My sisters children are going to be removed

[Namechange543]

Name changed for this but hoping someone can offer some advice.

My sisters children are going to be removed, there is a court hearing on Tuesday to decide this but with the overwhelming evidence against her and the fact they’ve been on a child protection plan for so long with her making no positive steps it’s only going to go one way.

The social worker tells me once the judge has made a decision they will speak to family about placements for them. I really want to help but the problem is she has 3 children and I already have 2 of my own so I can’t take them all. I have a 4 bed house so couldn’t fit them even if I could cope with 5 children.

Will they want them to stay together or will they split them to keep them with family? And if they do split them how on earth do you decide which 1 you take?

It’s such a nightmare. My mum could take 1 and I could take 1 but then do we leave the 1 not chosen to go into foster care. How damaging would that be! I’ve cried so much this week with the guilt that I can’t help them all.

The 5yo is the only realistic option for you.
Without knowing more about your mum’s skills and energy levels it’s hard to say if she should have one of the other siblings, but your latest posts suggest None of them should be together.

It’s just so heartbreaking that they have not been given a chance to have a better life much, much sooner. A 5yo hospitalised by knife-wielding older siblings encouraged to fight by their own mother? I can’t even get my head round it.

They are lucky to have you to help in any way you can, OP.

I think that the extreme behaviour is most likely to be reduced when they are in a safer environment.

I would possibly have the younger one at your mothers and try to have the 2 older ones at yours. Your children are older and will hopefully be good role models. I think it is worth trying.

If it fails then at least you can say that you tried.

You mustn’t feel guilty, as it’s not your fault. You are doing your best to try to resolve an impossible situation.

I have fostered for ten years and have had three sibling groups of three during that time. One of the groups were three older boys - 15, 13 and 11. I was initially very wary about accepting this placement, as I had been called late at night on an emergency basis and knew very little about the boys. They ended up arriving at 1 in the morning and staying for nine months. During that time they became very much part of our family. However, although there were no major behavioural issues and we were very fond of them, it was still emotionally exhausting. The three boys that you described have suffered a great deal of trauma and will need a lot of extra time/emotional support and although social services generally try to keep siblings together, I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t in this instance. However, if they are placed with separate carers, the likelihood is that their carers will be asked to facilitate sibling contacts, so they will still get to see each other regularly and that shared time will be monitored and more positive.

@endlessginandtonic

OP as another social worker I would strongly advise against sending information to people met through the internet. Focus on getting the current situation resolved regardless of how cross you are about previous ones.(you can pick this back up after the current situation is resolved if you want to) It isn't unusual for kids with higher needs to be separated and it sounds as though this might well be the case here. I would caution against taking in any of the dc unless you are able to undertake training around therapeutic parenting and similar. Don't underestimate the chaos that traumatized dc bring in their wake. FC or even an adopter for the youngest dc who are trained and able to focus on them may be the best way forward. SS may push for a dump and run using family members ( equally they may not areas vary a lot) but caring for traumatized dc is very difficult so go in with your eyes open.

So would I. The OP tried to send me the report but thankfully failed, it's not appropriate. We can see from the OP's posts on here that the children need support and urgently. OP, it's not relevant if the issue should have been escalated in the past as only people who were there will know,its about what the children need now

No advice op, but sincerely wish you all well.

Your first priority is your own children. The impact of taking in your sister's child/children will be cataclysmic to your own kids. Please think very carefully before you bring this heartbreaking situation into your own family unit.

The 9 year old and 10 year old need to be in separate placements by the sound of it. They are going to need a lot of intensive input to unpick everything going on with them

If they split the three of them individually then the 5yo coming to you could be an option, but they may decide against it for the damage it could potentially do to the other two. It might be more beneficial for you to maintain a regular Aunt place in their lives

Your Mum is in her 60's, in contact with your sister and in a 1 bed flat; that's not a suitable home for any of those children.

