DD has left GC's with me and I'm struggling

Given the OP hasn't been back, I hope all is OK.

Maybe she’s busy with the kids she did say she was struggling

I have raised it with MNHQ who can look at it.

I'm sceptical over this entire thread as the OP has posted once.

Me too. I debated posting because I wasn’t convinced.

How terrible, OP. Do you have any friends that could help you whilst things are being sorted?

I agree with PPs that have suggested that you ask the police to do a welfare check with your DD. Hopefully you know the NP's name so they can find him, too.

Agree @DeliciouslyDecadent it’s not exactly the type of thread you might forget you posted - it’s not exactly ‘what brand of bread do you buy’?

You may be right @DeliciouslyDecadent or OP may have gone NC for this.

Her daughter hasn't disappeared, she is communicating with her.

Posters are probably focussing on the father because he's the available parent and, in a situation where one parent has 'abandoned' their DC, most people (I would assume) would go and get their own child/children (I would). Obviously the mother's behaviour is abysmal but she's not coming back so that's not an option and OP is saying she can't cope for much longer (and she isn't the primary carer). If she can't cope then it's SS or dad. Family are best for those poor kids.

I'm sceptical over this entire thread as the OP has posted once.

Funny how the posters are focusing on the role of the father when he's not done anything wrong. yet the Mum clearly has and has 'issues' that may go back a long way.

But there must be a back story to this because no one with stable mental health would desert their family and also hide from their mum (the OP) and behave like this.

Why is no one focusing on getting her back, and then deciding how the family copes from there?

She clearly has issues - not least choosing an unsuitable boyfriend (although that is purely the OP's judgement) - and there may be two sides to that.

If hope that SS would have the needs of the girls as their priority, especially when one has special needs.

Obviously the government cuts will make that hard for them, but all things being equal I REALLY hope that they would keep these abandoned children local to their school, their friends, and the only relative who gives a shit about them.

they can’t stay with their gran for much longer. Their mum isn’t on holiday, she has done a runner. And even when she comes back it doesn’t sound like she is a stable or safe parent.

if they are to stay locally, foster care seems the only option. Surely social services won’t put them into foster care without pursuing their other parent?

@beAsensible1 if he was an involved dad do you not think he would be there for his DC now? They must be so confused where mum is

I get why so many people are demanding that the father face his responsibility. But it's what those girls need that is way more important. And somehow I don't that what they need or want is to be sent to him, so far away.

I think most kids would rather remain in their locality, in their school, and near their friends. If one of them had special needs, the last thing that should happen is for her to lose any support that she had at her present school.

Making a decision to move them to the other end of the country to someone they presumably barely know, after only six weeks, is very premature. Their future needs more thought that that.

At this point OP needs support from SS. The girls are not going to be whisked away from her care any time soon, but if OP really can't have them, short term fostering in the area where their friends are, where their school is, and where they can still see their grandma, might well be their preference.

It’s very weird. Of course their
other parents is the first choice before going into bloody care!

even if it means moving, why would you use up a foster placement when the children have another adequate parent.
Going into care is traumatic, it would be even more traumatic knowing that your mother has abandoned you to think
your father has as well.

if he can, he needs to.

3) dad working full time isn't an excuse. He will need to take them during the school holidays and arrange his leave accordingly - and /or are there council funded holiday clubs that could help you?

Hopefully he will have ceased making any child support payments to the deserting mother so he should be paying it to the grandmother or paying for childcare where he lives and having them full time. If the he does that and then the mother tries to regain custody I hope she would be unsuccessful and be made to pay him for their support.

I think too many people here are suggesting Social Services as if they’ll swoop in and solve everything.
Theres been good advice around making sure the DD is actually okay herself - that’s important here.
But as for SS- you DO NOT want those kids ending up in care. Outcomes for looked after children are really awful at the moment, there’s not enough staff, money, carers, foster families - the list goes on. And even when it wasn’t such a shit show - thanks Tories- family IS always the preference for kids unless there are genuinely safeguarding issues.
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I agree that you need to contact social services. If it came to the point that they were considering removing the children from their parents' care, they look to place them with birth family first anyway. Your situation would not be any different to how it is now, but you might at least have some certainty as to what was going on (and options for respite care etc).

Adding to the chorus of contacting social services, partly for support for you and partly because there is nothing currently stopping your daughter from swooping in to pick up these children and take them off to live with the new partner. What she has done is very wrong, totally irresponsible and abusive to them, but at least they are safe. He does not sound like the sort of person they would be safe with, at all, and it would be better for children's services to be fully aware of the situation before anything worse can happen.

My reply was for the poster (you?) who said why couldn't the OP drop off the kids at the Dad's (as if he was round the corner.)

You can hardly 'drop them off' when it involves a plane flight for 2 kids and their Gran.

Who knows if he would even be there? Or take them in?

I don't see the point of your post.

You need to contact social services your dd has abandoned her children if she comes back they could be in danger....if the boyfriend returns too.
There will be an assessment if you can't care for them and dad isn't willing they need care.

Can't you read? The dad has said he will have the kids once a month and they will fly up to him.

Agree that now is the time to involve the authorities. Your poor grandchildren.

Why can't people read?

The OP says he lives a plane journey away- hundreds of miles.

Are you proposing that a woman in her 60s perhaps drives hundreds of miles with 2 young children - when you don't even know if a) she drives b) has a car c) is happy and confident to drive the distance?

You're missing the point.

If he is going to move house rather than the children moving to Scotland or wherever he is, that's going to take time and planning.

I've never ever said a single parent can't provide.

The children are already being raised by a single parent but she's buggered off.

Could you drop them at their dads house and refuse to have them back?

How would be beneficial for the children, not to mention even more disruptive, when he lives a flight away?