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.

He’s abused a child from each family so who gives up their other children for him? Let me guess, me because I birthed him?

Erm not quite no, I don’t know how to parent an abuser and the abused and play happy families and pretend like it never happened? I want to prevent it from happening to someone else’s child? I want to get him the level of specialised mental health help he needs?

Where do all these self righteous posters think this 15 year old should go??

It's not about wanting the 'cheapest and easiest option'. There will be no foster placement anywhere for this child. Nowhere for him to go. I guarantee no foster carer will take him. He's too young for a hostel. So all of you screaming for legal action and the MP getting involved etc where do you think the social worker should be putting him when there is literally nowhere for him to go?

He has a mother (and presumably a father). They are responsible for providing him with a home. They need to find a way to do this safely. That's the bottom line.

OP can you explain what you think the right level of support is that SS should be offering?
You're talking about getting the police, press and MPs involved so do you mean a young offenders institute with therapy, or foster parents or a children's home (that might well be miles away) or do you know of somewhere you want him to go?

Well yes. Who else should look after him? Sorry to be stark but if there is nowhere else for him to go why do you think you shouldn't be the person to provide him a home?

No, he will NEVER be a "normal kid" - he will always be a sex offender.

When he finishes year 11 he will be able to be placed in a hostel. Until then between you the family will need to house him.

This doesn't solve your accommodation dilemma, however CAMHS do work with young people who display sexually harmful behaviour. Can school help you to refer? Also PP who suggested an Aim2 assessment. This can be requested from youth offending. If you can get recommendations from them that would help with finding him the right accommodation. Also just wondering if he was sexually abused himself as a child?

There is none. This "specialist mental health" you keep on about does not exist. Not "its too expensive" or " it is not available in this area" but IT DOESN'T EXIST. There is no such thing. You are fantasising.

You are not going to get anything solved unless you start being able to tell reality from fantasy.

the reality is this boy (near man) is a sex offender, and that will never be undone
You don't want him in your house, his father doesn't want him, his Grandmother doesn't want him. There is very unlikely to be a foster placement. There is certainly no "specialist help" magic bullet. He might possibly be able to get into a children's home - unlikely.

He has a shed. He makes the most of the shed. ( Or he doesn't - he sits in the shed and sulks - what ever, that is up to him)

Before winter, he moves to a hostel for the homeless.

It doesn't matter how much you say your heart and your head is f None of your grief and pain is going to change anything. You need to deal with that yourself. It is a you problem. It isn't going to help or change the situation in any way

Abuse does affect people in different ways, but my son hasn’t been abused. He knows very little about the abuse I suffered because he would have been at school while it was going on (partner worked nights and wasn’t home then) I left the relationship and sought counselling straight away. You can judge me all you like, it’s not going to help or change the situation. 4 kids, 2 dads with a 10 year gap. I was told I couldn’t have any more children after the first 2 due to a health condition then ended up with my younger two a year apart with a 0.01% chance of falling pregnant. Mental right? I made some poor choices? What poor choices did I make seeing as you seem to know more about my life than me.. My partner wasn’t abusive until after I’d had his children, so how could that have been avoided? Go back in time and not have his children? I’m sick of the bullshit tbh, I’ve come on here trying to find some advice and help and support because this is a fucking horrible heartbreaking situation for all of the children and parents involved and then there’s you and a few others that want to twist the bloody knife. I didn’t ask for people’s opinions on whether they think I type like an AI bot or about every single detail of my life. Clearly I’ve got nothing to hide, I called the SS and the Police to report what had happened to two innocent children knowing full well it would rip open my bloody heart and implode my whole world. Why? Because it was the right thing to do, to save someone else’s kid, to get my son the help he needs, and to make sure all of the children involved could be helped and to feel safe. It’s too stressful for you? How the hell do you think the people living it are feeling?

No of course there is no such thing as voluntarily giving up parental 'rights'. There is no such thing as 'parental rights' they are responsibilities and they expire when your child turns 18 (or is adopted) - you accept them when you have a baby and you can't hand them over.

Plus I really don't want graphic details and please don't provide details but was the abuse regular actual SA or a one off contact with genital area to get a reaction from you? Was this the 8 yo or the 4 yo? How was he in a position to do it a second time?
You've said he said he did it because he was annoyed about his phone - that doesn't sound like a sexually motivated predator - he sounds like a child in a strop doing the naughtiest thing he can think of for attention.
If that's not the case then my apologies but he sounds mortified from what you've said so do you genuinely think he's at risk of doing it again? What stuff was he doing to get his phone confiscated and has he stopped now?
What about the violence on your 13 yo DD- a sibling scrap or something more sinister?
I do feel for you but it's hard to work out the facts from what you've said.
What does he think should happen? He's old enough to know he's done wrong and needs help/punishment/rehab as appropriate

Yes there is - section 20, Children’s Act 1989

There is a legal threshold to place young people in secure units. Social services have no control over remanding or sentencing children so I'm not sure how you think they are responsible for him not being in a young offenders institution anyway but I can assure you he wouldn't meet the threshold for placement in a secure unit by social services.

Section 20 is a voluntary arrangement between a parent and a local authority in which the local authority agrees to temporarily care for a child with the parents' agreement. The local authority does not take over parental responsibility or share it with the parents and it is only implemented with the agreement of both parties. You do not have the agreement of the local authority and you cannot force their agreement.

I just wanted to say I'm so sorry for your family going through this and we'll done to you for sticking up for your children. Surely that's absolutely no chance they can actually force this, going to MP as people have said sounds like a good plan.

SS use private foster care if they have hard to place children and obviously this costs them more. I wonder if it's worth contacting SS in another council to see if they'll give you some advice on how things work and the right questions to ask your own SS? I also recommend recording your meetings with your social worker, it could provides proof of their attitude and could be leverage to get them to house them properly.

You sound so strong, hang in there

I'd approach your local Councillor rather than MP, as they have a lot of power in this situation to question the social worker and the social services dept. as the decisions taken by the local authority are ultimately accountable to the Councillors.
I'm an ex social worker, and recall a similar situation occurring about twenty years ago. The local authority paid an independent children's home organisation to provide residential care to the young sexual offender who was 17 at the time (and the subject of a section 20, so voluntary care). They leased a small house and provided 24 hour staff cover where the young person was the only resident.

Thank you I will contact CAHMS again, they done nothing when I contacted them previously but maybe they will take it a bit more seriously now, it’s worth a shot. No he hasn’t been, as far as I’m aware and I have asked him previously because I was concerned about somethings he was saying and doing but he said he was doing it for attention and was adamant nothing of the sort has happened to him

Thank you so much, this some good advice

I will try to contact them thank you, this is great advice

It's not about costing more, there will be no foster placements for this child, whether in house or agency. There is precisely no point OP contacting social services in another area, they will do nothing but direct her back to the allocated social worker. Recording the meetings is combative but not a real issue. Using recordings as blackmail to try to coerce a department into providing something they have stated they cannot provide is shady and ultimately pointless. The social worker will be acting on guidance from their manager. Nobody is going to change their stance because a parent records them 🙄

Yes, it should be your local councillor you get in touch with. Contact details will be on your local authority website, which should also give details of when and where they hold their surgeries. As yours is a complex and confidential case I’d email the outlines of your case before visiting them. If you don’t get anywhere with them (unlikely) then you contact your MP.

I remember a similar situation too, also about 20 years ago when I started out in social work. I cannot imagine such a thing being funded now. Those kinds of extremely expensive specialist placements exist for suicidal children in extreme situations but for a young person like OP's son - not a chance. The funding is not there.