Ex partner checks - can be avoided?

[Newhere2023]

Me and my current partner (together 11 yrs) would love to foster next year, but reading about ex-partner checks is making me feel so uneasy. I gave birth to my first child when I was 14, his bio father being much older and sentenced to jail time/ added to the sex offenders register. I have had nothing to do with the man in 15yrs since a few solicitors letters and supervised visits which I stopped very early on.

I'd really appreciate any advice on whether our social worker would insist on getting in contact with him? He doesn't know where we live, where his son goes to school, or anything about us and I would like to keep it that way. He hasn't attempted to reach out either in all that time. The whole thing makes me feel ill.

I’m not sure if the checks are similar to adoption, but that the side I’m coming from. I have an abusive ex (very mild compared to yours, it must have been awful to go through). For me my social worker informed me that they wouldn’t contact him as doing so could lead to harm, but as I wasn’t sure of his address, didn’t contact him etc, they were happy his existence wouldn’t put a child at risk as they wouldn’t be exposed to him.

Thanks so much for replying, I honestly have no idea where he is etc either but hopefully it will be avoidable if similar to your adoption process.

I don't see how your rapist could possibly count as an ex partner. That would be awful.

I would get professional advice first as I have a feeling this could cause issues as he has a legal right in the form of Parental Responsibility. It's very, very unlikely that his parental responsibility can be revoked.

Meaning once he's out of jail, he has a legal right to contact you to request access. The courts may be reluctant to grant him unsupervised access (away from a supervised contact centre) but they almost certainly won’t refuse him ANY access.
This in turn may be viewed by SS as potential to expose any fostered children to him.

He's been out of prison for 12 years, and no contact. I'm worried that someone getting in touch with him about us would change that. His name isn't on the birth certificate so I assume it would be a lot of effort that I don't think he'd be willing to make to prove he is my son's bio father.