Please Help! I have really blown it with CAFCASS Guardian today

[tartyhighheels]

Oh God, she stormed out and I shouted! Went to court 2 weeks ago and met the guardian and the lawyer for 10 mins before the court hearing - neither of them had read the case file and the cafcass officer admitted her own records had lots of information missing. Their lack of info got them a bollocking from the judge for not being prepared and made me feel really rattled.

Fast forward 2 weeks and she come to see me for an hour after she has seen my ex.... she still hasn't had the court file or his medical records (even though they were originally requested 9 months ago) - she goes on holiday on friday for 2 weeks and returns 48 hours before her report has to be filed with the court. I told her that i felt she should read the court file about our case and the records before she makes her final report and she disagrees......

She asked lots of tricky questions and openly doubted my claims about domestic violence - to be fair, i didn't report it enough but my children are having help fom nspcc etc with it all - so i feel if i had lied, someone would have worked it out by now. We are also judged to be at high risk by a multi agency thing including the police and social services (cannot remember the name) - we have a quick response marker on our address etc . She was really difficult and asked me if i had provoked him to hit me etc, just really upset me generally as i have found it very difficult to come to terms with no having left sooner etc.

What i want to know is if someone else had has difficulty with a cafcass guardian - we had a old cafcass officer who was lovely and really fair with me and him and the girls but she has gone off long term sick and retired in the meantime.

Can i ask for this to be dealt with by another person? she was weird enough to me at the court but today was just amazing - I know i have really fucked myself up by doing this but i honestly feel that she should at least have knowledge of our three year case and all the evidence before she questions me in such an ascerbic and confrontational manner

I have been such an idiot to respond to her in this way but she kept saying really dodgy things to me and then saying she was just 'playing devils advocate' - i told her i thought this was a very innapropriate way to approach such a sensitive situation and asked if she has had any domestic violence training.... that really pissed her off

Please anyone with any advice offer me some help.

i have started a complaint about her today, i missed the return call from her supervisor becuase i do not want my children to miss out on their chance to have their say even though she is on holiday

seeing a lawyer in the morning to see if i can have her removed as she has clearly shown she has bias and no understanding of dv etc

writing to judge to explain my problems with this and asking him how i can remedy it

talking to my children solicitor or trying to again tomorrow to find out f she has the case notes yes - yesterday she didnt have them either

also chasing up a timescale for the notes and medical records

sadly detail upon detail is necessary becuase i am asking for peoples help and i do not want them to think i am some feckless twat who has acted precipitously and stopped my ex having contact for no reason - he is a fucking monster he has scared the shite out of them and i do feel that someone should listen to that and facilitate contact with that in minde - not a lot to ask for two young children who are entirely blamelesss.

Because of previous abduction attempt, the contact centre can't accomodate him??

Doesn't surprise me, ours refused to take my ex when they heard of his violence and hatred to women ( from psych report, not me giving an opinion)

Keep pushing for the forensic psych assesment.....see what comes of that. As you know, it was that psych report that was the turning point for us. It shows all the flaws.

yes the report is the thing that is needed but the cafcass officer is proposing to write her report before she has read the medical notes and she is the one that makes the call about whether the forensic psych report is necessary - i hardly think if she makes a recommendation and then reads the notes she is going to come back and admit her mistake!!! if contact has taken place by then it could be too late

i am hoping that the child pysch will have a copy too becuase we are hainvg a global assessment as a family but at the moment it looks as if this will be done before the records become available - it is a bloody shambles and i cannot believe this is so when childrens safety is in questions - he has been warned by ss for not treating dd's diabetes before but of course the officer did not have this information!!!!

the violence was the tipping factor for the contact centre - also because he had lied about it she was worried as they don't have a secure building - i am back at square one!

