Terrified of losing my kids

[wishingstaar12]

Looking for advice from other mums, particularly anyone who has been through social work involvement and a Children's Hearing in Scotland. ❤️

I'm sorry this is such a long post, but I'm really struggling at the moment and could do with some honest advice from people who might understand what I'm going through.

I'm a mum to two girls, and social work have been involved with our family for some time. We have a Children's Hearing coming up on the 20th, and I'm absolutely terrified about what might happen.

At a recent Team Around the Child meeting, I found the discussion very difficult. I felt that the focus was mainly on everything that isn't going well, rather than acknowledging the things I've been trying to improve. My social worker has now told me that they intend to recommend that both girls live with their dad.

I've been a single parent for the majority of my girls' lives. Before social work became involved, their dad saw them approximately twice a month and offered very little practical support. He refused to help when I was struggling, so the day-to-day responsibility for raising the girls, managing the household and meeting their needs fell on me.

As far as I'm aware, no assessment of their dad has been carried out, despite social work now recommending that the girls live with him. This concerns me, particularly given his historically limited involvement in their day-to-day lives. I feel that both parents' circumstances, their ability to meet the girls' needs and the practicalities of such a significant change should be properly considered.

I understand that circumstances can change and that the focus has to be on what is best for the girls. I'm not trying to suggest their dad shouldn't be considered, but I do feel that the history of who has actually cared for them and whether a proper assessment has taken place are important factors. As well as other factors, like him smoking both cigarettes and drugs in the house while the children are there. Also he still lives at home with his mum, and the girls don't have a bedroom there. The social worker bought him a bunk bed for the girls when they're at his but he put it in his bedroom and the youngest (6) sleeps in there with him and my eldest (14) sleeps on a blow up bed I the living room. The room that was meant to be for the girls is used as his smoking room..

One of the main concerns social work have raised is the condition of my home. I know that the housework and keeping on top of the home environment are things I struggle with. I'm not trying to deny that there are problems or make excuses for them. I know things need to improve, and I'm trying to address them.

I strongly suspect I have undiagnosed ADHD, which I believe could be contributing to my difficulties with organisation, motivation, routines and managing everyday tasks. I'm not formally diagnosed or receiving treatment for ADHD at the moment, but I'm actively looking into getting assessed privately as i cant get an assessment through NHS.

My mental health has also been a struggle. I have anxiety and depression, and the ongoing social work involvement and fear of losing my children have put me under an enormous amount of pressure. I'm trying to manage my mental health, engage with professionals and make improvements while dealing with everything that is happening.

My older daughter has severe anxiety and has struggled to attend school for a long time. She has been out of school for approximately two years, and this is not a straightforward situation where I can simply insist she goes in and everything will be fine. I've been trying to work with the people involved to find a way forward for her.

My younger daughter had been attending school regularly until she became unwell recently. I've been working with the school around arrangements to help her attend, including adjustments to make things easier for her.

I have been attending meetings and hearings, engaging with professionals and trying to make improvements at home and with the girls' routines. I'm not saying everything is perfect, because it isn't. I know there are things I need to work on, and I'm willing to do that. What I find difficult is feeling that the progress I'm making is being overlooked and that the focus is always on what I'm getting wrong.

My girls are my whole world. I've been their main carer for years, and the thought of them being removed from my care is devastating. I want to do whatever I reasonably can to make things better for them and for our home. I'm not claiming to be a perfect parent, but I love my children and want the opportunity to address the concerns and get the right support.

I've also been trying desperately to get legal advice before the hearing on the 20th, but so far I've been unsuccessful. I've contacted solicitors and tried to find someone who can help with Children's Hearings and legal aid, but I've had no luck securing advice or representation. I'm now facing a hearing that could have a huge impact on our family without having managed to get proper legal advice.

I'm not looking for people to tell me I'm perfect or that social work are automatically wrong. I want honest, constructive advice from people who understand how difficult these situations can be.

I'm frightened, overwhelmed and trying my best to find a way forward for my girls. I know I have things to work on, and I want to work on them, but I also want to make sure the full picture is being considered.

