legal advice required urgently re parental responsibility

[OohIsThatAFlake]

I realise this isn't exactly AIBU but I would really appreciate some advice.

I'll also post in Legal if anyone thinks that would be better.

A friend of a friend of mine had a baby recently. He has some allergies (as do his parents and siblings) and severe eczema and was exclusively breastfed. Now, I'm not sure of the details exactly but he has struggled to put on, and keep on weight and now at 6 months old weighs 11lb, but is otherwise bright and alert, holding head up etc.

His mother has had concerns over the medical treatment her baby has received as the hospital have pushed formula feeding, fruit juices via bottle and jars of processed baby food onto him and also antihistamine drugs for his allergies and strong chemical creams for his eczema when she would have preferred to continue with home-made purees as first weaning foods, breastfeeding and a chemical free homeopathic cream remedy which she had used with good effect to calm his skin.

The hospital have viewed her stance on her baby's care as obstructive.

The baby's parents have had parental responsibility taken away from them, meaning that they cannot even change his nappy. His mother has had to stop breastfeeding him and is sleeping in a bedroom in the hospital while her baby sleeps in a pushchair in the corridor by the nurses' station so that his mother cannot comfort him when he cries at night.

The hospital want to have a meeting with SW and consultants etc on Friday with a view to removing the child from his parents' care. They have been advised to get some legal representation. Naturally, they are petrified and are going along with all the hospital's requests and feeding regimes etc.

Can anyone help?

Many many thanks in advance to anyone who has read this far and can help!

I've no experience or advice to offer but am confused as to how a hospital can adocate fruit juice via a bottle and processed food unless the child has been treated there recently. What I mean is that normally women are advised when in the maternity unit but once they are home with their babes after a day or more the hospital has no further input - how can it?

I just don't understand how such draconian measures can be possible under the circumstances described which, although the babe's development isn't "normal" in terms of his weight gain, are otherwise unremarkable.

I do hope you get some answers.

I'd say hot foot it to a family lawyer first thing tomorrow. They can get 30 minutes free.

I wouldn't think it was that easy to remove parental responsibility for simply wanting to bf and use homeopathic treatments for excema.

Are you SURE that's all there is to it? SS jump through lots of hoops before getting to removing children. It doesn't strike me as you're getting the entire story from your friend's friend.

oops eczema ...

Sounds to me like their child was failing to thrive and they have seen the parent's as being uncooperative. This looks like it's now a child protection matter. They do need to seek legal representation. I'm concerned about the child being kept away from the parents. They need to follow the hospital's requests, they will be prescribing steroid based cream for his eczema, this does help but will thin the skin if used for a prolongued period. Homeopathy has been scientifically tested and found to be useless which is why it's not used in hospitals.

They need legal advice from a solicitor.

I'd say that there's a lot more to this then they are telling you.

who removed the PR? I really don't think it's easy to get it removed, even for children on a CP plan, but I don't have any direct experience of CP plans yet - just theory from working with families with CP plans.

i would say the information you have is inacurate, def more to this story

OMG the baby sleeping in a pushchair and the mother not allowed to comfort it? All those things are just awful.

Yes RL legal advice asap. Those poor parents.

PR can't be removed from the parents unless there is a court order in place.
Are you sure you are aware of the full story. Why is the baby sleeping in a pushchair. Surely the hospital should be providing a bed/crib.
It does sound like the baby is failing to thrive. The parents need to seek legal advice before the meeting.

I agree - probably more to this than meets the eye.

If true legal parental responsibility has been removed then this is acheived via a care order - part of the child protection proceedings - and means that things are already fairly far along. From your posting I'm not sure if this is the case or if a request is in placed that the parents be supervised/ assessed whilst performing all babycare tasks. Formal removal of parental responsibility is a big step and not one which is undertaken lightly.

They need to see a family law solicitor who needs to have all the facts. I don't think you do.

Even on a full care order the parents share PR with the local authority. It is only completely removed if a child is adopted.

Even in cases of non-accidental injuries the parents are kept with the child but on an open ward and are not left unattended. The hospital isn't in the position to remove PR, it's only a court order that can do this.

Sorry, ps is correct. It's been a long day.

Thanks for all your replies - all gratefully received.

You're right, I clearly do not have all the facts and obviously there's more to it but I think a family lawyer is the best way forward.

From what you've said, I think the meeting on Friday is to activate the court order to remove their parental responsibility and maybe the parents are currently being supervised?

I honestly thought - to quote a poster on another thread - that you practically have to be mainlining heroin into your eyeballs in front of the DC to run any risk of having them removed from your care.

They will be applying for joint PR. It sounds like a child protection matter, all professionals involved in the care of children take this very seriously, it's not just children of addicts, abuse takes many forms and abusers have many different faces.

flake the mainlining heroin comment is true.

