Where can a woman with a teen son go if refuges won’t take them?

[FluffyT]

Just that really. I’m shocked that refuges won’t take teen boys. What is a woman with a teen son supposed to do? Leave her son behind with an abuser? Abandon him? Throw him away to social services? How many women does this prevent from leaving an abusive situation?

And this is the main reason I can’t leave my abusive marriage, I have no where to go because my son is 14 if I leave him I can safely say I will never see him again. But I’m ok to take my 10 year old. It’s a no win situation for everyone the funding cuts make everything worse but the total lack of safe places is horrific.

It is horrible, but the main reason referrals are refused is lack of space. 60% of referrals were turned down due to lack of capacity.

There is a great deal of frothing about policy, very little concern that over half the people who need a space won't be able to have it.

It's not a universal situation, there's refuges that take both men and women for starters (men can be abused too) and councils can find emergency accommodation more suitable. Refuges are really set up for older girls either, as they are designed for women plus can accommodate small children in the same room.

It's awful.
There needs to be a MN campaign to highlight this. Even a 16yr old lad needs his mum and a family home.

’It is horrible, but the main reason referrals are refused is lack of space. 60% of referrals were turned down due to lack of capacity. There is a great deal of frothing about policy, very little concern that over half the people who need a space won't be able to have it.’

This ^

rainbowunicorn it takes quite a lot of determination or a rose tinted view of teenaged boys to be that blinkered! I have a lovely teenaged boy. I also have a teenaged daughter. I am capable of knowing that teenaged boys are children just as teenaged girls are, whilst also knowing that housing potentially traumatised or abused or angry and confused adult sized teenaged boys with unrelated (or sometimes related) abused women and girls isn't always the solution!

Many teenaged boys (and even pre teens) display extremely challenging, aggressive, angry behaviour after leaving abusive situations and indeed sometimes while living in them, and it isn't unusual at all for them to have absorbed and internalised their father or stepfather's world view. They're still children, and victims, but their needs conflict with those of other victims - women, girls and small children who might indeed be driven out of a refuge which had a "no exceptions" policy of admitting boys under 17/18 with their mothers.

Nobody's denying there need to be options for mothers with their teen boys, but women, girls and small children do not need to be told to suck up sharing a refuge with troubled teenaged boys who even at 13 can be bigger and stronger than an adult woman, let alone at 15 or 16, and who are often damaged in different ways to girls and small children by long term exposure to their mother being abused by their father or her partner.

I took my son but it was self contained flats. If I had to leave him I wouldn't have gone.

How often do teen boys get excellent foster care rather than being shoved in some group home miles away?

If the boy is in year 10 to 13 and likely year 9 too, they would need to stay close enough to get to their school. I have relatives who would take my 15 year old in if need be but it would be too far from school. Would foster care put them in a bedsit?

The refuge I was in took teen sons. Each unit was lockable etc. If you or someone you know need help, need to flee for your and/or childrens’ safety please contact social work/council/women’s aid for help, it may take effort but help is available.

The thing is @kowari keeping them safe might have to take priority over keeping them in the same school.

It's far from ideal to change schools at that age but needs must in certain circumstances.

The charity I worked for had 10 refuges and a self contained property. Young men up to the age of 16 were accepted in all of them if we had a room free with enough beds for themselves, their mother and any other siblings.

There were some additional risk assessment questions we asked but we wouldn't just turn them away without exploring all options.

So it isn't a universal policy to not allow teenage boys in refuges.

Is there a rule about how far away the mother and son can be placed if they’re separated i.e. if she gets a refuge place and he has to go to foster care or group home?

I was in a refuge. Some take teenage boys but if refuges no good, they can put you and teenagers all of you together in temporary accommodation.

I would have thought they would keep them as close as possible but it would most likely come to down availability of spaces close together.

Don't understand. They don't usually separate mum and sons. They put in temporary accommodation if no refuges. Only one woman didn't have her kids with her but just cos the kids chose to stay with their dad who wasn't the abuser was a different man.

They don't usually separate them. Cheaper to do temporary accommodation flat for all of them together. Only reason maybe teenage boy separate in foster care if social services think maybe he violent to the mum or younger kids.

Ultimately, the most difficult position to be in experiencing DA is a home owning person on an average or higher than average salary.

Worst is disability benefits and no children under 18 in private renting. If home owner can escape without being homeless you can still go to refuge or if safe to stay in job where he knows you work you can rent private until house sold. You canan claim benefits until house sold think 6 months or a year so can go to refuge.

Having been in abusive relationships and a mother to 3 ds I would rather endure a beating every single day of my life than abandon my ds to the care system or farm him off to a relative like hes not part of the family. What a disgustingly sexist, archaic system!

If I'm honest, I've not heard of mothers and sons being separated. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but in the cases I've dealt with they've been supported to stay at home, put in refuge, or moved into temporary accommodation.

My county's domestic abuse service has a large multi-room refuge and 10 or so other separate properties in which male survivors and families with older male children stay. I was looking into it today at work.

I'd stay in an abusive relationship rather than leave my 14 year old ASD son.

@FluffyT if this is your situation then please do ask for help. I know if we had taken this referral we would have worked to find a solution either allowing your teen or nearby temporary accommodation together so you could still access recovery support.