contact with birth parents over the long term - how much is too much?

[Nuzza]

Sorry for all the legal differences here, as DH and I have moved to another country. We are foster parents to two lovely LOs who have been with us over a year; SWs have now decided they shouldn't go home, but unfortunately in this country that doesn't mean adoption becomes possible, so we have been asked to become their permanent guardians instead. We are utterly sad that they are losing their parents and not getting the chance to get other parents, but this seems like the best that the system here can offer them so we are committed to trying to make it feel stable for them, and legally guardianship is very secure until they are 18.
At the moment we are negotiating with SWs over contact with the girls' parents, and I am really alarmed by what the SWs want to put into the guardianship order: they are proposing that LO1, who is 7, sees her dad every two weeks and her mum every two months, and that LO2, who is 20 months, sees her mum and dad every two months, permanently. We are worried that this much contact will complicate their developing attachment to us; SWs say there's nothing to worry about, and insist that the girls are already totally attached to us and we are basically their parents already!
We feel we have a tiny bit of leverage to try to persuade the SWs that it's more complicated. Can anyone recommend any resources (eg on open adoption) which give a properly researched perspective on how contact should be juggled with attachment, and especially how much is too much?

Practically , how on earth would different contact patterns for each child work ? So the older would have 5 contacts in 8 weeks and the younger child would have two ??

Have you any idea how you and the children will cope with nearly one a week for the rests of their childhoods ? Are SW going to facilitate these , arrange transport , a venue etc ?

Who is going to force a 12 year old to go on these visits if he/ she doesn't want to ?

Do the children have the same parents ? Even if they do, how would you manage this ?

IMO this is WAY too much contact and will be very disruptive . I'd like to know what is the purpose of all this, given that they will never again be parenting the children .

If you are in fact bringing the children up, then you need to be free to do so as you see fit. To adjust to their needs as they grow up. It's impossible to know what they will want / what will be in their best interests in ten years time .

What about any changes that will happen in BP lives ? What if one parents becomes mentally ill or an addict ? What if they are a risk to the child ?

This plan is seriously bonkers . Please ask them to show their proposals about how this will work and why it's a good idea

Crazy, confusing and problematic for your children!

Leeza makes very good points.

Totally agree that whatever is agreed should be the same for both girls.

I would also recommend getting whatever is set up on a trial basis. Things to take into consideration would be...
whether birth parents turned up for contact and behaved appropriately (e.g. on time, sober, etc etc - this may totally not be a problem or it could be a massive problem...)
Whether girls were upset at contact
Whether girls were upset or adversely affected after contact

As the girls get older they will get a lot of new friends, interests and hobbies, study at school etc, what might be appropriate for a young child may be much less appropriate for a young teenager.

I would try and get EVERYTHING reviewed as frequently as you can, e.g. the frequency of visits and the length of time.

In your shoes I would Google around for examples of both positive and negative consequences of birth parent contact and go armed with whatever makes the case best for what you feel fits your situation.

And bear in mind one child may be more accepting of contact than the other, so although the same contact arrangements may work when they are young this may not be the case when they are older.

Good Luck.

Has joy Rees written on contact? I think she has. She tends not to romanticise the whole thing so that might be a place to start?

I would want contact to be flexible. For the points made above.

If you start contact very young and it just becomes part of your everyday life (not every day IYSWIM!) then there is plenty of evidence that contact benefits everyone.

But it very much depends (from the research I have read which is mainly based around relinquishment) on whether all parents/guardians can grasp that they're doing it for the benefit of the children and that there is no attempt to usurp (for want of a better word) the guardians authority and place of permanence for the child.

What kind of contact have they had so far and how has it gone? I too don't get how you can have fortnightly contact with one parent for one child alone but perhaps if thats been the way it always is then thats why they've suggested it? Would the 7 year old be upset to see less of their father?

Thanks all for the advice. The girls have different dads, which is why the contact schedules are different - the proposal is that mum, girls and us meet up every two months, and the older child separately sees her dad every two weeks, unsupervised. At the moment there are weekly visits of both kinds: they've been sometimes fine, sometimes not. The older one has never positively looked forward to any of them, though.

The hard thing is that once guardianship is awarded, the case is closed and so Social Services are totally out of the picture - there will be no review process, and we can't insist on that - it's just the way the system is. So our only option if things aren't going well is to take it back to court ourselves (or 'be more flexible' as the girls' SW says!).

