To find it odd caffcass want to speak with 3yr old alone?

[AJNH]

Mainly posting here for traffic, but feel free to tell me I'm being unreasonable (hides!!!)

Ok, so going through courts with 3yr old dd (4 in April) because her absent father has now decided he'd like to be involved. To cut a long story short mine and ExPs relationship was awful and DV took place on his part, as did heavy alcohol consumption and drug use. He was later sectioned after a case of battery (not to me) took place under the mental health act. I couldn't cope and he made my life HELL! So new DP, DD and I moved away.

First hearing has taken place, all went in my favour, spoke to my caffcass reporter today who made an appointment for me to take dd into their office, upon that she told me that she would be taking dd off separately to speak to her and that she would be bringing biological father up with her then. Now Dd has no memory of bio dad, no real understanding(tender age of 3!) and calls my dp daddy (he has brought her up with me from 8months old so understandable). We also have a DC together btw and the 4 of us super close.

So at her age and the fact she simply will not understand I don't really understand myself the reasoning for this 'secret' disscussion. dd is also shy with strangers so I doubt she'll say much anyone.

Ahhhhh, sorry it's so late, I can't sleep, my minds just going over a million things and worrying about poor dd

You need to get legal advice, not MN advice on this.

I get your concerns. Although it is perfectly reasonable for CAFCASS officers to speak to children without parents present, I'm really not sure what they hope to achieve in this case. No conversation about contact with her father is going to hold any relevance whatsoever to a three year old who hasn't seen him since babyhood. If she doesn't know who he is, she can't express an opinion on whether she wants to see him and she is too young to understand the implications on her future well-being of growing up with or without contact with her father.

It may be reasonable for you to ask what discussions this person will be having with your DD and what they hope to achieve by it, if only to satisfy yourself they have thought this through properly and aren't just putting your DD through this as a box ticking exercise.

Used to manage (and tried to support) someone who went through an extremely stressful situation with an ex- partner and access issues. She had nothing but praise for Cafcass staff

It would be reasonable, as Goldmama, suggests to ask what they will be asking your little girl and explain that she is not aware that your partner is not her father. I would think they are more interested in your home situation,in which case it sounds as though you have little to worry about
The CAB would give you free advice , especiallyif you cannot afford a solicitor

Relying on reports from people who don't even know the child. I think this is really inappropriate for a three year old.

They won't just be relying on those reports. They will be looking at all the evidence available, including evidence from the OP and any other professionals who know the child such as nursery staff, health visitors, doctors etc. But a report from an independent CAFCASS officer is an important part of the evidence.

To clarify (although I haven't yet read all these messages) I have no issue with caffcass speaking to DD, I would just rather I was there too! I have recently explained to DD that she has a daddy and a birth father which means she's extra special because she has 2 daddy's, her reply to that is 'noooooooooo mummy'.

And sky I say 'poor DD' because I feel like this is potentionally going to be life changing for her and most likely not in a positive way!

Thank you for all your advice and support, I will continue to read through all your comments and will be back shortly

I have never said I an going to refuse caffcass, so I don't fully understand why some are commenting as If I've refused? I haven't refused, i agreed to everything the caffcass officer asked. I have got a solicitor and a barrister who represents me in court. I came here to ask for other mothers opinions, which you lovely lot have provided me :-) I do not want to be seen as frustrating a possible relationship for dd and bio father. Of course im going to try and adhere to caffcass's requests.

This is my first experience with anything like this, it's all new to me, I just wasn't sure that speaking with a 3yr old about things she can't comprehend was a good idea.

I understand where your coming from op, I ask MN for advice on things and get what I want but posters come on trying to shut me down saying its not what I need. Well it has been.

Would your dp adopt your dd?

I think its awful and if your ex had any sense at all he would wait until she is old enough to make up her own mind. she has a secure family unit.

dreadful for her to now be told otherwise and put that at risk - at this age.

Thanks knitted

No chance of adoption no, ex would have to agree and he would not do that. (He is on birth certificate)

It's not like I was never going to tell DD about bio father, I was going to but not at age 3, although given the current situation I have done so and she hasn't understood, but that was the obvious outcome.