Please be kind. I'm already struggling enough, and I'm genuinely just looking for advice, support and some guidance about what I can do next. Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this. ❤️

Thank God for lovely people like you on this post. I pray that OP and her kids get the help they need.

It doesn’t look like the OP is coming back to this thread. I hope she gets help in doing whatever it is to keep her children. What an awful situation to be in

I have ADHD and I had a period where my HV had referred to social care and my landlord was threatening to kick me out if I did not clean up the house.

I still could not clean up the house. I did try, but I would always get it wrong because I would be focusing on completely the wrong things and I would be undoing the progress I'd made faster than I could keep up with it, because that's what severe ADHD is like. And because I've probably lived around unmanaged ADHD my entire life so my bar for "normal" was markedly lower than most people's, but I didn't know.

I remember one day my HV came over and I felt that it was much better and I had made progress and she just looked around with this dismayed expression and said "But it looks the same" Then she asked to check if I had food in the cupboards and to look upstairs. DS1 was a toddler at the time and usually slept with me so we didn't use his bedroom, which was, admittedly, a bit of a dumping ground. When we were in there so she could see it, he fell over because he was a 1yo who could barely walk and then bumped his head which made him cry. She gestured at the (everything) and said "See? It's unsafe."

This was 16+ years ago and at the time I could not understand and was devastated by the whole interaction. I was fortunate in that none of this went much further. I was articulate and educated enough to come across well in meetings. I had a supportive partner who basically came over and helped me get things under control and ultimately because I had his support they gave me a document/checklist of what they actually meant by "this needs to be cleaner" and signed me off their books. The HV who gave really vague unhelpful descriptions left and I got a better one who was more blunt and told me exactly what to focus on.

It was only about 7 years later I was diagnosed with ADHD and my difficulties made sense. About 3 years after that I found a cleaning/decluttering approach which actually works for me and for the last 3 years I've been on medication and now I can completely see what my HV was saying about the house, how unusable rooms are not how most people live, and how the general state of my kitchen and living room was just generally grubby and cluttered and not very pleasant all of the time. But it took me a really long time to get here.

I even remember DH recounting a conversation he had with someone at DS2's nursery, maybe 5-6 years ago? I was at home with both younger children and so he attended some planned meeting and in the context of explaining my ADHD and our concerns about DS2, he mentioned that he knew he would come home and see the remnants of every single activity/game that we had played strewn all over the house, and that the nursery person was amazed at this. I looked around and sure enough, there were probably 6 different games and activities just all left where we had done them. But I thought that was normal, or at least unremarkable. I thought maybe really tidy people go around tidying things up as they go, but not everyone does. I don't know whether it shifted for me on that day or later but anyway my point is, it's hard to see your own blind spots and IME ADHD leads to a lot of blind spots.

And the other thing is that when something has got into a really overwhelming state, you need more than urgency to sort that out. If it's just that your house has got a bit messy, then sure, urgency helps. If your house is like something from those social media channels people have mentioned, you need a really radical approach which is often more than one person can do in a short time while dealing with all the other stuff life throws at you.

I disagree. It's very common for women to get to later life without a diagnosis even if severe because the condition just isn't understood well by most medical professionals - and was even less well understood in the past, particularly in women and girls. And society doesn't understand it either - all the people with mild cases are on here making statements that because they can do something then not being able to do that thing can't be ADHD when there's a mountain of evidence that the kind of problems the OP is describing are well evidenced as being typical for people with severe ADHD (and also common in people with severe depression and anxiety) which is a disability.

OP doesn't show any sign of having opted out of normal life and expectations. She seems to be making as big an effort as she's capable of making but it does sound like there is some significant impairment if she's not managing to keep the house to the standards expected by social services (quite low standards most people agree). She really needs outside help if it's available.

Yes, we have massive problems with demand for services at the moment though which doesn't help anyone.

It’s not about you OP. It’s about your daughters. They need a stable, clean and supportive environment. They need school. If I felt I was failing my children I’d want someone else to take over so that I could reset and do better. Maybe you need to make peace with that. Stop judging yourself or worrying about what others think and think just of putting your children first.

