Children's Services Involvement

[Scorchio72]

I realise we are in an unusual situation as my partner has a daughter who lives with her maternal grandmother and we have a son who lives with us, both children living under different local authorities.

My partner has a history of abusive relationships and befriending sex offenders, plus due to disability her daughter lives with her grandmother and has done since my partner left an abusive relationship.

Children's Services have restricted her contact with her daughter to supervised contact only due to her history of abusive relationships and her previous involvement with sex offenders.

We were completely honest about this with children's services in our local authority and they have not put any restrictions on contact with our baby, though after my partner confessed that she had sent a photograph of the children to a friend in prison we have been in Child Protection.

The photo was sent without my knowledge and while she had asked for my opinion previously I said categorically that she shouldn't send it. To put the relationship into context though, this is my partner's daughter's Godfather who had no convictions when he became her Godfather.

We have now completed a few courses with children's services in our local authority (goodness knows why this couldn't have happened years ago when the neighbouring LA got involved with the daughter) and our social worker recently said that the only reason she cannot recommend leaving Child Protection is because of the restrictions with her daughter.

The daughter's social worker is not prepared to lift those restrictions while we are on the child protection register with our baby, so as we see it we are stuck in a stalemate until her daughter is 18.

Has anyone else been in this position where two local authorities are waiting for the other to make the first move. We are very concerned that this stalemate could escalate if neither social worker is prepared to step down before the other that either one is going to get trigger happy and use the fact that involvement with another child is grounds to escalate to PLO or care proceedings as both Local Authorities have a power struggle between them, with the children being the ones to suffer.

The very worrying thing is I think this is for real.

Me too unfortunately.

Of course it’s relevant. You’d said he was in prison, you said she had been friends with sex offenders, but you hadn’t specifically stated that he was in prison for sexual offences. He could be in for tax fraud. There was an implication that it might well be sexual, but your posts hadn’t actually given enough information.

Blunt question, don’t answer if you feel you can’t, was your partner herself the victim of sexual abuse? The information you’ve given so far would tie in with that. The CPTSD, and inability to detach from people who commit such abuse would be understandable in that situation. She’d have very blurred ideas of what is and isn’t normal if she’d grown up around such things. That very much makes her deserving of sympathy if I’m right.

The thing is, she is now an adult and she has children to protect and their safety must come ahead of any needs of hers. Only six months ago she was sending photos of her children to a known sex offender despite already having limited access to her child through not being able to keep them safe. That’s going to have alarm bells ringing for everyone. Given time this situation can change though. You say she is learning to keep away such situations. It’s very early days for social services to disengage, but that doesn’t mean they never will. Focus on what is directly in front of you and making sure you both take all the right steps to keep your baby safe and in time that will be recognised. Social services don’t have the resources to keep tabs on people unnecessarily. You need to be patient.

And you can’t see a reason why the other will not step back? Really ?

Op, you seem more concerned with social service’s (rightful) involvement than the fact that your partner makes terrible life choices and your kids are potentially in danger… 🚩

Let me spell it out for you.

One local authority won’t let your wife have unsupervised contact with her own child. That tells me they don’t believe she is safe around her own child.

The other local authority placed your child on the CP register, which says they have very real concerns that your child is at risk of significant harm. So two different authorities have sufficient concern about your wife’s parenting to put protective measures in place.

It would be ridiculous for your local authority to step down their protective measures for a child in your wife’s care when another won’t allow her to be unsupervised with her other child. Your wife will need to work with the first authority to evidence she does not pose a risk to her first child before they will allow unsupervised access. At that point your local authority will reassess the need for CP registration.

Its not just as simple as getting them to talk to each other, the risk needs to be significantly reduced and both local authorities have evidence of this.

Absolutely, I’m agog the op seems to think the issue is two la’s not talking to each other. It’s mind boggling anyone would think that with their own child involved. The la for her daughter cannot possibly step back, right now she’s th4 biggest risk and your wife has proven in the last six months she is unable to safeguard a child. As such the other la will follow suit. Of course they will.

to get them to step back your wife has to prove, over a very extended period she no longer poses a threat; and she is far from that point and doing a course doesn’t change that.

She certainly has repressed childhood memories that are slowly being revealed. A social worker has stated she suspects my partner may have been sexually abused at some point. She was certainly sexually assaulted by an ex.

Supervised contact with her daughter is a big move from social services and I think there is a good reason for that, maybe more than you are letting on tbh. You mention disability as one of the reasons she lives with grandma, is this the daughter or your partner?

Stories like this are very sad and all too common. People who suffer trauma while the brain is developing (up to age 25), can end up ill equipped to function as adults. Unfortunately, this can make them poor parents in some respects. While she herself may be a victim, and potentially have diminished responsibility for her failure to protect her children, the children’s welfare must come first. I hope she is able to get some support for her own issues. The courses sound like they helped. Don’t focus so much on social services keeping an eye on things still. Focus on what you can do to protect your child and help your partner. These situations can recover. Life is long, things can get better. You are worrying about the wrong thing in my opinion.