I will call my solicitor Monday morning. I received the phone call from caffcass late Friday afternoon so haven't had a chance to speak with my solicitor. But tbh I think you lot have given me the answers, advice and support I was in need of so many thanks for that

I'd hold off on adoption talk, certainly while this is all taking place. It could just look like an attempt to block the bio father. If he's as flakey as he sounds, there will most likely be an opportunity in the future - maybe after a court ruling that he wouldn't be a positive addition to his daughter's life, maybe if he gets fed up of travelling to a contact centre or coming to your town to see her.

A step parent adopting a child is not a way to block a birth parent's parental responsibility, Knitted. It doesn't affect or change it.

Thanks Rumble, good luck op. Horrible situation but at least she has a secure family unit.

Sorry OP x-posted.

A step parent adopting a child absolutely does remove PR from the birth father. I know this because I'm currently in the process of doing this although it's been a long road to get to the point of bio dad agreeing to the adoption with the SW.

I was in a fairly similar situation OP, although the DV was more EA than physical.

The SW spoke to my DD alone but she was almost 7 at the time and this had always been what DH and I have been working towards so I started mentioning bio dads at around 3 and would periodically mention it every couple of months in case she had any questions and as her emotional intelligence grew. She didn't ask any questions for over a year - and then it was only to ask his name. She was really not phased by it at all so please try not to worry too much about it blasting her whole world apart although I would recommend you talk to her before a SW.

Can I say not all of the CAFCASS staff have the children's best interests at heart. The first one we had was awful. At the end of one of our meetings she sat us all down together and said she would recommend telephone contact at first. We all agreed to this, although my son wasn't happy about it. (DS around 12, DD around 9 at the time.) When her written report came she said she recommended that the children went to visit with their dad. He was 100 miles away so visits had previously been for the weekend, not a couple of hours. (I understand your concern over this OP) When we got to court, after several months of worry for me, she said some awful things about me. The three judges put her in her place and had her removed from our case. Phew! that was much a relief.

The second one was given six months to arrange a meeting with my children, we heard nothing until I contacted them about six weeks before the next court date. They then sent a letter with an appointment dated one week away, I received this when I got home from work, my son then tells me he has a GCSE paper that day, (long time lapse, DS around 14 my now) so the following day I called and asked to rearrange. I was told that was the only date they had, there were no other options. He sat his exam as I thought it was important. At the court hearing the CAFCASS woman said I had given them very little notice of my cancelling the appointment, she gave the impression to the court that I had been very uncooperative. I had the appointment letter showing it was only posted seven days before the appointment, so my cancelling at five days was all I could manage it also showed that they hadn't contacted me for five months after being told to arrange the talk with my children.
We then had a third CAFCASS person, the second one was apparently too busy to deal with us.

This whole process took a couple of years, it didn't happen fast OP, so try not to get stressed, if you can. I thought they'd make a decision and the children would just have to go.

The judges actually decided that their dad should come to our area once a month and take the children out for a few hours, and he would phone one night a week. If your ex is hoping for an easy option he'll come unstuck and may not manage to keep up something like that. Mine did and eventually my DD went to stay for the weekend, DS still wary. (There had been a lot of water under the bridge between them.)

It is a worry, but although I have little faith in CAFCASS the judges in our case were very good, hopefully your ex will be made to jump through some hoops to prove himself. Either he'll come though which might be a good thing in the long run, or he won't which would also work well.

Take proper legal advice though, CAFCASS staff can be vindictive if you don't follow their rules.

Good Luck AJNH.

(hugs)

Thank you for those last couple of messages :-) it's great to head about other peoples experiences with caffcass.

I am a little at the people defending caffcass so vehemently. There have been so many shocking judgements including forcing children to have contact with a father who sexually abused their sibling and 29 child murders women's aid directly attributes to contact.

www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic_violence_topic.asp?section=0001000100220033

Oh god theXxred ... I'm not sure I can look at that link

I have done an awful lot of research online about caffcass and some is quite alarming, but I haven't yet found anything quite as alarming as what you have just spoken about.

I will look at that link actually...

