Hi
We, as grandparents were asked by social services to do a viability assessment for an sgo
a year ago for our twin grandchildren who are 18 months old now.
Our daughter signed a section 20 a year ago and our grandchildren have been in care with a foster carer since.
Our daughter has made it clear that she does not want her children back in her care due to not being able to cope and has made her feeling clear to LA that she like us to care for the children full time under an sgo.
We have had 4 assessments done altogether, the first assessment which was done by the children’s social worker came back to us being negative and we challenged due to the inaccuracies, we then had another assessment done by the same LA but a different social worker and only spoke to myself and not my partner, we then challenged this as being unfair.
The court then put forward that we have an independent social worker to do a more in-depth assessment which came back as fair but could be interpreted as either negative or positive, the children’s guardian interpreted the assessment as positive and so did the LA who was previously opposing us before this.
With everybody seeing it as positive it was then put forward that the independent social worker must come back to us to ask us more questions which was not asked in the first assessment done by the iws, the LA wrote out the extra questions to be asked as from the first assessment which was done by the isw our circumstances changed dramatically due to our work commitments, we employed a manager for our business so we could both be there together to take care of our grandchildren.
The further questions was asked and the assessment came back positive.
After this we had a schedule in place done by the LA where we was seeing our grandchildren at contact centres and then they was just about to come to our home for visits then the covid 19 lockdown came in!
There was a irh hearing which was booked in court for end of April and by then we would of completed the schedule.
A court hearing took place by video link but we was not able to be in the link and was updated by telephone afterwards.
The update is: the final hearing has been moved to October 20, an irh hearing will be in September and another schedule is being put in place but with the our grandchildren coming straight to our home with no more contact centres.
May I add we have had to fight this for a year without being party to court, with no legal advice as our previous income was so up and down from our cleaning business that we could not get legal aid.
The children’s guardian is also on our side.
Just before the lockdown (covid 19)
we had a meeting with the LA and the children’s social worker manager which involved the foster carer too, they agreed they are happy for the children to come to us, a schedule was put in place and we carried on seeing the children.
Recently I had a phone call off the children’s social worker saying that we now have to do a regulation 24 assessment, with a full medical check, dbs and a financial statement, the checks are fine with us but we do not understand why we would need another assessment which is so in-depth just like the ones we had done with the isw.
We also had character references checked by the isw, but she is asking us to get more references ready and we will need 3 each!
The children’s social worker also stated it does not matter if we fail the long term foster assessment, this is what concerned us if we failed, as she can go for a child arrangement order along side an sgo she stared if we fail.
So we are wondering why? Why? If it doesn’t matter anyway.
We have been through so much and have been questioned over and over again with hours and hours of questioning one by one and both of us together.
Is there another option?
Do we have to do this?
We feel like she wants more questions answered as they didn’t do their job properly form the beginning.
The LA have been a pain from the start and wanted the children to be adopted.
Please can anyone help?
Also it was not said in any meeting or in court that we would have to do a long term fostering (regulation 24) assessment.