Does it not worry you that you asked your partner not to share the photo and she still went ahead and did it?
I think you should welcome the input from social services as they may be able to continue to find ways to support your partner.

Initially I did welcome the support and we are both very grateful for the help they have provided. But a recent conversation with a social worker has raised my concerns as she said the only reason she is not able to recommend coming out of CP is because the other LA have not reduced their restrictions. The social worker from the other local authority has also said that she cannot recommend lifting the current restrictions while we are in CP with our baby, so as the social workers have admitted we are in a stalemate until the daughter turns 18 as neither side is prepared to step down first.

As things stand, I don't think that it's is time for us to step out of cp, though our social worker has said that she's happy that our situation has improved significantly since entering cp to such an extent she would have recommended stepping down to care and support if it were not for the other LA. She said she was hoping that we can aim to leave CP before Christmas but this depends on what happens with the other LA.

So when a social worker is telling us that they only have one objection to leaving CP, and that objection is based not on us, but on the actions of another LA then it becomes very frustrating.

My personal expectation was that when it was revealed my partner had sent the photograph to a sex offender they would have gone straight to court, but our social worker was of the opinion that to do that a child needs to be at immediate risk of serious harm, and given he was in prison, then the child was not in immediate risk. I made my position clear, not just to the social worker but to her manager that I expected them to begin court proceedings immediately but they were both adamant that we were a long way from meeting the criteria.

Have you not considered leaving with your child?

You have just stated you agree that you don't think you should be out of child protection and at the same time your frustrated with having cp. Make that make sense.

When the revelation came out, yes. I gave it serious consideration and also sought advice as to if my partner could be charged for sending the photograph to a sex offender.

However, her attitude has changed significantly since then and I now feel confident that with the information she now has that this will not happen again.

I went through her phone and social media accounts with the social worker and it did seem as though this was a one off regression

I think social services shouldn't step down as your partner clearly consistently isn't very good about making very good decisions about the company she keeps. I personally would take your son and run She's in contact with someone with a rapist for gods sake and sending pictures of her kids to them (yes he might not have commited an offence towards a child but hes still a sex offender)

Someone with a history of befriending sex offenders wouldn't be having unsupervised contact with my DC. As they say, birds of a feather flock together.
Do you have vulnerabilities? I don't mean to cause offence but most people would run a mile from someone with your partners history, not procreate with them.

What did you want them to go to court for? If they did that they’d be looking at removing your child, which is something I’d be avoiding at all costs as a parent and as a social worker.

You’re saying you don’t think you’re ready to come out of CP so why are you upset they’re keeping you there?

The social worker is right, you’ve got a way to go before removal of your child. While her mum presents a risk, presumably you’re a protective factor and should be acting to reduce any risk. I’d not be seeking court proceedings for your child unless absolutely necessary, and there are more beneficial protective steps you can take as the parent which would keep your child out of the care system.

Op, there will not be a stalemate until the children turn 18.

Firstly, the social worker only makes a recommendation to the conference about whether they think the threshold is met for a CP plan (risk of significant harm) whether they think it needs to escalate (PLO) or whether they think the risk has reduced and therefore the plan should end (usually stepped down to child in need)
It's up to the conference as a group to decide if threshold is met, and if that group has mixed views, usually the conference chair would make the final decision. The job of the chair is to ask questions to help understand if that threshold is met. It is specifically about that question of risk of harm.

A child having restrictions on contact is a sign someone else is worried, but it's not evidence of harm in itself. A conference chair should not agree a plan to continue on that basis (assuming that's the only reason) Of course, if there is more to it, the social worker would be required to tell you that, and tell those at the conference, eg in their report.
Even if you had the worlds worst conference chair, most councils have a system where a senior manager reviews any plans that have been in place for 18 months as, given by definition those children are at risk of harm still, if there's progress after 18 months we should be questioning whether the plan is right, and whether it should be stepped up. So it would be picked up by them.

Restrictions on family visits aren't always solely about risk either, and your social worker needs to understand why/how the other LA are making that decision. It could include other reasons such as the carer not feeling comfortable with restrictions changing, or that the child gets on better with having a familiar person there, or that child being particularly vulnerable eg if they're non verbal. Or they could think it's too early days re your partner's understanding, in which case that could be a reason for staying on CP, but they need to be telling you that, not blaming it on the other LA.

There's no chance a child would stay on CP for years due to a 'stalemate' it's not just the two social workers involved in that decision and there's no way it would wash. We have to account to our directors for any children staying on plans longer than two years, no way could we give something as wishy washy as 'they can't see their other kid on their own'. It would be made VERY clear that we had to decide that we understood their rationale for that decision, and after two years, justify why we were still at that level.

You can not be serious

I would go utterly insane if my partner sent pictures of my children to a sex offender in prison (where they are likely associating with other sex offenders). That turns my stomach thinking of someone like that having any access to pictures of vulnerable kids. I am swaying between whether this is some weird joke but the poster seems genuine which is so alarming

Finally, some helpful information rather than abuse