Social Services want my son to come home to me.. ***MNHQ adding content warning***

[TheGreenBee]

UK.

Social services want my 15yo to come back home to me after he has sexually abused my 4yo which is his brother and he’s also done this to his 8yo brother from his dads house too . I’ve been dealing with 4 safeguarding officers from each of my children’s schools and preschool - they all agree my 15yo should not come home.
Social services are threatening me with claims of neglect despite me begging them for help rehoming him and getting him the help he needs (he’s struggled for a long time with mental health and no one listens or helps and now it’s got way too far) I need to protect the innocent children I have at home, as well as try to find him somewhere safe & suitable to live etc & I keep being told he needs to come home.
His grandma had him a few days but said he had to go, his dad has suggested to social services that he stays in a summer house in his garden - which I’ve argued I don’t think is suitable at all and that he needs to be properly housed.
The social worker laughed at me when I suggested foster care & keeps threatening me and trying to blackmail me etc.
I’m waiting for her report and recommendations but she’s already suggested to me that my 3 other children go to live with their dads and I have my 15yo home but I don’t want to do that, they need their mum more than anything right now and I need them too. I know my 15yo needs help and support too, but I can’t help him in the ways he needs and I feel so hurt and angry and broken over it all I don’t want to look at him or talk to him.
Does anyone have any useful advice on a situation like this?
I feel like the social worker has lost her marbles? Or have I? My head and heart are f*cked tbh.

OP spend your time in the SW, or making a complaint at this stage.
You are busy and need to help son and younger children.

If SW really think he can be wt home with you and everyone is safe …. you can ask SW for a “ plan”. How do you do this safely without creating risk of harm.

Your 15 y.o. Needs a plan as well. How does he keep himself from creating risk etc.

Just “going home” from wherever, is not good enough.

I am disgusted and shocked by the attitude of some people on this thread. He is a CHILD.

OP please speak to the Lucy Faithful Foundation or Stop it Now.

Hiding this thread now.

Another approach is See You in Court then

OMG he's a sexual predator, hide all you like

As I said upthread that this happened in my extended family.

I received a heart felt phone call from this extended member of the family - never had that much to do with him previously, very much weddings, christening, funerals type relationship. He was desperate, he needed to protect his other children but couldn’t (as much as he wanted to!) just kick his 15-year-old onto the street. I’d never want my worse enemy to go through what he did, and to what you are going through now.

I’m sorry OP, but as much as you don’t want to have to share what’s happened to anyone outside your immediate circle, you’re going to have to. It’s the school holidays, any chance he can go live with a school friend - offer to pay them board/expenses? A family friend without kids? A neighbour? Cousin twice removed? Essentially you’re going to have to find your own informal foster arrangement. There’s good people out there who will help. You just need to find them/fall on your sword.

Do you know what I want to apologise for my comment last night that was deleted where I basically victim blamed you and held you responsible for everything that happened to you

All the people giving OP a hard time......
If you had knowledge a youth was living in a home were he was abusing his siblings, would you not expect SS to be all over this?
If you knew A CHILD was living in a shed with no heating/water etc where he had access to a child he abused, wouldn't you report that?
@TheGreenBee I can feel your utter despair. Someone upthread gave you a link how to get way above the SW & her managers heads.
I strongly suggest this.
Email, paper trail, cc your solicitor.
You sound exhausted, please remember to take care of yourself, nobody else is looking out for you right now. 🌻

Thank you for apologising, it means a lot

If either mum or dad moved out to live with the 15 yr old, what message is that sending to the younger ones who were abused? They get punished by being split from a parent because their brother sexually abusing them. Imagine the mind fuck that creates as they grow up. How many things will they start keeping to themselves in fear a parent would be taken from them. They are 4 and 8, they will not process this in the way an adult would. On the flip side, by having a parent choose them over the ones he abused, what message is that sending this troubled 15 yr old, who knows right from wrong. What punishment does he get from inflicting trauma.

The amount of posters on MN who talk about how much SA affected them throughout their adult life, esp when the perpetrator wasn't punished should be a warning! I wonder how many people backing the parents moving out and taking back the 15 yr old have ever paid sympathetic lip service to those peoples stories!

Sexual abuse in childhood absolutely destroys people.
My abuser got away with it , and it was many years later I plucked up courage to tell parents - in tiny instalments.
Both of whom remembered the perpetrator.

Neither wanted me to go to police, though.
He is likely dead now, and good riddance- I was obviously not his only victim.

Abusers destroy lives-
There ought to be a way of crushing their addiction to children, but there isn’t .

The long term damage done is probably why they are so reviled, no matter if 14 or 84

Step dad. As I understand it, the victim in the house where the abusive child is living in the shed lives there with his mum and can continue to live there while his step dad moves out temporarily to live with his 15 year old son- who cannot live with his mum or siblings.

No not step dad. He lives in a shed in his dad’s garden, he is also dad to two other boys that live there - one of which was SA

Ok. But those boys have a mum at home with them.
Do your other children have a dad at home with them?
Better to leave all the children bar one in their own homes with one of their parents, than moving children.

