DS 13 being moved to new foster placement and me not being contacted

[TheLovelinessOfDemons]

My DS has been in foster care for a year and we knew he was going to be moved. Social services haven't contacted me or the present foster carers, they rang DS yesterday and are picking him up today to take him God knows where.

As the only reason he's in foster care is bc I'm a widowed parent, in work and he has ADHD and needs an adult with him at all times, therefore my knowing his whereabouts won't threaten his safety in any way, can they legally move him without informing me?

In the past few years his DB moved in with my aunt bc he has an eating disorder and could eat there, his DF passed away and he's been taken away from me, as he sees it. I dread to think what this is doing to his mental health.

I didn't even know they'd do that and it wasn't suggested to me.

• An ICO gives the Local Authority (LA) shared parental responsibility for the child, which means they can make decisions about the child's living arrangements without the parents' permission.

not without the court's permission. And if the parents don't agree then it has to come to court for the judge to decide. The local authority cannot make unilateral decisions about placement moves when they have an interim care order.

I know non verbal children in nappies at special schools get MRC and no mobility and fully verbal, academically 'normal' autistic children with a private diagnosis get HRC LRM straight away. The system is not always fair.

Many (most?) of the Looked After Children I have worked with or know of have ADHD.

Direct payments are for people with certain disabilities. I don't think your son would qualify.

I mean though OP would know if there's a full care order or even an ico, because there would have been proceedings. My guess it's a voluntary arrangement & the SW hasn't done the communication properly

Nobody whisked him away, the foster carers were given less than a day's notice and social services didn't tell me, but it's this lack of information about who he's with that bothers me. I just want to know that he's with kind people. I don't want any other information.

He would qualify but getting direct payments is a postcode lottery. We used to get 2 hours a week, now my dd has turned 18 they have taken away the 2 hours and we just get hours during school holidays (she’s in a placement/Sen college). When I threaten to stop caring for her they ask me “what would make you change your mind?”, I ask for my respite hours and it’s turned down. Really it’s easier to get your child put into care than it is to get care at home, the system is awful.

No. They're foster carers. I've had a very open relationship with them. They chat to me on WhatsApp like a friend. They know that we all have a common interest, which is the wellbeing of DS.

It seems like either their communication to you is appalling or, I don't want to say this, perhaps you were unable to concentrate on what they were saying at the time. (Understandably). I fear its the former. If you feel upto it, then it may be worth trying to find out more about the system.

They did tell them that he was moving the next day, that's how I know, because the foster carers told me, but they rang DS directly today to arrange to pick him up and barely spoke to the foster carers when they arrived. If I were the foster carers I'd be very pissed off at being treated like that, and wouldn't want to deal with those 2 social workers again.

I wouldn't let a job mean my child ends up in the care system.

Why not go part time? Use some sort of childcare or transport service to get him ti and from school? You maybe able to get help with childcare? If is ADHD is this bad I am surprised you aren't able to seek more support for him like DLA meaning you wouldn't have to work under UC's rules.

We're very close.

There is no work requirement if you are a carer which you would be if he lived with you.

You also get additional elements on UC.

It was a planned move, necessitated by DS repeatedly running away somewhere in between the foster home and school, the longest he stayed away was 19 days, only once did he go back voluntarily. The foster carers have another boy to think about and were probably at just as much of a loss as me.

I think that what you really need to do is give his SW a ring tomorrow and ask why you weren't informed he has moved and check he has settled well. At the end of the day he is the most important person in all this.

A 13 year old boy ran away from foster care for 19 days? Did anyone know where he was? I don't say this lightly, but perhaps he needs a Deprivation of Liberty order?

Yes they do and I don't have supervised contact, I have unsupervised contact fortnightly, we got into town for a few hours, eat lunch, I might buy him a gift not too often because I'm on minimum wage.

Sorry you’re being piled on OP. This sounds like a really hard situation. Definitely call the SWs and let them know you need to be informed before they move him in future and also you’d like to know the reasons behind the move. It’s not idea from a stability pov.

What job do you do op?

OP I have no advice but I just wanted to send you a giant hug. I guessed at the first part that it was likely due to universal credit’s ridiculously strict and heartless rules that you’re in this situation.
There seems to be a lot of people on this thread with wealth privilege and don’t know what it’s like to be a single parent on UC. You can’t just ‘give up work to look after your son’ as people are suggesting because UC simply won’t allow it, as you’ve rightly pointed out - then you’d get sanctioned and you and your DS would have no money to live on. Obviously you’d rather have him with you, that goes without saying but UC is so broken you don’t have a choice 😿 this is absolutely heartbreaking and a huge show of how broken our country is. There’s so many people out there who don’t work for no real reason yet you have a genuine reason why you shouldn’t have to look for work yet UC don’t care about your son’s safety. It’s disgusting it really is. You clearly love your son a lot & are doing what’s best for them, even though I can imagine how much it must of broken your heart to put them in car 🫂 I don’t have any advice, but I’m just so sorry 🩷

It's my aunt not his, and she's way too old to deal with him.

Oh wait sorry, the child who feels “taken” is a different child to your other 2?? Apologies, was unaware. DS 13 was running wild, I see that, but was his school not able to help/assign someone to watch him? Meet you at the gate, walk him in and stay with him until you picked him up? I know that you’re working and of course this complicates things (and is necessary!!) but was there no available childcare? SS seems extreme. As a teacher, we often had flight risks, but they had to flee past an assigned “watcher”, school gates & alarms. Would moving him to a different school be a possibility if that’s the main issue/main way he was getting loose?

My child did this, at one point I was almost begging them to take her into care. It never even came close to happening, as they said she would still exhibit the same behaviours there but then be without the protective factors of family (me). I do think there is more to your story.

Not necessarily. If OP did happen to be a danger to her child, I imagine 95% of the replies would be the same; keep him away from her. We’ve now gotten answers in trickle down posts to clarify the situation better, but a lot of confusion could have been avoided if the first post had contained all the information in one go

Without at least half the story, all OP would have gotten was “there, there, pet” which isn’t exactly sound advice or support, in my opinion

She's my aunt not my sister and yes she is. And yes I do have parental responsibility for DS 13.