SS can't just activate a court order. There will need to be months of parenting assessments and some really compelling evidence that the child is being neglected before a care order is made.
The first thing SS will do if they want to remove the child is try to get the parents to agree to a section 20 order. This is where the parents agree to the child being in LA care while further investigations are carried out.

ps is correct - parental responsibility can only be removed once an adoption order has been made.

It's possible that the local authority has been granted an interim care order which puts them in the driving seat in respect of decisions relating to the child's welfare, well-being, and, crucially, where and with whom the child resides.

If this is the case, matters have moved at some pace given that the child is only 6 months old which leads me to suspect that there may a lot more to this tale than you've been made privy to.

In any event, these parents need urgent legal representation. What county or city/municipal borough do they live in?

Whizzy - I'd better not say where they are as I don't want to out them and it's not my life story iykwim

not in the UK though.

Thanks psiloveyou

I'm going to call CAB and local lawyers tomorrow morning to see if we can at least get them someone to represent them legally on Friday.

Thanks again to everyone for your help and advice.

I have seen one case where the hospital demanded a baby was formual fed - the reason for this is that the mother was not producing adequate breastmilk and the baby was actually losing weight and basically slowly starving to death.

The mother wanted to continue breastfeeding and was eventually told she must formula feed for the sake of her child's life/health.

I do think there is a lot more to this story however.

It takes a hell of a lot for a child to be removed from their parents.

My sister had her child taken into custody, she will tell everyone who listens that she went out for a drink on her birthday and because SS came the next morning when she was hungover they took the baby.

In actual fact she was an alcoholic and spent days on ends drunk and when social services came the baby was in a dirty nappy, alseep on the floor, mum was too drunk to even stand and there was no formula in the house to feed the baby.

Very often people do not admit / recognise their own failings.

Legal advice is clearly the way to go but don't take everything at face value!

If they are in another country be very careful about advice you are getting. I worked for Social Services in the UK and have had dealings with Social Workers in Canada and removal is a completely different measure here and there.

Also, as people have said, be aware that the picture they are giving you may not be the whole story. People have a very different view of their parenting than Social Workers see. I have seen things that would shock most people and the lovely, well-meaning parents have no idea how unacceptable their childcare is.

At any given time there are numerous cases of a similar nature in every London, City, and County Council etc,, and giving general whereabouts - i.e. Surrey, Norfolk, Tower Hamlets, Manchester, etc is highly unlikely to out anyone. I trust you appreciate that I asked only because I may have been able to point you in the right direction.

However, as you've made it plain it's not the UK, all bets are off in respect of the law and parental responsibility.

I hope the parents are able to secure a lawyer who specialises in Family Law to represent them on Friday; if not, they should request an adjournment until they can be properly represented or, at the very least, ask that the meeting is recorded either on tape (preferred) or by means of verbatim minutes.

I wish the family well, and hope that you'll come back with an update in due course.

Morning

whizzy - we're not abroad, we're close to the UK so legal system is similar

SacreLao - this situation sounds quite similar to the one you describe. I'm sorry to hear of your sister's sad story

will get onto the CAB now to see if we can get them some support

Thanks again to everyone for help and advice.

I clearly do not have all the facts

So best to keep out of it then

Although legal system is similar to UK, how it is put into practice may be different. So the family really needs advice from an experienced lawyer who understands the system and how it actually operates in your country.

In the UK SS would step in if a parent refused recognised medical treatment for their child. For example, if the homeopathic cream was not clearing up very very severe eczema and the parents refused to allow any other treatment. Then yes SS could be involved. A relatively common reason for example for SS to be involved is when parents who are Jehovas Witnesses refuse a necessary blood transfusion for their child as it is against their religion.

However, in the UK the parents would still be able to get involved in the care of the child. As far as I am aware, in the UK, parents would only be stopped from being involved in the care of children e.g. not changing a nappy, if direct abuse was suspected. So either your country does do things very different in practice, or direct abuse is suspected.

Direct abuse could include giving a child untested "medicine" that was suspected to be harmful. I have heard of a case like this where parents were giving a child "medicine" recommended by a "healer" that contained lots of dangerous substances (I think from memory mercury) and refused to stop giving it when directed by Dr's.

So direct abuse does not always include a parent wanting to deliberately hurt a child, although that can be the outcome. And although it is only supposition, this would explain why they wanted the parents to give processed food and not home made food - in case this contained the medicine.

Just to add, the case I talked about may not be the situation with your friends. But it does show how difficult it is to judge from the outside when you may not have all the facts.

I am not saying that SS are always right, but I wouldn't be surprised in the case I mentioned if the parents were complaining to people that SS stopped them giving alternative more effective medicine just because SW involved didn't believe in alternative medicine.