She told me that he had explained to her that he had not had any time off work due to mental health probs when i know for a fact he had at least 3 months last year and 4 months the year before - she was happy to take his word for it

He was also suspended from his job for something for months and he also said he was suicidal and had had a breakdown in a letter to the judge - she did not have a copy of this letter

you sound far from a feckless twat, you sound very articulate and i hope everything works out well for you.

Articulate is all well and good and having self represented, it may have got me this far but honestly, i am shitting myself because this woman has a lot of power and is no competant - clearly pissing her off (and continuing to do so by reporting the problem) was a bad idea huh? but she was so so wide of the mark i had to make a stand. I am pregnant and have 3 other children and this requires a huge amount of effort which i have no choice but to make.

Thank you for your good wishes, I hope it turns out well too because there is so much at stake.

hi THH dont be so hard on yourself the cafcass worker is clearly working unprofessionally and not according to policy, the worker sounds to be very judgemental and biased. You have not messed up at all, so what if you blew your top at least it shows you are a mother and passionate about your childrens needs. I do hope this helps....

I find the whole thing so bloody annoying these officails are supposed to be acting in the childrens best interest, half the time they dont even listen to the children they are suppose to be representing. If the previous cafcass worker was more positeve then do ask for her reports to be taken into consideration, especially if your case has recently been allocated to this present do-do. Try bringing it to the atention of your of your local MP. My MP was brilliant when the social worker was bitchin up my case, she was removed in 10 days. Keep the solicitor well informed.. Good Luck

hmmm tarty....your local mp??

not sure what they could do here,it would be interferring with judicial system so might be beyond them,but worth a shot to get cafcas sitting up listening??

Sorry Tarty - I thought you had had a final court order for supervised contact and that you had stopped it, thus your ex taking you back to court for enforcement. I didn't realise you had applied for a variation based on the contact centre not being able to provide the service and your DD's reaction. That's a very different legal position and makes the CO's behaviour almost incomprehensible! Some of them just aren't any good, TBH, and they seem to have twice the amount of holidays as the rest of us - mine wrote a report before going on holiday about events that took place WHILE he was away! So hopefully her supervisor will have had complaints about her before.

If you have another meeting with her, why not record it? Then you can quote her verbatim when you write your statement and you can go over the conversation and be absolutely clear on what she said.

I think rather tragically i have just always treid to behonest and turn up and do as they tell me and thought it would all pan out - the order the judge made for the supervised contact was not by means a final thing (the judge wanted to see medical records before he made a final order and see how the supervised stuff went because so much time had elapsed) - it was instigated by me to be honest - he was asking for weekends, everyone including the dd's nurses and teachers said that overnight was not on so he backed down and accepted supervised even though i had offered it immediately after his abduction attempt in a bid to keep things going.

Today easter cards for the children arrived even though the judge said absolutely no contact whatsoever until after the next hearing - ironically he was order to have indirect contact with them in a very structured way and he didn't bother at all really - he told the judge the childrens replies were not of the quantity or standard he expected!!!

I spoke to a solicitor today who i cannot afford to emply in any capacity other than the odd advice now and again (today cost me £180 plus vat) which put my mind at ease - she recommended that i do a bit of damage limitation with the measures i described in an earlier post but agreed that the way the cafcass guardian had approached me was highly irregular - she told me that she thought the root of the problem was that in 90% of cases when a guardian becomes involved it is because people have had their children taken into care and things like that and by definition had social problems etc and nearly always didn't really know their rights etc so meeting someone like me was not what she planned... this may or may not be true but she was not at all fair on me.

I am starting a complaint about her because i do feel that she has made things so hard and i am dreading my dd's having to tlak to her, she is so completely lacking in any warmth that i think she will have a hard job with them.

Recent Ofsted reports damn CAFCASS in all the areas where inspections were carried out. However, you can't complain about CAFCASS faithfully documenting something stupid that you chose to share with them. The only bits you can complain about are errors of fact and errors of law where the CAFCASS officer has asserted a certain point of law to underline their conclusion, but the point of law concerned is wrong.

eg Conclusions ­base­d on inadequate facts or misunderstandings. For example, if a conclusion is drawn out of nowhere, with no supporting facts, or facts that support a different conclusion. The error of Fact might be a misunderstanding of the law.

