Divorce - disabled child- Advice please?

[SENSummer]

My marriage of seven years has ended this Christmas. My decision but STBXH has been emotionally checked out, difficult and distant for years so we’ve been on the verge a few times. It’s definitely over now.

I’ve held it together thus far because we have two small children. 4yo DD and 5yo DS who is extremely high needs ASD, profound learning disabilities, ADHD, non verbal, PICA and also massive for his age. Wears 9-10 clothes and weighs 35kg about 2/3 my size already. He is very difficult to care for. Honestly it’s horrendous he’s destructive and violent and just shrieks constantly whilst destroying everything he touches.

I’m scared they will make me take him and be resident parent. I don’t want to be. I can’t win against him in a fight anymore and all of his basic care needs are a physical fight. I also can’t deadlift him off the floor, which is a lot of what parenting him requires.

STBXH has been working long hours as a doctor throughout our marriage but does physically help with DS when he is here. He is much bigger and stronger than me and can still just about overpower DS when needed although worries he will hurt him. He has been deeply depressed for a long time and any periods spent alone with DS send this through the roof.

DS is in a specialist school with 1:1 care and has a small social service package. We have appealed multiple times for more or for him to be put into care as we just can’t manage him. We keep putting up bigger and bigger gates/locks around the house but he climbs them/breaks them and nothing can stop him.

I was forced out of work to be his carer even though I never wanted to leave work. I’ve done everything for DS for years fighting for all the medical/therapy/council help and his socialist school place but nothing made a difference. I’m scared for mine and DD’s safety and future if we end up in a house just us and DS. I cannot manage him or meet his needs and trying has such a detrimental impact on DD.

I don’t want to be his resident parent but I know that DH won’t want to either. He says he won’t be able to work which is true but that’s the situation I’ve been in for years so I don’t think he’s entitled to carry on like normal once we are divorced and I’m not his support act anymore. I worry what will happen and that they will make me have DS. I’ve spoke to social services and they said they don’t know what will happen.

I would of course share custody and if DH did have DS I would give him plenty of respite. I highly doubt the same would happen if I become resident parent.

if you’ve been through this please help!

I’m sure they will threaten that, but in reality no, she won’t. Child abandonment is leaving a child without proper care. If the child is in a safe place with proper care and she says she cannot cope with him or give him proper care the police are not going to get involved. It is not unknown for disabled children to be abandoned in hospital for example. Parents are not prosecuted.

The cost of the residential placement is not OP’s problem. The fact is successive governments have run down children’s social care and private providers, backed by private hedge funds, have stepped into the breach to provide residential settings for society’s most vulnerable children. The shame should be on the LAs, the governments and the hedge funds. Not the OP.

What about marriage support - I only say this because I think separation could be even worse (especially financially) and i’d fear you could be left completely alone in a worse situation than stands currently

Me and husband work opposite hours to care for our children - myself working weekends in which husband does all the childcare. We are both in healthcare and the NHS offers flexible working arrangements for both of us which enable this. You would also see your husband a lot less if you could arrange something similar

My understanding is that they only go in that young if the parents are basically incapacitated. They told us there was no situation DS would be taken from us that didn’t involve us being charged with abandonment or neglect.

She absolutely will not be arrested for child abandonment. Police forces are wise to the games played by manipulative SS departments and their social workers. A few of whom are on here. I find it shocking that the brainwashing is so extreme that the focus is entirely on penny-pinching under the guise of ‘keeping families together’. I often wonder at what point into their careers SWs lose their sense of humanity.

OP, you are in great distress, please do not listen to these BS threats. But you DO need quality legal representation. I’m glad that you have been in contact with Damien Dobson. He is the best.

They are lying to you. Please read section 20 of the Children’s Act 1989.

I absolutely agree with you, however the cost of placement does create a situation where local authorities are very reluctant to take a child into a residential placement and effectively assume those costs for the rest of their childhood, if not their whole lives. The cost of 13 years residential care for a child will run into millions, which is a cost worth paying in my view but when the council tax bill rises, people tend to be much less altruistic.

Did you challenge the small social care package and not being offered further hours? You can complain, ask for an independent review, and complain to the LGO. Depending on specifics, JR may be possible. If you have to appeal the education side of the EHCP, you can ask SENDIST to also look at social care provision, getting an independent social worker assessment if necessary. Some social care provision is actually special educational provision so should be in F of an EHCP too. And you could go down the s20 route like @ThePieceHall has posted. No, not simple, not quicker, not easy, but possible. Sadly, DC whose parents know the system and how to enforce their/their DC’s rights get better support. It shouldn’t be like that, but it isn’t going to change in the foreseeable.