It sounds like another example of the parent being given chance after chance to the detriment of the children. That happened when I was a kid. I'm the youngest and the only one with a "normal" life now.

I would let the 9 & 10 year olds go into long term foster care where they can get the support they need and stay in contact with the family.
The 5yo could come to you if you can cope with their needs, or would be young enough to be adopted.

After reading ths whole sorry story I think, not that I have much exprence of this, that the above might be a best option.

For someone else to take all three on would be well a very very difficul;t job yes it would be good to keep the "family" together but is that sreally the best way forward perhaps the 5 y/o might find some respite from the older ones and improve realtivly quickly as ot the older ones seems to me a very speclist job indeed.

If you had no other children namechange then possibly the 5 year old with your mum and the older two with you but not ideal, if there is an ideal answer.

The problem wth your sister should have bene nipped in the bud a long time ago and the dad in nick!!

Poor poor children:(

@Deadringer

A lot of clueless people on this thread. I foster 2 children, (not related to each other) and they both have several siblings, all living in different families. They have complex needs, and they are best addressed by being separated. Some of them started out together but it didn't work out for various reasons. They do see each other regularly. Op do what's best for you and your family, and as i said earlier, concentrate on being the best aunt that you can be. Good luck.

This.

It may well be in the best interests of each child to be placed separately. They may need the kind of highly individualised care, support and therapy that can’t be provided in a sibling group, and almost certainly not by you or your mum, OP.

I can understand this is heartbreaking for you. I’m sure you’ll be encouraged to have regular contact with them, and they with their siblings .

I'm also a social worker. I don't know why the social worker is telling you that they are going to wait to see what the Judge says in terms of placements. They should already have approached all family members and have completed Viability Assessments (which precede full fostering assessments). They should have their ducks in a row basically, before the first Hearing, and be able to tell the Judge whether there is or isn't viable wider family members who have been assessed, and if not, what sort of foster placement they already have lined up.

@conduitoffortune Really? I literally asked her this exact question about what the plans were if it goes to removal (it will) and she said they can’t plan for removal until the judge decides that what needs to happen as it can be seen as them not supporting the family to stay together if they are already making plans when it hasn’t yet been deemed that she can’t parent them. She said it can make the judge view the social worker negatively and affect the outcome of the case!

My previous post was written as you were typing your second post.

Right, a few things you say you live an hour or so away, are you under the same local authority? I say this as my son is from a different authority to the one I live in, this led to zero support as my authority wouldn’t pay for anything as they wanted my sons authority to pay for therapy etc. His authority would only refund my authority. So that is something else to think about. You have to assume that anything SS promise you won’t happen.

I know the wording of this paragraph will be unpleasant. None of the children will ever be anything like a normal child, they’re too old. The youngest is included in that. So you need to consider if you are able to provide therapy based parenting for the next 15 years and the possibility of that child needing a heavy amount of support into adulthood. You also have to consider the emotional impact if that child then chooses to return to his birth mum when hes 16.

As an adoptive parent who took on an 18 month old there is no way I would take on an older child. He may have only been just over a year when he left his birth mum but compared to a ‘normal’ child he still has issues caused by the abuse, neglect and removal from his abuser and he is a child who is doing very very well compared to other adopted children.

It is frustrating how long some children are left with their birth parents, my son suffered awful neglect and abuse, his older siblings will never recover from what happened to them. Its another thing you don’t think about, but I do hold quite a lot of anger when I think about what she chose to do to my son and his birth siblings.

@Babyroobs

I would take the youngest. Let the elder two be fostered separately be experienced foster carers who will know how to handle them. The youngest is far enough removed from your children in age for them not to feel threatened. Are your own kids on board with you re-homing one ? The youngest may well thrive on some individual attention and love. I guess you wont know without trying. How old is your mum and does she have support, it sounds like any of them might be too much for her to handle on her own ??

