Help and advice please

[alfie1606]

I am not sure where I start! I am desperately looking for some help and advice.
I guess I should start at the beginning and hope someone reads to the end.
My questions are regarding both my son and my partner’s children.
My partner moved in with me and my 9 year old son back in February 2014. He has 3 children (2 biological and one step son) all three of his children have been taken from him. His daughter has since been adopted due to her age at the time of the care order and his two sons (one of whom is his biological son) are in permanent foster placement. The reason for the care order is quite involved but to cut a long story short, was due to neglect, mother’s drug abuse, father’s alcohol abuse and domestic violence on both sides. By now you are probably wondering why on earth I would commence a relationship with someone with this history. My partner was very open and honest with me from the beginning, hiding none of the horrendous details from me. However he has since come a very long way from this relationship. Has tackled (and continues to receive support) for his alcohol misuse, has attended parenting course, removed himself from all previous acquaintances and basically turned his life around. There has been no hint of any type of abuse in the time we have been together. Over 4 years ago, I left an abusive relationship with my son’s father and am only to aware of the signs to look for!.
Due to my history of DV and my partners past problems, in July children’s services became involved for the first time with my son. My son was put on a child protection plan whilst an assessment could be completed on my partner. I must stress that children’s services have no concerns regarding my ability as a parent, there are no issues with neglect and my son has not witnessed any domestic abuse between me and my partner (as there has been none!) in fact my son is the most relaxed and happiest he has ever been and this has been documented by health workers, school and social services. The assessment has now been completed and our social worker has reported that my partner is now low risk. We are now waiting for the next conference review and hope to be removed from the child protection plan. In the meantime both myself and my partner are completing domestic violence programmes to further aid our insight into the issues caused and learning how best we can protect our children moving forward.
I am now looking for advice on what I can do at the next children protection review for my son. As mentioned the assessment has reported that my partner is low risk and there are no other issues to discuss, however my social worker has told me that she would recommend the child protection plan remain in place for a further 6 months to monitor us. I do not see that this is necessary as there are no issues to report! My son is continually asking why they do not believe him when he tells them he is happy and is safe and wants to know why he still needs a visit every 2 weeks from a social worker. I would appreciate of someone could advise me of the alternative solutions. I am presuming social services could continue to monitor on a less frequent basis even if there is no actual child protection plan? I am more than happy and willing to work with children’s services in whatever way is necessary to protect my son and to reassure them that my son is not in any danger and nor would I allow him to be in the future.
My next questions relates to my partner’s children. He has advised his children’s social worker that he would like a revocation of the care order for his son and has been told they would not consider it. At no point have they discussed the changes he has made to his life and the ability he has to look after his son. Although we understand the assessment completed for my son’s child protection plan is not transferrable to my partner’s children, I ask why children’s services are unwilling to review his situation and just keep saying no? What rights does he have? I would have thought at the very least they should be willing to look into the situation and assess his current abilities? We have attempted to get answers from children’s services regarding this however they have now appeared to have ceased contact with him (he has not heard anything from them since 24 July 2014!) we have recently sent a letter of complaint to them and not received any response, so now we are looking elsewhere for answers. I hope you can help. I am sorry this is so long winded; however I felt it important that I offer as much information as possible!

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Dear Alfie

Welcome to the parents board.
I can see that your post concerns two separate family situations that children services are involved in. The main worry has been your partners past history with children services due to his alcohol use and domestic violence as well as your past history of being a victim of domestic violence.
Because both you and your partner have cooperated, and in particular, your partner has been risk assessed as low risk-you want to get recognition for this. However, the social worker wants to proceed more cautiously.

The child protection review conference will look at the issue of whether there is still an “ongoing risk” of your son suffering significant harm.
The social worker should update everyone of the progress made. You could also outline everything that you have done, how you have cooperated with children services and will continue to do so. The position is a lot different from 3 months ago. You could ask the conference to consider making a
child in need plan instead of a child protection plan.
It would then be up to the professionals at the conference and the chair person to decide whether the risk has been reduced enough for there to be a "child in need" plan rather than a child protection plan.
However, when the risk is domestic violence –because it may be present when there are different stressors-and so can be changeable -it is quite common to continue the monitoring over a longer period. So do not be too perturbed if a child protection plan continues.

Discharge of care order
The second question concerns your partner’s children who are in long term foster care. Children services will have been granted a full care order giving them parental responsibility until the children are 18 years old. Your partner should be consulted and involved in his child’s care plan which is reviewed at a looked after children meeting. See our advice sheet about Duties to children in the care system

I understand that children services will not consider assessing your partner to see whether his son can be reunited with him.

While there is a child protection plan in place, this would be evidence of potential risk of harm to his son so I can see why they will not consider such a plan at the moment.
However, once the child protection plan is removed he could approach the independent reviewing officer (IRO)-the person who manages his son’s care plan. He should detail the changes and ask for an assessment to be carried out to see whether a return home can be an option. What contact does he have with his son?

Ultimately, if children services do not agree, he may have to consider taking the matter back to court himself. Legal aid to instruct a solicitor may be available-depending on his means and whether there is merit to his case.

To successfully ask the court to discharge the order, he would need to show that there has been a change of circumstances since the care order was made and it is in the child’s best interests for the care order to be discharged.

I hope this advice helps. Please post back if you have any further questions.

Suzie