To be infuriated with social services…

[QuaintLilacBee]

To cut a long story short, my son moved out and went to live with dad, grandma, 2 aunties, aunties boyfriend and a newborn last year. This is not a court ordered arrangement, no social services involvement etc. Child wanted to live with dad and as he has parental responsibility he is allowed by law to keep him and not return him if he doesn’t want to. Dad refuses any contact with me and grandma has taken over - she arranges visits with me, she takes care of him whilst dad works etc. she removed him from the school he was at since pre-school with me, and changed his school.

Recently she took him out of school and is ‘home educating’. After speaking to my child he’s told me that he does no form of education whatsoever. When I text to see him, she often tells me he’s ’still In bed’ at 11 and 12 in the afternoon. He comes to visit me looking exhausted and dishevelled, tells me he’s been awake until 2am on the PlayStation. He spends his entire life on games and has no education. Dad doesn’t bother with him. I weighed him as I noticed he had gained considerable weight since moving there, he now weighs 66kg at just 9 years old, which is morbidly obese. Any time I collect him, he’s got multiple bags of sweets and McDonald’s, so it’s clear why he’s this weight. They have no control over him, let him do anything, stay up all night, eat junk, swear, play violent games.

During the last visit to me, his little brother dropped a teddy behind someone’s fence. My eldest proceeded to kick and punch at the fence to get it open. I told him to stop as he was going to break it and get me into trouble, and to instead knock on the door and ask politely for access. His response was to tell me to ‘shut the f* up’. I asked gran to collect him and told her what he had said and she started laughing.

I rang ss last week as I’m concerned for his weight and education. My mum also rang them as she’s recently seen him herself and is concerned about him in their care. They said they have sent a letter to dad to offer ‘optional support’ and contacted the education board to do a check. Yesterday they called me back after I emailed them further evidence of his junk diet and gaming. She told me it had all been screened and allegedly does not require social services intervention. I am absolutely raging beyond belief.

I can’t keep him myself when he comes here, as he will just run away back to dads, and dad can keep him and not return him once again. He prefers living with dad as there’s no rules or restrictions and he can do whatever the hell he wants.

Im concerned for his health, he is very clearly at high risk for diabetes, heart issues amongst other things. He’s got no future job prospects or chance of any GCSE’s when he does no learning. His attitude and behaviour is uncontrollable. There’s essentially no hope for his future while he’s living there. Police have refused to do a welfare check on the child on 2 ocassions. He does not see a GP, go to school etc so there’s nobody in a safeguarding position to check on him at all. His last school even refused to give information to me about why he was removed, despite me having PR and legal right to his education records. I have been dismissed, refused information on my own child, and treated appallingly throughout this whole saga. He had terrible attendance at the school he went to with me, because gran was having him 3 nights per week at that point and would often keep him off because ‘he didn’t want to go in’. The school had also refused to allow me to collect him and handed him to grandma instead who has no legal rights. My child told me when he first moved out he ‘wasn’t allowed’ to talk to me. I walked round the whole of town with my 3 year old, going to every school near his home to find him. Eventually I found what school he was at, I called them, they confirmed he went there so I walked up to see him. The school had called GRANDMA and had her waiting in reception when I arrived, forced me to have a meeting with her and refused me to see my son, all the while dad has no involvement in any of this. I am utterly appalled at how I’ve been treated by every single agency. My child was never took off me, I have no issues with drink or drugs, never hit him, never emotionally abused him etc, no cause for concerns at my house. Just a strict routine of bed time at 8pm, no fizzy drinks, no junk food, must attend school etc and apparently this is bad parenting on my behalf to the point I’ve been treated like a criminal.

sorry for the long post but I wanted to get this off my chest.

So you’re not even going to try?

OP, I know this is all hard to hear but everyone is saying the same thing. You are concerned enough about the neglect of your child to contact social services, but not enough to fight tooth and nail to bring him home?

The information you are being given by school is incorrect. You really need legal advice.

He is a CHILD. He doesn’t get to choose where he lives. Yes it will be difficult to deal with his behaviour if he comes home, but that’s part of parenting.

What exactly did you want social services to do?

You have two options -

A) Go to court and fight for your child. Beg, borrow, steal, whatever it takes.

B) Leave him where he is and expect things to get worse.

I mean this kindly but if you don’t take control now, you’ll lose him for good because it absolutely won’t wash when he’s older and realises that you didn’t do what was best for him despite him saying he wants to live there.

That works both ways, you had PR and a right to keep him. Instead you left him to it and now try using the excuse of it being his decision, a 9 year old cannot make that decision.
You have been advised to get him back but talk about how it will impact your life and your other child as he treats you poorly. So what if he treats you poorly? What do you think parents that are still together do in that situation when there's no other parent to send them off to?
You have give up on your child and are trying to push the blame and responsibility elsewhere. .
You completely minimise that your child has experienced trauma and get defensive about it.
A good parent would have been to family court already. Not trying to push it on to social services. What if they did say dad was unfit? Would you see him put in care because he is nasty to you and might mess up life with your new family?