That's why all facilitation, supervision etc is on us, though we would rather that than rely on a visitation center - we're still hoping that getting all together with the parents could be great for the girls feeling that their past is connected to their future and they have permission to love everyone, and all the other good things than openness offers.

But that would be the ideal: in reality, the parents are still dealing with plenty of scary problems which mean visits might not go so well, and mainly we are so worried that this huge frequency of visits is going to mess up settling and attachment in future. So we are focussing our efforts on getting the number of visits reduced.

Leeza that's a very helpful question I should ask about what the purpose of the visits is - the SW says, to maintain the relationship. But I just don't see why there have to be so many to do that, and the good of maintaining that relationship has to be balanced against the girls' need for a primary relationship to us, if we're to parent them. But SW just says don't worry their attachment to you is already sorted etc... he says I am just being insecure when I say that attachment is more complicated than that.

Jane do you happen to know where Joy Rees has written on contact? I can only find her stuff on lifebooks.
Kewcumber could you give me some pointers to where you read this research?

Thanks all, very much appreciate it.

What would the legal implications be for you if at some point in the future you didn't comply with the order? (Say there's a weekend you can't do the contact due to illness, family holidays, weddings, school trips, sports activities etc or one of the girls just says no?)

Are you legally obliged to sign over your every other weekend for the next ten plus years or risk being in breach of the order or is there a way flexibility can be written in?

(I don't see how anybody could practically commit to this.)

Well, we've been told flexibility is key, and that we would be free to cancel/rearrange if a visit wasn't going to work out for a good reason like that. As there is no enforcement from SS, I suppose we would not be so bound as we are now to contact. But it will only work if we and the parents all play by some rules, and they could take us to court though this would be very difficult for them to manage; so yes we'd be substantially tied up.

I agree with Haffdonga - I don't see how anybody could practically commit to this. If there is no flexibility then I would get the visits down to the minimum.

Re the older child separately sees her dad every two weeks, unsupervised. At the moment there are weekly visits of both kinds: they've been sometimes fine, sometimes not. The older one has never positively looked forward to any of them, though.

and

...the parents are still dealing with plenty of scary problems which mean visits might not go so well...

I am not sure I would want a child in my care to have unsupervised contact with a person she does not look forward to seeing who is going through scary problems. In your shoes I would try and get the visits to the minimum and co-ordinated so the girls saw the mum and then the dad on the same day or as close. So that the remaining weekends could be free to do as you wish, otherwise almost every weekend could contain a birth parent visit. This may mean co-ordinating with birth parents to get a time that works.

Italian, I totally agree with not wanting a child in my care to have this unsupervised contact: that is exactly what I said yesterday to SW with my voice shaking with rage. Unfortunately he said 'We're not prepared to consider that'.
We are stuck because there is no way we would say no to being appointed as guardians; we are just trying to get the least bad plan possible within that, and as you say concentrating on reducing the number of visits.

Nuzza we are also not in the UK and have contact with bio family. The court order stipulated how often and for how long they can can see DD. It also appointed a child psychologist as mediator who can facilitate any changes in the arrangements should either party no longer be comfortable with it. If both parties cannot agree with her help to changes to the plan, then we head back to court. Do you think something like that might work for you?

I'll have a look for the research over the weekend. It was American and thereofre based mostly on relinquished children.

This book has a great chapter on Attachment and contact.

www.amazon.co.uk/Attachment-Handbook-Foster-Care-Adoption/dp/1903699967/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1445036080&sr=1-1&keywords=attachment+handbook+for+foster+care+and+adoption

(Key conclusions seem to be that good contact can be good, bad contact can re-traumatise, and that flexibility is key....)

If you don't mind reading a bad quality pdf I could try and scan the chapter over the weekend, but you'd need to pm me your email address.

I wonder as well if you might get better advice on the fostering board - they deal with this more than we do.

Thanks all for v helpful suggestions. Chocolate funnily enough LO1's wonderful therapist made a similar suggestion yesterday, but I had not thought of getting a specific person appointed so will definitely try hard for this. Glad to know it can be done.

tidr thank you, just looked and my local library has it online, so will read - hadn't heard of this, v grateful.

Don't agree to a SGO under these conditions . you need to ask your solicitor about appointing your own expert to give a report to the court

Some interesting information here about SGO

www.iasw.ie/attachments/599294ac-baa6-4a04-bdd4-b056da46144c.PDF

Yes sorry I thought joy rees had done something on contact but I can't find it.

It doesn't sound as though your sw knows much about contact if he thinks 'that's all sorted'. It's not an off/on switch...

Not contact sorry, attachment.