I do agree in a way but can you imagine knowing that you aren't able to safely care for your own children. That would destroy a lot of people and people ( in some cases wrongly) believe that once in care they will never get their kids back. Really hope the OP is able to get some support and engage with it

Their father’s living conditions sound horrendous - six year old sleeping with him, and other child on a blow up bed in the living room, together with him using a spare room as a smoking den. If the SW considers that’s the better of two evils, I’d question whether you’re giving us the full picture. I feel so sorry for the children. They’re the real victims in all of this.

We have a lot of adhd in our family including me. I would check with your drs surgery if they do shared care if you have a private diagnosis. Our's doesn't so it would mean paying privately for the drugs which are not cheap!
I would add ... don't get your hopes up too high with the drugs they don't suit everyone. We have three people in our immediate family with adhd diagnose and only one of those taking the drugs and even then only during major exam periods.
I would speak to a local church and ask if they have a volunteer to help you sort the house.

when I was having therapy for my adhd - the only way I could clean the house is if I spent a few minutes imagining myself doing the steps to get it clean. So literally imaging picking up all the plates and moving to the sink, running the water, wiping food into bin, soaking dishes, putting groceries in cupboards etc. I reallised I don't naturally plan things so I need to imagine the steps and then do them.

You have spent a long time writing out a genuinely thoughtful post @LadyInRainbow . In reality we will have heard a fraction of the story why social workers are so heavily involved to the extent that they think (and it would have been a long list of professionals who all agreed to this) that the children should be removed from her care. Even the very fact @wishingstaar12 cant bring herself to be honest on an anonymous thread about the reality of the situation in order to get proper advice is telling.

Not one of the suggestions on this thread will be followed or indeed make any difference because there will be a gigantic wider picture to this that we will never know

Correct. I’ve worked with children for 25 years and only known a couple in the time be removed from the home, always due to severe neglect and/or physical abuse. The vast number of extreme cases don’t even meet threshold for SS involvement, and I’m talking about kids without coats or beds, clothes covered in dog piss, kids not fed, pets being killed in the house, reports of DV etc. Even those kids were not at risk of removal (obviously they SHOULD have been removed). OP has definitely not given the full picture.

OP, this sounds harsh but trying is irrelevant. You have to make results happen. Otherwise the bad outcomes you don't want, will happen. Only results matter here.

I can’t believe how awful it must be for those poor bloody DC.

I worried all night about your dire situation.
It’s so hard to pick yourself up when you are in the depths of despair. So my heart goes out to you.
But there was something in the way you laid out your original post that makes me think you could indeed, help yourself even though you have zero friends and family for support. You have yourself and your two children and you are desperately trying to hold you all together in spite of the obstacles in your way. So I believe, after courageously laying your vulnerability out here, that you have the determination and will power to achieve the first short term goal of making the roof over your head into a proper clean home for your precious family unit. All your other goals …education, legal help, understanding the SS system etc, are already underway and I hope you have plenty of advice on here to help and to feel more supported in those areas.

If I lived close by I would come and help you with this immediate job you have no choice but to tackle.
It will take all your strength and resolve to get your house….the home and what should be the safe place of your children, into better, more hygienic order, - but OP, that is what you absolutely must do first, starting now, today.
Here’s how I would do it…….

If you don’t already have them, buy bleach, disinfectant, washing up liquid, kitchen roll, rubber gloves, an old fashioned scrubbing brush and a roll of black bin bags.
Make sure you have hot water. And open the windows while you get down to the first clean.
First, put any pets and litter trays outside, and get rid of any squalid mess, spills or leaks and scrub clean the surfaces and areas affected. Go systematically through each room to get rid of all that sort of mess that could make your children ill.

Next, clean your yard and garden of any pet mess and scrub clean the area affected.