Sadly I agree with this. The five year old has the least problems, the elder two will need experienced, professional help. Poor kids. Hopefully you can stay in their lives.

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Friends put their two oldest boys in a small mobile unit when they took in younger family members after their parent was hospitalised (the boys were really keen and happy to lose their shared bedroom). When the boys got older they were less trustworthy and it became a games room/play room and they put bunk beds in and divided a large room into two so everyone slept in the house.

The mobile was one room with a toilet and small kitchen area. They were going to convert the garage into a dining room and then use the dining room as a small bedroom but the mobile was cheaper and quicker to sort out.

The children had a bereavement counsellor and needed a lot of support.

@SimonJT No were not in the same authority. I hadn’t realised that matters. I would be asking for support as they all need intensive support to deal with what they’ve been through. Do you really think they are too old to recover from this? I know they will never fully get over it but I had hoped that with the right support they would be able to be happy and safe in society etc. As it stands they will end up copying the same criminal behaviour and repeating the cycle of abuse. I really want to try and stop that.

OP I can totally understand why you're upset and frustrated at ss but unfortunately they're between a rock and a hard place. I don't envy them at all. If they don't remove children they're facilitating abuse

I work with children in care who live in a lovely residential home. I cannot tell you how hard it is for the children we have who have siblings who are still living with relatives whilst they have had to come into care. It's heartbreaking to see the anguish they go through when they have contact with those siblings and they think they are in care because they did something wrong. They start to feel and act as though they don't deserve to be loved. It is utterly traumatising for them and for us having to watch them go through it.

I’m so so angry at my sister and what she has done to these poor kids.

Sorry OP how hard for you, I'm not sure if anyone had already said this but you need to think of the impact having a disruptive and violent 9-10 year old moving In to your home will have on your children.

If it were me, as awful as it is, I would do my best to help the younger child and allow social services to intervene with the other two - it sounds as though they can't live together anyway and will need lots of support

I hope you work it out

Some judges can be a little individual but usually SS do some planning around possible placements.
Do you know what SS preferences are?
The more I consider this the less I think it would be in the dc's interests to move to your care.
I would be requesting family contact though.

DC aren't identical and resilience levels vary hugely so it isn't possible to say what level of recovery is possible for the dc. It is clear that they have been significantly damaged by their experiences though.

Sorry I’ve just see your update and I take back my previous post about you taking all three on. You should have put these details in your first post. You can still be a very involved aunty I’m sure.

P I can totally understand why you're upset and frustrated at ss but unfortunately they're between a rock and a hard place. I don't envy them at all. If they don't remove children they're facilitating abuse but if they do remove children especially if they're not seen to give BPs absolutely every chance possible before remove them then they're 'child snatchers' I adopted a LG. There's a massive anti adoption following out there mostly fuelled by angry BP's who will refuse to acknowledge that their child's removal was THEIR responsibility and they'll swear blind that there's some conspiracy against them. Hopefully this case demonstrates that children are only removed as an absolute last resort and that ss might not be perfect but are just trying to do a really hard job with very limited resources
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They will need a lot of support; I think you need to be sure that you will be able to get this provided before making any decisions.

Take the nine year old and five year old. You do have the space.

You can’t turn your back on one child. You've got to at least try.

@Icequeen01 That’s really sad. I can imagine why they feel like that. There’s no way we can keep 2 in the family and let 1 go into care. It’s just not fair. I don’t want to offer the youngest a home and not the oldest on the basis he will be easier. It’s not the fault of the older ones that they’ve suffered more abuse and so have more issues as a result of that.

I’m going to have a conversation with the social worker about the feasibility of my mum being suitable. Might have to find a way to stretch to taking 2 but I can’t see how it would work. My own children will be heartbroken to see them go into care. My 16 year old offered to move in with her dad so that we have 2 spare bedrooms as we were asking my children their thoughts on potentially taking 1. I’m not going to allow that to happen though, my children have to be my priority.