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.

There are special schools - call school and ask how parents gets kids in.

www.appleorchard.org.uk/

They don’t allow it because it’s seen as coercive, I even asked the PO and SW if I could sit with my 4yo and just repeat word for word the questions they ask and they said no, not even allowed in the room with them, and my 4yo doesn’t talk to anyone except me and his dad & siblings, unless he’s been with you a good few hours.

I’ll check this out! Thank you!

OP I don't have any advice, I just wanted to say you seem like a lovely mum in a really tough place.

Yes, SS should help with housing and counselling your 15 year old and some of the more outlandish suggestions (send your other three to their dad? What??) are ridiculous. I would pursue that but I did just want to say that my 30 year old friend has been living in his mum's shed for 4 years. It really doesn't need to be as bad as you seem to think! He has to use the house for the toilet and water but he has an extension lead for electric so has a mini fridge, microwave, kettle etc and a decent bed and storage, plus an electric heater in winter. He's perfectly happy. If DS can be kept away from his little brother by his dad this may be the only solution.

Is your DS still going to school? Sorry if I missed this.

I'm not surprised you head's mashed - in fact, what I AM surprised about, amazed even is how great of a job you're doing with keeping yourself together, and I mean that very sincerely. Sure, you might only have your nose two millimetres above the water level, but that's enough.

As far as advice I've got two ideas, both of which are "doomsday device" / "thermonuclear" options:

First is to go your MP and tell them everything you've told us, lumps bumps and all. They love things like this, because they can fix it with a snap of their fingers and look like the big hero. Get it mentioned in the House of Commons, they'll be fighting over who gets to sort it out.

Second is the quick and dirty method: www.TheSun.co.uk.
Tabloids have a carnal bloodthirst for things, and will absolutely go to war on your behalf using their resources and their connections. There'll be some publicity and negative attention of course, but the job will get done...

I don’t know how they have sexually abused their sibling, when did the behaviour begin and can it be linked to something that happened to them during their own childhood, do they have SN, were they sexually abused themselves (that you know of)

Thank you, yep day by day at the moment just doing the best we can to get through, with all the appointments and calls etc I’ve not had time to crumble yet, it will come but atm there’s too much to try and sort and on top of it the normal daily mum tasks and work.

These are both good suggestions, I prefer the first one as it comes with less side effects, but I will try anything to get this all moving forward in the right direction!

I don't think going to the papers is right.. unless you can guarantee some kind of anonymity that will be out there forever, I don't think the innocent children want there to be some kind of permanent reminder online. I know they won't mention children's names etc but there will be identifying information - ages, locations etc. there has to be a better option than that

This wouldn’t be a nurturing environment. He is 15, he needs to be safe and cared for not just provided with a roof. If it can’t be at home (understandable) then he needs a therapeutic care facility, so that this pattern of abuse doesn’t continue.

OP, can you get your 4 year into therapy. They do play therapy for little kids. All the school if they can do it. Not all schools have it, but this is serious.

If your 15 yo doesn't get help, he'll go on to sexually abuse those outside his home. He's a danger and the lack of help/support from social services and the NHS are a large factor in the reasons people like him end up becoming offenders.

He said he did it because he was angry at me and his dad because we made a joint decision to take his iPhone away and bought him an old nokia temporarily because he was doing some inappropriate things in his words for attention. We explained to him that he can’t be doing those things annd the reasons why etc annd he said he didn’t want to do them anymore and he was happy he couldn’t access certain things anymore etc, I asked him numerous times if anything had happened to him, and he was adamant it definitely hadn’t etc. We’ve been trying to get help for years as it started with lying, stealing, smashing things, destroying his room, then hitting himself, then beating my 13yo on two occasions, then the sickness and anxiety etc, the phone stuff and then this.

So he's currently living in a shed??
Why on earth do SS think this is acceptable?
Do they want him to live in a shed at your house or inside your home?
Does he have electricity? What about when it's winter?

This is crazy OP and I have huge respect for you protecting your 3 youngest children and still trying to do right by your eldest. Good luck.

Yep I’ve spoken with the DSL’s at the schools and got counselling and play therapy in place for when he starts school in September and counselling for my 5yo and 13yo also starts September, and they have been supporting from day 1 even given me their personal numbers for the school holidays if needed which is thoughtful.

I know, and this is a fear I now have, and the reason why I’ve not given up yet. There has to be something/someone that can help, because I dread to think if not.