If you wish to pursue a residential school placement (some offer 52 week placements) and the LA has refused, did you appeal to SENDIST? It isn’t easy or quick but is possible to pursue it. Ultimately, it isn’t the LA who makes the decision, so them disagreeing doesn’t prevent you appealing or securing that.

What provision is in F of the EHCP currently?

Have you looked to see if DS qualifies for children’s continuing care funding?

Have you had a home OT assessment? This will help look at adaptations and equipment to make the house safer and better meet DC’s needs.

This is excellent advice.Mumsnet at its best.
Best of luck OP.

You do realise that practicing social workers operate under the instruction of senior managers, who direct their work. They don’t hold a budget for care, nor can they commission services. If they’re told there’s no money what do you expect them to do.

Ultimately allocation of funding sits with your elected officials - lobby them to increase funding for childcare, or to bring residential care in house to reduce reliance on for profit care provision. But expect too see a reduction in other council services, or an increase in council tax. Blaming individual social workers for what are deeply embedded structural issues is unfair and unrealistic.

I’m really sorry you’re in this situation, I can’t imagine how worried you must be. Something similar happened to an old friend, when it was the non-resident parents day she went on a two week holiday as she couldn’t cope with her daughters needs. So when it was her time she wasn’t there and couldn’t take her back out of guilt. It did lead to her receiving a residential placement as Dad also couldn’t keep the younger siblings safe.

Yes, I do. I’m pretty well versed in campaigning and I am part of several high-profile campaigning groups. I do understand about budgets and I do understand about hedge funds etc. I just could never be the person who, knowing the legal position, follows their managers’ instructions to obfuscate and lie to emotionally blackmail families who are in the pit of despair. Are you familiar with the extensive work of Professor Luke Clements of the School of Law at the University of Leeds, the UK’s leading expert on systemic abuse?

As LAs have been shown time and again, lack of funding, resources, staffing, etc. are not get out of jail free cards for failing to adhere to the law. It is not a lawful excuse for acting unlawfully.

Sadly, LAs will continue to act unlawfully because it saves them money, at least in the short term, and at the moment their unlawful behaviour does not have serious repercussions for them. Some parents don’t know the law. Some parents know but don’t know how to navigate the system. Some know, but for a multitude of reasons, decide not to go through with challenging the LA. When they do challenge LAs, it still saves the LA money and kicks the can down the road. It is reprehensible behaviour. All parents should be supported to advocate for their DC and enforce their DC’s rights.

I am, yes. I’m interested to know where in your professional life you can ignore direct instructions and commit your employer to a multi-million pound expense, not to mention take responsibility for the life of a child, and not be sacked? Yes campaign for better, many social workers are very active in campaigning, absolutely challenge misuse of funds and abuse of power, but in day to day practice social workers have very limited decision making power. So accusing them of inhumanity when they’re working in, and against, the same system that parents are denies the realities of that system.

I have no advice. But my mum worked in residential homes for children with disabilities in the 70s/80s. The children either lived there during the week and went home weekends or vice versa.
It was normal and the parents were made to feel guilty. It’s terrible how much worse it is now.

This is excellent advice.

We have an 11 year old son with a similar profile, and we are in the process of looking at residential schooling because his special school is no longer able to manage and we have an older daughter who is really struggling with seeing me be subject to violence so regularly. He also needs so much support with medical care, personal care and life skills that we/school are unable to provide.

In order to get funding for a residential place, you need agreement from both social care (home is not coping) AND education (school also say they can’t meet needs). This really leaves you with two options: school can meet need and social care then seek a foster home/children’s home placement, or school agree they can’t meet need and residential schools become an option. Foster families are not generally equipped to deal with very complex learning disabilities (we were initially put forward for family-based short breaks for respite and the coordinator laughed her head off at the idea that she had a suitable family waiting to help - he was eventually given respite at a Barbados facility which is BRILLIANT).

I have to say though, this process is not quick - just the assessment and working through “brokerage” once everyone agrees the plan has taken over a year for us. You need to find the right place - somewhere that you can travel to easily - somewhere that feels right for your child. A number of residential schools have rejected us because his needs are so complex - and one or two have me the total creeps when visiting and I wouldn’t have boarded a budgie with them, much less my most vulnerable and loved person on earth.

