Children with mentally ill parent - advice needed please

[CherryBlossom27]

At the moment my DH and I are looking after his younger half brother and half sister as their mum (his ex-stepmother) was taken into hospital last night.

I would take a guess that she may have bipolar as she seems to be having many similar symptoms as a close friend of mine with the illness, delusions, paranoia and threatening them with a knife.

Would it be normal for social services to become involved for the children? They are 14 & 16.

I'm quite happy to look after them and I can offer my experiences and general info, but I'm not sure if they will need to speak to a social worker or anything like that?

I think they're of an age that they understand, but obviously they are still shocked and upset :(

Was it recorded that she threatened them ? If so then at some point you might get contacted by sw to work out where they stay mid longer term, but involving them. . also if they asking to see her then this would be discussed with her psychiatrist and possibly social workers .

Depends how long she in hosp for etc. if you happy to put them up for now and they ok with this then they may leave you to it.
Until more is non about how long she in for etc. you can always take them to their gp initially if they want to talk to someone or ask questions .
Where's is their dad in this ?

You might want to ask ss to set up a family group conference which would involve the children you dh anyone else and any professionals involved to decide on short medium and long term solutions for where the children stay etc.

Hi cestlavielife

Sorry for my late reply. Thank you for your post.

I phoned the police station on Friday to ensure our details had been passed onto social services and they confirmed they had, so we got a call on Friday afternoon. Social services are going to visit the mum on mon am and then come and see the kids on mon pm.

The kids called their dad on weds night but he was at work, so they contacted DH who picked them up within 10 minutes which is why they're with us. Their dad is happy to look after them, but I think they're probably best off here with us for the short term as I'm on maternity leave and home most of the time, whereas their dad works full time and finishes work around midnight.

DH and I have decided to wait until Monday and see what the state of play is then.

I think though that the mum will be kept in for 28 days for assessment and observation.

So many things have suddenly made sense now this has come into the open! I don't know how she has managed this long without professional help as it seems she has been I'll for years not months as I've been in touch with one of her old friends. I've only met her once years ago, but not to speak as she was having a go at someone. DH isn't close to her at all as she was quite nasty to him as a child, but this explains why.