My thoughts exactly. No electric, no heat. Just a bed and solitude. The shed is at his dad’s house, but he’s abused one child there and one at mine, so he can’t live in either house. I argued with his dad and 3SW’s on a zoom call about how inappropriate it is, and I believe this actually falls under neglect. But they have refused to help, and he can’t come home so like someone else mentioned earlier I’m in between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Completely agree, and it would probably be the best thing for him tbh, safe, secure and getting the right level of help that he needs. And that is a hard thing to admit as his mum, but he’s beyond our help now 😭

If you want help from an MP it has to be your own MP. Someone your sister knows will not be able to help if you do not live in his constituency. Google Find your MP and write to him at the House of Commons. Include your full address and postcode.

There’s more to this because a lot of kids get their phones taken away and they don’t think to sexually abuse anyone. What happened to them during their childhood/throughout their life that might have led to this that you know of? What causes the severe anxiety and mental health issues?

Thank you so much.

Yes he is still going to school, their DSL said if the police aren’t doing anything there’s not much they need to except check in on him and let him know they are there if he wants to talk.

I appreciate that, but this is literally a shed with a bed, 24/7. And with his mental health already this bad, I don’t think being in there alone for 6 weeks summer holidays will do him any good. I could be wrong maybe he’ll like the quiet, but it just doesn’t seem to me like the best option, but it may be the only one right now 🥺

OP I'm amazed you think going to the press might help. They'll be looking to sell papers, not to fight for foster care for your abusive DS. Are you sure they couldn't twist things to make you look like the bad guy?
Also I'm with others that the shed isn't necessarily the worst option depending what options you have.
If you find a supportive children's home like PP mentioned (that take in sex offenders?) then great, but I'm not sure how many of these exist nor how many spaces they'd have, especially for a tormented/criminal teenager like your DS.
You say the SW laughed at you- are you sure this wasn't more of a shock/disbelief response to your expectations?
I'd say the state care that you're pushing for is more likely to make your DS worse given budget pressures and the volume of other kids needing safe shelter who haven't been abusing others who'd be first on the list for the good places like PP described.
Sadly for you I think the best option all round is for you, the DS dad and other relatives to step up. You might have to get your little ones to stay with relatives so he can come to you one/two nights a week, his dad does the same so you have 8yo brother more often, and 15yo goes to relatives once or twice a week too.
You seem keen on getting police involved but if he went to a YOI what would he end up like then? You think he'd be rehabilitated and end up better? Not a chance.
He'd be bottom of the list for all therapy etc in a state institution where you and his dad can give him the attention he's clearly desperate for- without your other kids around to be at risk.
Your priority needs to be keeping him away from bad influences so no other offenders, no internet, lots of sports/other hobbies in the day to physically tire him out and occupy his mind, and yes alone time with books/clean tv/music in the evenings in a kitted out shed is probably your best bet.
Can he get a job in 6 months age 16? Glass collecting in a pub or shelf stacking?
There's a chance from all his remorse that he could get back to being a normal kid but not if he's outsourced to cheap state care where no one will love him like a parent can.

Why would going to MP or papers help? There are many criminal teens around, and quite often kicked out of home at 16, nothing unusual, nothing to fight FOR

He is a sex offender. He has a bed in a shed. he can move into a hostel for the homeless at 16

There is no problem, as such. Except needing supervision to go to the toilet, but he could be provided with a chemical toilet for the time being, possibly.

As someone rudely pointed out earlier my shit show of a life probably caused it. He’s seen and heard a few things, but despite my shit show of a life I e actually kept the children as protected and guarded from most of it and they know very little about it, tbh my childhood was far more turbulent and abusive and I haven’t grown up to sexually abuse anyone or harm anyone in any way. He’s had counselling, different therapies and on medication etc, he just needs more specialised help.
The PO after speaking with him said he thinks there’s an undiagnosed personality disorder and said he was also displaying some narcissistic traits and he said another long word beginning with M that I can’t remember.

The OP can’t “go to the press”, this is her sons private matters and it getting out would ruin the rest of his life

Agree, chemical toilet, insulate it and fit electricity so it's heated, under parents watchful eyes. No smartphones or internet, occupy his mind and physically tire him out - does the dad go running /to the gym- take him etc.
What does his dad and the rest of your family think? You need wider support from grandparents imo.

And the impact this has on one of the children he’s sexually abused and his other brother that also lives there will be what? Anyone that’s been sexually abused would not cope well seeing their abuser and brother daily in their garden. They are young children that don’t fully understand what he’s done is wrong they still love him and don’t understand why they can’t talk or hug him anymore etc.

And what happens when he’s 16, and goes off and does it to someone else’s child?

Putting the right level of support in place would hopefully prevent that from ever happening, leaving him to it won’t

Their logic is that the 15 year old is also a child and should be at home with one of his parents, obviously?