Help! Brothers ex-wife sectioned..does he need to get sole residency?

[underpinned]

need some advice please...

My brother's ex-wife has been sectioned under the mental health act. She has been acting strangely and has refused to speak to him for the last few weeks. The school rang my brother and he now has the 3 children, whom he is happy to have .

However, he works shifts, has no residency order in place (although was seeing children 2 days a week) and is struggling financially i.e. ex wife has all benefits and he pays her maintenance.

She is being assessed in hospital but due to her violent outbursts we expect she'll be in hospital for some time.

He needs to access funds as he works shifts and has no money to pay for childcare.

Should he go for sole residency or Joint?

We are desperate to get help for him....there is no information about this in the child benefit web site.

seek help urgently at here and here

There is little help for fathers in situations like this. You will find positive help there though, best of luck x

He should be able to get the Child benefit payments paid to him direct.

He should see a solicitor and consider applying for a Residence Order.

How old are the children?

What is the expectative for your brother's wife? is she expected to be there for weeks? months? I'm not going to say years as that is impossible to predict...

Ask him to check www.turn2us.org.uk/ for possible help with tax credits and childcare for lone parents. Child Benefit should go to him while he has the children with him.

WRT the residence order, I don't see why he needs to apply for one right now. Unless he wants to keep the children with him after she improves, I don't see the point. It doesn't bring him any extra benefits apart of making it difficult for the wife to get the children back once that she is better. Is that what he wants? If I were him I would wait until he is used to the routines of being a single parent 100% of the time before taking any difficult to change decisions.

I had a friend exactly in the same situation, mother sectioned and he took over the role of raising the kids on his own. He was doing a brilliant job, but he was also wise enough to see that his children, particularly his DD, needed to be around their mum as soon as she was able to cope with the the responsibility. Your brother wouldn't know about these things until he had the children around for some time, so IMO it is better to wait until he can work out what is better for the children.

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