It feels like you’re not wanting to go to court because you’re not willing to face up to the hard work required to deal with his behaviour should you get custody. Most parents would move heaven and earth to ensure they got custody of their child under these circumstances. Telling him when he’s older that you were a good mum but that he made his own choices before the age of 9 won’t cut it. Lots of people have told you what you need to do but you seem unwilling to do this. I appreciate you’re bothered about his weight and lack of education but it sounds like while you want this fixing you don’t actually want to fight for your child being in your care again.

You’re being ridiculous OP, you are not the victim here.

You could have gone to court and self represented like most other mothers do. None of us know about this (and how application fees are adjusted if you’re on a low income) until we find ourselves in the hellish position of having to learn. You have access to the internet. There’s no excuse for not having found out about this

You in have let your son down terribly, are not listening onto the excellent advice you're being given here and are blaming dad, grandma and your son himself rather than reflecting on your own poor choices. doesn’t mean other people are perfect but the point is you’ve abandoned and neglected your son while paying lip service to parenting him.

also, I’m so so sick of hearing sub-adequate parents claim their damaged relationships with their kids is due to alienation. It is not easy to poison a child against a parent they have a good secure bond with. The term is being widely misused as cover for shit parenting

Nowhere did I say on this thread that I’m unwilling to go to court for him, all I did was acknowledge the difficulty it would be? When I have researched this, it says at 9 the judge will take the child’s wants into account, and the fact is he is going to say he wants to stay with gran and dad.

He's 9, not a teenager. You can call the police.

You know what you've done and others may also know but your son doesn't and won't.

You're getting very defensive here but I'm not sure what answers you're hoping for. SS have been clear that they won't do anything. Other avenues you've tried have been dead ends. Your only and best option is to go to court. Stop making excuses, that's it. That's your solution.

Which won't help, because he is living with a parent and there's no formal court order in place to be breached. The police will shrug and say take it to the family court.

trying to apply for emergency court order, asks me if mediation has been attempted and this needs to be done before going to court. Dad will 100% refuse this. What do I do now?

You won't know unless you try. You need to be going to court to get it all sorted out legally. Even if he does remain with dad you should legally get a say in his schooling.

You also need to write to the school and copy in the local authority to tell them that you have parental responsibility and you want to see copies of everything that has been sent to dad backdated and going forward. I would also be telling that than gran has no legal right to be given information and that she is not his carer.

It'll be a hard slog but you have to be proactive yourself - you cant expect the police and social services to step in.

I am really shocked that you have left it a year before applying to family court.

You tell them no - dad refuses to do this.

Will I have to go to court with the grandmother instead?

Surely to this point, you issue the school with a solicitor’s letter stating the facts as to who has PR legally?

I don't think you need it to be an emergency court order. You need to apply for a child arrangements order - form C100 and you can do it online. https://www.gov.uk/looking-after-children-divorce/apply-for-court-order

You don't have to go to mediation if you've tried other ways to resolve it in the last 4 months (which you have) and if there is a risk of harm to the child (which there is, emotionally and educationally).

@moan Sounds what she wanted SS to was to intervene with the parenting of the son but for the child to remain living with Dad. So basically changes to be made with out her putting in any of the hard work

Then she needs to get a court order first.
But a 9 year old on the streets between the two houses is also at risk.

It would have been prudent to go to court immediately the day/ week he wasn’t returned to your care and he was taken out of school by his dad. The longer this has gone on the messier it has become.

i agree with the poster who said option A/ a court order now with a big uphill battle to get him back ok the straight and narrow or B/ accept this is how things are now. There is no C/ make social services fix this

No. She can apply to join as a party, and you can oppose her application on the basis that she isn't a parent.

You look up a local mediation centre and ask them to set up mediation.

If he refuses, you proceed to court.

How do I pay for this if I don’t have the money? Does anybody know?

I think you need to put it in writing inviting him to mediation. An email. And then you have a paper trail proof that he didn’t engage in mediation. You can just say you presumed he wouldn’t, you need evidence he won’t go to mediation with you and evidence that you firmly tried to

In court you will be able to give evidence of what you're trying to do, and what you have witnessed with your son. You can give your side of the story which is better than not having a voice at all.

It sounds awfully stressful for you and I understand court is daunting.

If you don’t qualify for legal aid, you pay the same as anyone else does- savings, borrow from family, agree a payment plan with solicitors or take out a loan.

What are you on about? She didn't lose PR!

You can apply for help with fees. https://www.gov.uk/get-help-with-court-fees