Go for a walk with the children (and any pet dogs) and explain to the children what is going to happen next and how you need their help. You will leave a black plastic bin bag in each room and you ask that the children fill them with any unwanted rubbish from that room, including broken items, old unwanted toys etc. While they do that, you will be tackling the kitchen sink area until all surfaces including the floor are clear and clean. And then the bathroom area, disinfecting, tidying and organising and throwing out as you go. Finally the lounge area.

Next, tackle the bedding, pillows, mattresses and soft furnishings especially for the children. Use charity shops for bargains if you need to buy.
Clean, attractive beds are essential.

Then tackle the clothes and laundry. Go through all laundry piles, closets and drawers. Pick out only what you want to keep, -what fits the growing children and bin the rest.
Launder only what you want to keep and put it away tidily.

Im sorry you are in this position. Your children come first. I pray you can help them OP. They deserve a nice home and your consistent, full attention to their safety, needs and home comforts. Good luck!

Do you work?

If so when do your kids do their schoolwork?

If you don’t work, do they follow the 9–3 school day timetable?

Are they being set work by school or are you using a homeschool program?

You’re currently painting a picture where none of you go to school or work but yet your home isn’t tidy and so what do you do all day?

Of course your kids don’t want to go to their dads if it means actually having to get up early, go to school, do chores, have less screen time etc

Loving your children isn’t enough.
You need to actively parent them and that includes ensuring they get an education and are clean/have a clean environment.

I have ADHD and MH issues and I know how debilitating it is. But you find ways to do the bare minimum at least.

You have 16 hours spare every day if you don’t work.
Just 1 of those hours is needed to do chores.

It sounds as though you’ve had multiple chances to sort things out and you haven’t, so perhaps you’re just not able to look after them and this is the last resort.

You need to do what’s best for them and if you can’t sort out their home then the next best thing is them living with their dad.

Im sorry for yoyr loss but this post isnt helpful. Firstly you have no idea what state the Ops house is in
I
SS dont expect a perfect home they want it to be clean enough and hazard free
I wont go into details but i have a disabled child and for varioius resasons ss got involved and have actually helped there is no point in working agsinst them .

My eldest son was put with foster carers when he was young, i then had my second son who the social services started harassing, they used to pull him out of class at school and he was so embarrassed that he didnt want to go there anymore. So we home educate him and then the ss devide thats reason yo try and take him away. This is what happened: I didnt open my door to ANYBODY! They'd do stuff like send the police, once had an abusive copper at my door. We just ignored them, my son wouldve refused to go with anybody else anyway.My son ended going across the city to a part time school for home ed kids and is now at an RG university studying politics and my eldest son has his own place and a good security job. I was a teenager hsving my eldest but by the time my 2nd was born, id learnt not to trust the SS! Ppl said to me, just do what they want, I didnt, I point blank refused to talk to them!

Werll your very lucky they didnt escalate the situation ...

@wishingstaar12

OP, have you been able to find a solicitor to help you?

https://www.lawscot.org.uk/find-a-solicitor/

Couldn’t agree more. My church is so supportive on any issue and you don’t need to believe in God (although I do) they would help absolutely anyone in need without wanting them to come to church. The ethos of Christians is to do good in the world and help others. It’s not about ‘recruiting’ at all. In fact my church would not push any Christianity in any conversations and it would be wholly focussed on the person in need

Are you seriously suggesting that ADHD is harder to overcome than Parkinson’s and/or MS?! Really? I was diagnosed with ADHD as a 4 year old and yes I know it’s very difficult to organise things but to suggest that it’s an acceptable justification for child neglect is beyond the pale. You should be ashamed of yourself.

Quite! It doesn't matter what level of function you are capable of, your children have to have their needs met. The reason you can't meet the need is irrelevant. If the result of your disability or ND is that the children are neglected to the point that their home is unfit for them to live in, then you are not fit to parent them. I'm not presenting that as necessarily a moral failure because if someone is unwell/disabled/incapable, there may be nothing they can do to change that, but that doesn't mean they get to keep neglecting their kids. Too many parents want social services to focus on their need to be with their children above the children's need to be adequately cared for, and that is not how things work.

I have no friends and am a good parent. There’s honestly no need to pick at that. It hurts enough having no friends even when it’s your only issue