Child welfare hearing

[Usernameinvalid16]

I have received a date for a child welfare hearing for my DD. I am the main caregiver and have been for 8 years, nearly 9.

My DDs dad has applied for contact after a period of no contact this entire time period. He has applied for alternate weekends Friday 5pm - Sunday 5pm, time during the school holidays throughout the year and Christmas Day 4pm - Boxing Day 4pm. Also 2 hours on her birthday which will be hard as her birthday always falls during the school term so will be at school during the day. I do not take her out of school for her birthday and don’t plan on doing so.

I have put forward a plan of contact centre for weekly or fortnightly visits to allow them to build a bond or relationship first with reviews in place.

I do have a few questions..
What should I expect from this initial court date? We have an options hearing 10 weeks later.
Will anything be put in place that day?
My child is getting the opportunity to voice her opinion in a form F9
Will he get anything close to what he is asking for? I’m not refusing contact, I’m concerned that this will impact my daughters emotional well-being and I am concerned about her welfare.

I am in Scotland so I don’t know if things are different here. Thank you.

My only experience of court and lawyers is a typically ask for the moon and the stars expecting to get about 50% of what they ask for. So try not to worry too much..

Not a chance he will get what he is asking for.

He might get some small amounts of supervised contact to initially determine if contact is in her interests snd then it would slowly build up from there.

Given he says he hasn't contacted due to stress, could CAFCASS check he is stable to safely have contact with her first?

I don’t think I understand what this means though “in the absence of any award the defender (me) would be able to disrupt any contact”

Its basically saying that without a court order you’d be able to stop him taking your DD overnight or the even at all.

Basically he wants the order so you have no choice but to comply with it, even if you don’t think it’s in your DD’s interest.

They don’t exist in Scotland

Her school has a family support worker. I will email first thing tomorrow morning. I’m in a training programme at work for the next 3 weeks but I hope they can contact me soon.

I am worried that he will get added on to her BC and this will prevent me from moving home or make it difficult to leave the country or re new her passport.

You can say no to it all.

It's down to the judge listening to what's said and deciding what's in the best interest of the child.

The father's absence is very important to note and any formation of a relationship with his child needs to be managed carefully.

I would say no to all of that. He can start by writing her letters for 6 months. If this goes well add in phone contact. Only after a year of this they can go to a contact centre if your dd wants to.

I wouldn't entertain any discussions over him seeing her unsupervised, zero discussions are needed regarding Christmas, birthdays etc right now.

He is a complete stranger and should be treated as such, are your solicitors sorting out a full background check? And anyone he lives with if he gets to take her to his house.

He's no more than a sperm donor at this point.

Even on the BC he can take you to court to stop you moving house or taking her abroad. The court can find in your favour though.

i'm not a lawyer, but i would assume that phrase means that is why he needs a court order, because without it ie in the absence of any award, you could simply opt out of any informal arrangement.
so you could stop him seeing her. so he wants an order, or award, to get legally enforceable rights to see her.
but i agree with you; surely the court would not make her go and stay with complete strangers.

Interesting point. What kind of stress keeps you from your children and what if he gets stressed again?

He claims to live with his parents but I don’t know if I have a right to question his living arrangements? I know he has a GF and a step son. I also have questions about his actual address, I feel he has lied about where he resides but I don’t know how to prove this, can I check the electoral roll?

Well I have had a quick chat with my DD, she is excited about our future plans i.e we are planning to buy a new home, our summer holiday, extending the family and a plan to get married at some stage soon. I wanted to make sure she was happy, if not I would put a hold on all of this happening.

When I gently approached the subject of potentially seeing her bio dad, she got sad, said she didn’t want to, not even for 20 minutes. She got quite upset and the change in her face and body language said it all. So I don’t know how to tell her that she may have to if there is a court order. I feel terrible that her life is going to get turned upside down and her little world is going to get rocked.

OP they might order a mailbox service first if the contact centre offers it. This is basically a little video he does and she can then do but all handled by the contact centre. The other alternative is they potentially look at ordering supervised contact which is held in a contact centre with someone supervising and writing factual report on contact for the court. They may even decide to put in a child welfare reporter to speak to all of you individually before any contact is granted. It’s very very unlikely a sheriff will order a child to go to his house as he is a virtual stranger to her. It’s unreasonable and not in the child’s best interest. Contact generally needs built slowly and at the child’s pace. He may eventually get overnight contact but that could take a long time.

When is she 10? 11? At secondary school dc get more say in court arrangements with a nrp. At 12 my ds went nc with his df despite a court order in place... I doubt courts are running at a decent pace atm. May be some time to be seen..

You need to tell the Sheriff that she repeatedly gets upset when asked to meet him. That you can support even supervised contact at a contact centre at this moment in time and feel the very first step should be indirect contact for very many month before anything else is even considered and she need professional support for even indirect contact.

That she sees your partner as he Dad and you are a tight family unit and this is a threat to her security.

I don’t think it’s reasonable given she doesn’t know him and she’s 9yrs old. I agree to contact centre to build up a relationship before you can expect her to spend a weekend with him or Christmas. Good luck

OP try not to worry please be reasonable with your suggestions to his solicitor as the court need to see you are being reasonable. If you want to avoid court you could offer supervised contact centre for one hour every two weeks initially then maybe up this to two hours after so many visits and when your daughter seems comfortable. If the court order contact via a contact centre legally you must take her to the contact centre and then the staff will try encourage her to go through to see her dad. They will have one done a familiarisation visit normally with you before and shown her a “safe” toy which she can pick up if she feels she needs to leave the room and go back to you. No child will be expected to say they want to leave so a age toy that only the supervisor and child know is there for that purpose works well.

@Fundays12 this is perfect. It’s what I was worried about, I know she wouldn’t be confident to come out and say she feels uncomfortable so having an object she can pick up will be good.

I am open to contact being started just want to start slowly at her pace and that she is provided with adequate support throughout.

She is 9 at the start of next year

I was 8 years old when I decided I didn't want to see my biological dad OP. This was the mid 90's. I had had regular contact since 1 year old. I was much like your daughter in I got very upset anytime he was mentioned, very upset every time I had to go, spent the weekend at his being upset and wanting to go 'home', very reclusive etc. It was court ordered and he was allowed to send me letters twice a year, which tailed off after a bit because he really wasn't interested in me, just getting back at my mum. Courts do take into account how the child feels, contact is for the child not the parent and no court will force a child into overnight stays with a complete stranger. If she doesn't want to see him at all she can absolutely voice that and her opinion is the most important one. I hope everything works out for you, you've done a fantastic job raising your lovely girl.

Of course it's unreasonable. She doesn't know him - it doesn't matter that he provided sperm when he's been absent her entire life. Is he on the BC?

Sorry just RTFT. Surely no court will allow overnights without a period of sustained contact. Good luck.

Not on the BC. He refused to sign it, but claims I never told him when I was going to register her.

I'd advise putting this in legal and/ or scotsnet.

It's understandable that she may be apprehensive about meeting him, when she doesn't know him. But that on its own wouldn't be a reason to prevent contact and give them the opportunity to develop a relationship

If she's not keen, then best to approach it in the same way that you might respond if she didn't want to go to school eg "I understand that you're a bit nervous, because you don't know him yet. But it's really good to have the chance to get know him. I'm sure you'll have fun when you get there. Why don't you take this colouring book and perhaps you could do some drawing together?" And / or give him some pointers to help him to make contact successful eg she likes going to the park, is interested in X, doesn't like eating Y

In short, approach it positively, rather than "Well you have to go because the Sheriff said so"