All that said, please don’t despair. Has he been assessed by a LDCAMHS challenging behaviour specialist? We were referred into that pathway and got a fast track to a psychiatrist who prescribed meds to take the edge off his extreme anxiety (which was causing a lot of his violent outbursts). It hasn’t been a miracle, but it has enabled us/him to cope while we get a lot of other things in place.

We were initially offered 2 nights per month of respite. It was remarkable how quickly that increased to five nights when we started discussions about residential schooling. You’d be surprised what the local authority keeps up its sleeve for “emergencies” - we’ve had to be at breaking point a number of times before services have magically appeared. Five nights has made a huge difference. Fight for it - get your MP involved if you have to!

A few other things to consider: your son’s behaviour may change a little if your husband moves out. Children with complex disabilities have a remarkable ability to “sense the mood” and often their behaviour matches. We saw a significant change in our son when he had a change of teacher - a huge improvement. He is also still very small - his communication will be very limited and violence is often the way they communicate in lieu of words or other strategies - it may not always be like this.

My DH and I have somehow managed to remain together on this journey (helps that we had 15 years together before having children - met on our gap year), but it is brutal on a marriage. I am so sorry that you are in this position. If you ever want to talk to someone who is a bit further along the same pathway, please just message me. It is impossible to understand the enormity of caring for such a complex child unless you’ve done it yourself. Here if you need an ear/shoulder. Xx

@SENSummer Having read the thread, I just want to point out that the divorce with associated parental order is a separate matter to getting your DC into a residential home.
I am not a lawyer, but I highly doubt the divorce judge will order for DS to go into a home.
It may help to keep the two things separate in your mind.

If you can't face the long journey that @MamainWonderland is going through to do things "properly", you have every right to just refuse to pick DS up from school, refuse to have him back, and let the system kick into play. But you need nerves of steel and be prepared for an onslaught of emotional blackmail from social services (and possibly also exDH).

@ThePieceHall you could also look at recent research on moral injury in social workers if you don’t think that working under such constraints impacts practicing social workers. There should be enough resource to provide tailored support to families who are under immense pressure, the reality is that there isn’t that resource. It’s a shame on our society that people are left in the OPs position and social workers are an obvious target for derision and abuse, but not a fair one.

In order to get funding for a residential place, you need agreement from both social care (home is not coping) AND education (school also say they can’t meet needs). This really leaves you with two options: school can meet need and social care then seek a foster home/children’s home placement, or school agree they can’t meet need and residential schools become an option.

LAs would like you to believe this but you don’t. You do not need the current placement to say they can’t meet needs. You are more likely to have to appeal to SENDIST if they don’t, but then many have to even if the current school does say they can’t meet needs. While many residential placements are jointly funded (sometimes also funded partly by the ICB) they aren’t always. Again, you may have to appeal but it is possible to get a residential school placement even if the LA disagree. Ultimately, it isn’t the LA making the final decision.

you can't simply abandon a child hoping to force the LA,s hand

It absolutely can be done, and is sometimes the only safe and responsible option.
It is not the fault of parents of severely disabled children that society is failing to provide care.

It is another thread to discuss what happens to councils who go 'overdrawn' or even bankrupt due to the costs of care (for children and adults). But that is not the problem or fault of parents of disabled children.

Thank goodness for some common sense! As I keep repeating, the systemic abuse of vulnerable parents is absolutely endemic, regardless of which home nation.

In some circumstances, lawyers will advise this process. It is not ‘abandoning’ a child; it is safely handing over the care of a child to the responsible LA, under the terms of s.20 of the Children’s Act 1989. The police will not be interested, despite the threats of SWs. Some parents do notify their local police force of their intentions. The police are also generally sick of lying and manipulative SWs who waste their time when they could be out tackling real crimes.

I find that very shocking that this is being said, probably to do with no funding.

I was in a similar situation to you as in couldn't realistically cope anymore and my child (at 7 years) was placed in a Rudolf Steiner Camphill residence nearby, fully funded by the council.

It's a horrible situation to be in but I had to push, push quite strongly to get any help. It would also help if your Stbx could get onside and push too.

OP could you look at a residential school? I’m so sorry you’re going through this. As a mum to an autistic son I really do empathise. It makes me so angry that parents can be on the brink of collapse and are still not given any support.

LAs use deception and strategic incompetence all too often. Giving incorrect information and misleading parents. So much is dependent on parents knowing the law and how to navigate the system. Knowledge really is power.

I think we may have ‘spoken’ before both under different names.