Factual or logical inconsistencies.

If you feel that there are errors of fact or law, the place to raise these is in the subsenquent directions hearing (or final hearing as appropriate). A lawyer will handle this for you. By and large, there is absolutely no point in complaining to CAFCASS directly.

I think i can complain about being asked about dv in such a way - from a standpoint of not believing me and me having to prove myself. I think i can complain that someone can file a report not having read background or medical records.

There is absolutely every point in complaining to cafcass directly, mainly because she was so completly insensitive and i want to make ehr aware that it is not acceptable to treat people like that. Remember my poor dd's still have to tlak to her and if that insensitivity is used on them too, god help her.

Whether it goes anywhere or not i cannot influence but i am not taking this shit laying down, her attitude is perpetuating the abuse done to me and my lovely dd's and i will not stand for it.

If she does write the report without reading the file, she will either make it so vague it will be useless or she will make a factual error and i will nail her on it. She is meant to be helping my dd's, how can she do that if she refuses to know what happened before she makes a recommendation,

However, you can't complain about CAFCASS faithfully documenting something stupid that you chose to share with them.

Did I do this? Have i missed something?

Just got back from my hols and have a huge package from the childrens lawyer which is the bundle for our case - she has asked me to check it all anf list all missing pieces of evidence!! she has already found some missing stuff and this is 3 years worth of stuff...

The cafcass monster is back at work tomorrow and i do not see how she can read this entire file and his medical records before she has to file her interim report on wednesday

i am just absolutely overwhelmed by this, pregnant and emotional and it is very hard to trawl through all this horrible stuff in the fole though - a relief though that at least things are moving along i guess

a psych has been appointed to do a global assessment of us all (even though he is the one claiming to be suicidal etc etc) - has anyone elses children been through a assessment like this - how can anone get to the bottom of this by only meeting the children for 2 hours?

I had a similar experience with CAFCASS I was however very very lucky to have an amazing barrister.
So when we went to the hearing, the barrister was adamant that I had not agreed to unsupervised access and the contents of the CAFCASS report were completely made up, dear god they so were, the CAFCASS officer had not paid any attention to my concerns, had laughed off my domestic violence issues, had suggested that as my children had only suffered any example I could bring to his attention as 'one off' they were not at risk!!!

I ended up having a fact finding hearing, I had to stand up in court and prove within a balance of probabilities that I was telling the truth, luckily for me I had a couple of police reports and witnesses in frineds who had seen the after effects of ex's handy work, however I was unable to prove that ex had been violent towards my children.

I was also given a new CAFCASS officer as I pointed out in court during the first hearing, that the contents of the CAFCASS officers reports were un true, and I had no confidence in him, the judge did agree that another CAFCASS officer should prepare for the next childrens acting hearing.

The new CAFCASS officer when I went to meet him, had never ever read my file, had no idea that there was domestic violence involved, that SS had actually been involved... I was just absolutely aghast, I informed him that if my chidlren came to harm as a direct result of his recommendation to court that ex have unsupervised contact with our children I would not rest till the people involved suffered some sort of liability.

He was then very nice to me and willing to listen

He's going to recommend to court that there be a risk assessment done beofre we proceed any further.

