Cancelled Contact

[charmed1]

I don't want to put much detail into this post but I do want to ask others if this has happened to them? Contact.... you arrive at a community location early.

Contact start time approaches and passes... 5 minutes.... 10 minutes.... 15 minutes late. It's happened before in the contact centre. You've sat in reception for an hour, no one tells you there is a problem. It's obvious there is. The contact is cancelled. The supervisor is ill... stuck in traffic, etc, etc. No big deal.

You have let them have your mobile number for the umpteenth time, make sure they have your home number as well. They said they'd called you at home to let you know it was cancelled but when you arrive back there's no missed call. So you'd expect to be called on your mobile as number told to them a million times that there is a problem. Not to have to call them to find from the duty social worker that just 10 minutes before contact was due to start it had been cancelled and that your kids won't be coming!

Is this in the children's best interest? Is this duty of care and being a good enough corporate parent? No! We see our kids once a month and they can't even get that right. Our daughter has special needs and is likely to have been adversely affected by the last second stop to contact. Our son too will be upset even though he will have more understanding. The carers are unlikely to have much more information than we do to comfort them.

Now the battle begins to get a new contact arranged.... taking a deep breath!

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Charmed1

Sorry to hear that you appear to have experienced several changes to the contact plan which has the potential to be unsettling for both you and your children.

You are correct in thinking that it is reasonable to think that contact should only be cancelled in the event of an emergency. With respect to all parties, contact should not be cancelled without good reason, because it is an important part of the care plan and the children's day to day routines.

If you find this to be a re-occuring pattern, and you have experienced several unexpected changes can I suggest you take this up with the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) who may not be aware of it and could raise it as a concern at the Looked After Reviewing meetings or may decide to speak directly to the the team manager if need be. Alternatively, you are entitled to make a formal complaint .

Hopefully you will receive a response from other's who are able to share experiences of what helped them to overcome difficulties in a similar situation.

Best Wishes

Suzie

[Murray72]

Hi,
Do you have a contact agreement in place ? If so it should have something along the lines of "if contact is to be cancelled at least 2 hours notice (this was on mine!!) is required" of course this applies to both parent and CS. I have just looked at my old one, it also says things about expected behavior, ie: no crying or signs of visible emotion etc etc.

I would also go down the formal route of complaining, doing this to parent and child is one time too many.

Good luck at your next contact.

[charmed1]

Thank you Murray for your reply. There is no contact agreement in place. We are on 1 hour a month contact as they have placement order and it was supposed to be a "weaning off" as the judge stated they only had 6 months only to find adopters. That 6 months has expired now but they refuse to take it back to court to change the care plan to long term fostering. The court agreed once a month was adequate as the care plan was for adoption so all we have is the court order.

When we go back (even if we have to take them back) we will be asking for a contact order if we can't get the kids home. We have never missed or been late for any contact in the last 14 months.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Charmed1

In the event that you make a child arrangement order application the quality of your current contact is likely to rule in your favour.

I am also providing information about placement orders which can be found in our
adoption advice sheet pages 18 -22 as this should give you more of an idea about Local Authority procedures in respect of attempting to identify an appropriate adoptive family for your children.

I hope this helps.

Suzie

[charmed1]

Thank you Suzie. We now have contact next week. 2 weeks late but my husband can't take time off. Same time and venue. Like always we'll arrive early. The LA refuse to take the case back with a revised care order so we'll have to force their hand. A child arrangement order I understand will revoke the care order but only if we can get the placement order revoked first.

If things carry on with the LA refusing to act on court order I will be contacting the IRO as it's obvious he doesn't know half the directions the judge gave. Funny that!