His dad and him need to live somewhere temporarily to help everyone stay safe.

15 year old boys can and do rape. They can also kill with intent. They can commit horrific acts against victims. We may hope for their rehabilitation and push all our rescues as a society to try to fix him because he's a minor, but he's not innocent nor is he safe to be around children or other teens. He has the body and the sexual capabilities of a man. It's why we have a word for these in between ages: teenagers.

Why do the children in the dads household have to sacrifice having their dad for the sake of their abuser?

OP has said they want him to have help but neither are equipped to be able to provide him with the kind of help and rehabilitation he needs.

Why are you people so insistent that the abused kids should be the ones to suffer AGAIN!

I'm so sorry to read your story, that is awful.
I hope you've managed to find a way to get through the other side. I can't pretend to imagine what that does to you and I'm angry for you to never see him punished.

This is a horrible situation where there is no good answer to the question of "How does a family keep all their children safe when one is abusing others?". Ideally, social work should offer a placement that meets the risk management needs of the perpetrating minor. If they won't or can't do that, though, then the question needing addressed is: "What is the least bad option here?".

A 15 year old can't live by themselves.

Living with mum in mum's house would mean either 3 other children are at risk of further harm or those 3 other children have to leave their home and their mum so the 15 year old can move in.

Living with dad in dad's house would mean either 2 other children are at risk of further harm or those 2 other children have to leave their home and either both parents or one parent (if their mum moved out with them), so the 15 year old can move in.

If dad gets a rental somewhere with the 15 year old, he could stay there until they're legally able to live alone and then move back to the family home. That would mean all the other children would stay in their own homes, with their mums, and could have time with dad when dad isn't with the 15 year old. That could be the least bad option if social work can't or won't help.

All the options are awful, because it's an awful situation. The OP is in a situation no parent should ever have to navigate.

Thanks, @Demonhunter
Sadly I am FAR from alone.

Women friends have said how they were abused as children - and only in one case that I know personally of did the perpetrator get caught and jailed.

Even then, that was very traumatic for the victim, to have to go to court. {Hopefully now, children are protected when giving evidence}.

None of the options are nice. The situation isn’t nice.

Of the possibilities available, one of them keeps all the children with a parent.

Yes, in an ideal world SS would have a therapeutic placement available for the 15yr old.

Until that option appears the least worst is for the dad to step up. He is still responsible for his 15 yr old, even if that DC has behaved appallingly.

OP hasn’t said anywhere what other behaviour the 15 yr old has, drug use, or treatments he’s received.

He may have additional needs, all sorts. All of that has to be considered because although he has behaved appallingly and injured his siblings, HE IS still A CHILD. He won’t fully mature for another ten years.

He doesn’t use drugs, he’s very intelligent and doing very well at school predicted A’s and A* for every GCSE and is on target to reach them. We’ve been trying to get proper help for years, with CAHMS and other mental health services. I signed up to a mental health first aid course to help him, we’ve paid for pvt counselling and therapies, he’s on anxiety and sickness meds. He lies, and believes his own lies, he steals, is aggressive attacking his sister twice and smashing up his belongings and ours, and now this which he has admitted to doing the reason being we confiscated his iPhone and replaced it with a Nokia because some of the things he was doing/saying were in explicit and completely inappropriate for a 15yo. The PO that spoke to him although not medically trained, said in all his years of policing he’s got a feel for certain things along the way and feels he has an underlying undiagnosed personality disorder, which I agree with but unfortunately haven’t been able to find the right support or diagnosis for this. Some of the support in this forum has pointed me in some directions I was unaware of til now, so I’m hoping some of these services may be able to help in some way to getting the right treatment, support or possibly diagnosis.

Police officers should never be telling parents that their teenagers have personality disorders, that's appalling. You won't get a diagnosis of a personality disorder for a teenager and even if he does have traits it's not the place of a police officer to say so!

To be honest, it was a relief when he said it because I’ve been saying similar for a very long time and no one’s been listening. He did say he’s not medically trained and said it was his opinion based on meeting my son and conversing with him, he also picked up on narcissistic traits and the fact that he believes his own lies relying them as facts when upon fact checking the po caught him out in numerous lies. Whether he should have kept it to himself or not, I’m glad he didn’t and he was honest with me on his views, after 20 odd years as a po I’m sure he’s had experience with all types of people with or without different conditions and mh

Honestly, as a totally random on the internet with a better than average interest and experience with children with challenges- I was thinking the same. If you have excluded everything else, know that it’s not trauma, drugs, or brain injury, etc, then that’s kind of where you end up.

But he’s a child for another two+ years and needs support and treatment.

Absolutely he does and that’s what I’m trying to put in place for him because all the avenues we’ve already tried have somehow led to this.

Police officers come out with this sort of claptrap all the time

My favourite is when they have picked up a teenager, either from being missing or up to no good, dropped them back at the carer or wherever they live and make comments like 'he needs to be sectioned', 'his behaviour was out of control'

Oh, but you didnt think to ask for a mental health assessment and you didnt 136 them?

Police officers make really inappropriate comments all the time that dont match up with what actions they then take.