CAFCASS are a load of crap.

fuzzywuzzy - not just me then?

my problem is that she is a guarduan, we already had an officer who went of long term sick so it has dragged on, she was not the first either, the first went off sick to (not my fault honest)

Our judge is not keen to have a finding of facts hearing becuase actually i think he beleives me and it has been 2 years since the children have seen their dad andit will slow things up

just at an absolute loss to know how to proceed now - cannot afford a good barrister - and not poor enough to get any help

I ended up having a fact finding hearing as during the ocnversation with the first CAFCASS officer, when I mentioned the DV, he claimed that I could not use DV as a rewason as it wasan't on record, to which I pointed out thew police records but he still insisted it was all alleged, so I went to court and I'd quite like to shove the judgement down his inept smug little throat and choke him!

well i take it that the cafcass woman doesn't believe me but i have never used his dv as a reason to stop cpntact per se just that my oldest dd is really disturbed by what she saw

i am retiscent to push for fact finding because the judge was not keen on it - and yes i want to shove many things down the cafcass monsters throat - honestly the stress of it all is bad enoughb but she has made it so much worse

My elsdest was very distrubed as well, I had initially allowed unsupervised contact with ex and our children, but he used the oppurtunity to severely traumatise our eldest child.

Thereafter I refuse unsupervised contact as it was having a very detrimental affect on my children, I did argue the DV as ex used the DV to upset our child, and also he has a tendancy to violence and being a controlling bully which does affect the children.

Feel for you, tarty. Whole thing is appalling. I'm afraid Cafcass is known to be in crisis and is operating under special arrangements that allow them to ditch a lot of work they just don't have the staff to do - I heard a programme on Radio Four about it which included an interview with a judge who was horrified at what was going on.

it seems as if we have similar situations: he is clamiming parntal alientation syndrome and when my daughter ran away from school when she had to see hom he claimed she has readjustment syndrome after several months because i had moved her school

its all syndromes and me putting them against him rather than him seeing his rounds of overwhelming them, punishing them severely and then ignoring them when they don't play abll has caused all this - sadly the only witnesses apart from one visit to the docs are my children..

Tarty I work in children's mental health and lots of things are decided on a meeting with the kids of an hour or two. A lot lonbger and it is detramental to the children and the consultants can really pick up a lot in the short time they see the children - I know everything seems rushed and I fought for custody of DD for 2 years and went through all this but you cannot imagine the workload of all the professionals involved in your case and so although you think you are not being given much help or time you are being given what everyone else gets and what can be fit in around everything else that needs to be adderssed in the meantl health profession - often it is children trying to end their lives so I have to say you are very lucky to get that time at all.

As for the comment made by the CAFCASS officer - that needs to be addressed as if she thinks that hitting a person even with provocation is acceptable well then clearly she is in the wrong profession.

Oh and my CAFCASS officer wasw shit but she saw through XH and I eventually got custody of DD - I hope it all works out well for you in the end.

Have you spoken to your childrens school?

I was actually called into school because my daughter was exhibiting such extreme behaviour the teachers were all very concerned, I then obtained a letter from the school detailing her behaviour and the teachers concerns, this helped in court. Altho rather hilariously ex stood up in court and accused the ehad mistress of having lied in the letter, the judge just stared at him aghast and then asked 'Are oyu telling me a Head teahcer has written a letter on ehaded paper, filled it with lies, and then signed her name to it??'

Are your children receiving any sort of play therapy, take them to a GP and ask for a referral for family counselling (my children were classed as 'not damaged enough' to recieve NHS counselling, God help the children who are).

oh my - sounds like we are married to the same man

their old school did that and came out very strongly against time - my oldest dd is gettign specialist counselling from the nspcc domestic violence people - also has attended group therapy because of it - so i have no idea where all this has come from - as i have never labourded the dv point i was gobsmacked to be honest

i will talk to their school and ask for their help - the cafcass monster wants to speak to them anyway but her angle is such a dodgy one i feel i cannot trust her to speak with my dds

my exh has all along the way claimed that i have done a hatchet job on him with all the professionals teachers etc that have given their opinion - he has provided no counter evidence at all - just a statement from his mother and girlfriend as to what a horrible person i am

my children could not be referred for help through the gp either - i do have some private healthcare but this would be seen as biased as we are paying for it ...

ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!