To say Dd 16 can't live at her dad's house?

Surgery after drinking ? You say not falling over when drunk so a broken bone etx

The drinking isn’t an accident. Both your 14&16 chose to drink knowing they are underage - I did at 16 tho 14 is very young to be drinking in a field with her dad not knowing where she is

but I would agree with others that if drinking with friends with dad then they are probably drinking when in your care as well and you agree with this

so you are party to blame as well. They may have a curfew but surely you see them once home and know if drinking or not

I wouldn’t consider that his fault except in the most trivial sense of the word.

allowing 16 year olds out unsupervised may not be what you would do but it’s not unreasonable and midnight is ok for the school holidays.

obviously she’s been a muppet and presumably fell over while drunk or something similar.

he doesn’t sound like a great parent but if she wants to go there you’ll find you can’t stop her.

i’d suggest a persuasion campaign.

Is her motivation wanting to see her dad, or wanting to get out of your house?

Because in your OP you say she wants to move in with her dad, but does she realise her dad won't be there?

Can she go to stay with him at his partner's house?

I would not let her stay in his empty house until she is 18.

So utterly crap for a teenage girl to have her dad effectively abandon any meaningful relationship with her.

16 is still a child, even though they could live on their own.

I left home at 16 and would probably have had safeguarding referrals made about me if I was 16 today. I was still very vulnerable, even if I did pay my own bills and cook my own tea.

Yes she can live on her own but she can’t buy alcohol as that is age 18 in England.

So a referral would have been put in because obviously someone supplied it to her.

As a one off, they don’t have the resources to make it a big deal but if this was happening regularly then it’s likely SS would get involved.

If there are other incidents regularly happening within the same family, then SS would also get involved to see what’s going on.

Same way an 80yo woman with injuries would also be referred.
Yes she can live alone, but if she has carers etc then it may be possible that she needs extra support or she’s being neglected or abused.

16 is a young adult. She could live on her own FFS.

Because she was underage, neither parent knew where she was and ended up in hospital to have surgery.

The same thing then happened to a 14yo.

Safeguarding referrals paint a picture, it’s not just about the individual incidents.

A lot of children who go to A&E where there is a chance of parental negligence will have a safeguarding referral.

One off incidents don’t usually come to anything but if every child in that home was going to hospital for different accidents/injuries then it could well mean that they aren’t being taken care of properly.

You could agree with DD16 that she is old enough to stay at her Dad's alone but that she is not skilled enough nor trustworthy enough to do so. Give the example of her going out at night drinking and having the SS worried about her welfare.

Suggest that she proves her ability to you over the next three months to be able to stay there two nights per week.

Teach DD16 how to cook, budget food shopping, wash her clothes, plan and follow through with completing homework and getting to and from school on time.
Insist on her having phone tracking.
How will she prove that she will not drink alcohol? How will she prove that she is off her devices by dinner time? Ask her those questions.
Tell Ex of your plan.
If DD leaves with you worried about her welfare you will need to report and involve official help.

How on earth does a 16 year old getting drunk in a field result in a safeguarding referral??? What a waste of public money.

I disagree.

At age 14/16 my DC still had curfews and told me where they were going.

They could lie about where they’re going, but the curfew meant that they still had some sort of rules.

I never left my 14yo overnight alone either.

He sounds like a crap parent but in their eyes he must sound amazing!

At 16 she can legally move out and there’s not much that can be done about it.

I would compromise - perhaps not go back to 50/50 straight away - but they can sleep over EOW and still see him during the week for tea.

Hopefully your dc have learned from those incidents! Let’s face it I don’t think dd will last long in the empty house with no food if what she actually wants is to live with her dad. She’ll probably realise from this that he’s a bit useless after all

Are you under the impression that when your older two are with you and they go out with their friends they don’t drink? But they do when staying with their dad? I would suggest that this is nonsense, unless you don’t let them out at all, so them drinking too much and injuring themself could have happened when they were with you. And I assume you wouldn’t think that therefore you were unfit to have them overnight. Not every teen who injures themselves while out is removed from their parents.

That’s not to say he doesn’t sound completely crap, doesn’t have a suitable home, and if he can’t be bothered to actually fight for access to the younger children then he’s clearly not arsed.

But I’d be careful about being too superior about the injury. They aren’t going off the rails at their dad’s and politely turning down alcohol with their friends when they’re staying with you. Even if you’ve got a curfew, they can (and probably do) still drink before that curfew. So they can still injure themselves.

And all of that is by the by when you’ve got a 16 year old who you can’t really stop moving in with her dad, even if he’s so shit he won’t spend time there with her. No matter how right you might be about him being shit, she might well find a house that is all to herself a couple of nights a week really appealing.

Ok well those weren't "accidents" those were your children making really stupid decisions and their stupid father enabling it.
Having said that, I'm not sure how one forces a 16 year old to stay home if they don't want to or to come home if they're out.

Your DD is old enough to decide where she spends her time. But she's also old enough to understand your concerns for her safety.

I think I would suggest to her that maybe she spends one or 2 nights with him to see how it goes. You need to let her know you understand that the change was a lot and that you know she wants to spend time with him. But also that you have a level of responsibility for her and that you need to make sure she doesn't come to any harm.

I suspect if she goes over and dad pisses off to his gf house she'll get bored of being there!

Your only other alternative is to make another safeguarding referral and to start court proceedings. But they will listen to the children and there's certainly no guarantee that they shouldn't stay with him.

Actually another thought is why not talk to DD and make sure she understands your concerns and ask her to help come up with ideas that would enable her to spend more time with him but also keep her safe?

At 16 they can make their own decisions, you might not agree with them nor think they are safe but ultimately it will be there decision. I’m another who can’t understand how a 14/16 ye old can have an accident and it be his fault ? At this age they don’t need supervision.

I think they need to go back to some sort of more meaningful contact if you want to prevent this. What were the accidents at 14 and 16 that cold he caused by exh neglect? As they arent 4 and 6 so id expect them to be pretty responsible for their own safety at that age outside of pretty severe asn that you have t mentioned. If they were 4 and 6 then fine. Make sure they take a change of clothes and pack a toothbrush. At 16 you’ll struggle to stop things completely so better that you support something than have her go completely

She is 16 she can’t really control the situation. The best thing to do would be to talk to their dad about 50/50 with him present as it was before. Otherwise she could just go anyway and be left alone for half a week

Despite everything at 16 it’s really her choice and if it went to court they’d go with her views. And if she just went there’s nothing you can do to stop her.

What were the incidents that happened? Were they recent? Firstly this suggests the house is not suitable for them to live in, but secondly they are (especially the 16yo) quite old, so odd they couldn't see things themselves. Unless the actual building is unsafe? Can you work towards some nights at dad's for the 16yo at least?

Can she just stay at her dad's 50/50 without the younger ones as longas her dad is staying there on those nights too? I think you need to be careful about clamping down - she needs to realise that your house is more comfortable/more food etc in her own time as otherwise she will rebel more.

You are going to find it hard to change her mind and at that age her views will be respected by any court if you choose to go down that route.

she’s obviously unhappy you have restricted contact with her dad. I’d suggest reversing that before she realises she can just move into his house and you have nothing you can do about that,