I was also told by a solicitor that a mother was forced to take this child to visit it's father who was in prison for raping the mother in front of the child. I didn't keep that solicitor, I wanted support not threats. CAFCASS were weird however the judges were good.
It's horrible though as my children independently decided they didn't want to see their dad, each for their own reasons but the CAFCASS woman decided I had put these ideas into their head and turned them against their dad.
Then when I said that when they used to visit their dad I had a weekend to myself to catch up with stuff at home and go out with my friends she turned that into me saying that I couldn't cope and was desperate to get rid of them. (I had no babysitters so never went out other than when they visited their dad.) When they stopped going to their dad's I couldn't go out with my friends anymore.
Our first CAFCASS lady was a total cow. One of the parents at my DDs school was a Child Protection Social Worker and she said that CAFCASS SWs were considered the absolute worst SWs.

OP let us know what happens, the only thing I can say is that nothing happens quickly and in my case the judges were very good and 'realistic'.

If contact gets agreed work on basis of supervised or few hours initially slowly building up.... It won't be case of her going off or a weekend at a time first off.

The Cafcass piece of shit that came to see me in my house took both six year ds and and five month old ds (who wasn't even part of the residence application) upstairs, whilst I had to remain downstairs. God only knows that that piece of shit did up there

He either did it to intimidate me or to abuse my baby.

Why don't you find a way to record everything? Like inside DDs toy or something? That way you will know what was said and have a proof in case if ex lied something about you and cafcass tried to trip your DD in to admitting the same. Think about it. It might help.

I wouldn't be happy about CAFCASS being alone with her, they will probably tell you its because they are worried about you influencing her answers either consciously or sub-consciously and give you a whole patronising speech about how sometimes children pick up on your feelings towards ex and can say things just to please you/be afraid to say things. (or at least thats the speech I got when they spoke to DS) unfortunately if you don't go along with CAFCASS they mark you down as being awkward and will be far more sympathetic to your ex, which will make him look better, your best bet here is to talk to the CAFCASS officer and just make sure they're aware that DD doesn't remember her bio dad and explain to them what happened when you tried to speak to her about him, CAFCASS can be quite manipulative, although in my experience most of them are just stupid.

A step-parent adopting the child doesn't necessarily stop PR by the way, I tried it, DS' dad wasn't on the birth certificate and DH adopted DS before the contact hearings started, the judge granted DS' dad PR as well as DH, it did take him 4 years to get it though.

As mom2twoteens said, it won't happen fast and there are lots of steps before you'd get to a stage where every other weekend overnight access would even be considered, your ex will have to prove it is in DDs best interests and that he can be trusted, that will take months at the least, possibly years, it took DS' Dad 7 years to prove he couldn't be trusted so after 7 years of supported contact DS still hasn't ever stayed over his house and, thanks to finally having got a no contact order, probably never will (unless DS asks to)

They can be appalling, but they can also be excellent. It's a profession and people within it will vary, just as with any other. It's also a profession where the job is to voice brutally honest opinions of people dealing with very high conflict situations, and at best the people they assess will see things really differently - at worst one, or both, will be raging liars. Neither side are likely to be happy with how they are represented, even if it's fairly positive, because they need to look for areas they can be critical about in the interests of the child. That hurts to read.

All you can do is work on the assumption that yours will be excellent and treat them accordingly. If they are, you're in luck. If they're appalling, then at least their little egos won't be bruised and they are less likely to act from spite.

Is he self representing? If so he may shoot himself completely in the foot by banging on about his rights and making his unsuitability very plain. Let's hope so, and that his drug and mental health evaluations prove he's a risk. I am so sorry - what a horrible thing to have to cope with. Very glad to hear you can afford legal help yourself. That helps a lot.

I have been on the other side of this, where I have had to give professional evidence in a contact hearing. I don't know if it makes you feel any better, but I certainly put the child first in every case. And in situations similar to yours (there are sadly quite a few) I generally recommend supervised contact at a centre, if any at all.

Hi OP, I have no experience of cafcass as thankfully the abusive bio father of my eldest son just stayed away. I just wanted to let you know that it was around 3 years of age that DH & I started mentioning to DS that he had a different dad that had made him. We would very casually mention something every little while. DH had also been 'daddy' since he was @10 months old.
I felt very strongly that I didn't want him to ever feel lied to by the people he trusts the most. He's 14 now and obviously in full knowledge of the facts now & totally secure in his relationship with DH & I.

Good luck, I really hope you get the right outcome for all of this.

OP
How are thing's going?
Keep in touch.