the current situation. You can do this by encouraging your sister to work with children’s services around this, getting in touch with the social worker directly to let them know your worries or you can discuss the situation with the NSPCC helpline .

Children’s services should address their concerns with the child’s father directly and try to involve him properly; he can also take responsibility and get in touch himself to try to improve the situation for his son.

Our advice sheets and FAQs on family support (child in need) and child protection
explain more about these processes and what parents can do. I hope they will be helpful to you and to your sister.

A family group conference (FGC) might be a good way to bring your nephew’s network together to help make a plan to improve his situation and identify what each family member can do to support and keep him safe. His mother could ask for this if she thought that it would help.

You are welcome to give your sister our Freephone advice helpline number 0808 801 0366 if she would like to speak to an adviser. The line is open from 9.30 a.m. to 3.00 p.m. Mon to Fri (except bank holidays).

I hope this helps.

With best wishes

Suzie