What next? DV and SS involved

[emmie78]

I was called round to my friend?s house a couple of nights ago by his concerned neighbour who had heard a huge fight between him and his girlfriend.

I arrived to find broken glass and plates everywhere, food and blood up the walls. My friend?s girlfriend was standing over him as he lay on the floor and she continued throwing heavy objects at his head.
The saddest thing was that their eight year old son witnessed it all and as I tried to get him out of the house his mum banged into him and he hit his head on the wall

The upshot is the police arrived, handcuffed her and took her away. They?re not pressing charges because he didn?t want to but she has received a caution.They told us because there was violence involved and their son witnessed it they would have to involve SS.

Just wondering if anyone knows what is likely to happen now. They are coming today to interview their DS and my friend is terrified they are going to take him away. How likely (or not) is this?

Also if it's a joint>single claim that's done pretty much instantly now, afaik. It's the other way around that still takes forever.

You don't need to be getting child benefit to claim the tax credits either. It can be sorted without waiting on cb.

emmie, I've been in a very similar position to your friend. I know how scary and unreal it can seem. It is important he looks after himself.

I'd recommend your friend gets in touch with either the Men's Advice Line and/or ManKind. They are both organisations that help men who are victims of domestic abuse.

Your friend has not separated a child from his mother. The separation has had to happen as an inevitable consequence of the mother's poor choices. It is very important that your friend comes to terms with the fact that his primary responsibility here is the protection of both himself and his son.

He needs to be tell Social Services about his ex's history of alcohol problems and he needs to work with Social Services rather than fight against them. But he also needs to ensure that his son's right to a safe life is maintained and if he thinks that SS is advocating a course of action that will go against that he needs to speak out.

If your friend's experience turns out anything like my own (I'm a man, my ex is an alcoholic, SS got involved) then SS will offer his ex lots of support and opportunity to turn her problems around. But if she turns down all that help then SS will expect your friend to protect his son from her problems.

Your friend should also talk to his son's school to give them an overview of what's going on as this will inevitably have a knock-on effect on him. SS will likely want to talk to the school anyway but I do recommend having a chat with the headteacher. It won't be easy but it is important.

I'd also recommend that any time your friend has a conversation with SS, he follows that up with a letter to the social worker saying "Just to make sure I understood our conversation of 18 Oct 2011 properly, you will be organising x, y and z, you will expect me to do a and b and we will catch up for a review by ^^ " or similar. The aim is to get what the social worker says down in writing. IME with Social Services, if it's not written down then it can very easily be forgotten about.

I forgot to mention - regarding tax credits etc, the first thing he has to do is get the Child Benefit signed over to him. How difficult that will be depends on how much his ex co-operates but the sooner he starts the ball rolling the better. Everything else depends on Child Benefit.

contact can be arranged in a contact centre you could find out about local onesw for your friend www.naccc.org.uk this can take time to set up - the mother can ask SS to set up something in meantime - if the ds wants to see her. ds needs to know that contact will be safe.

dad needs to make sure contact is supervised and safe.
main thing is for both your friend and his ds to feel safe with regard to any contact.

if it helps them to see it as mother is ill then look at it that way.

it will be long few months ahead. but ds will be ok - my dc have spent months at times not seeing dad because of his illness etc - best thing for them is getting back into school etc routine. talk to gp if friend and/or ds need extra support eg from a family hterapist .

your friend can do this .

also reiterate advice about writing or emailing report of any conversation back to SS to clarify. this also serves as a record later .

OP, you can also call Mankind yourself if you feel you need advice in how best to support your friend.

I don't know if they've changed things around recently, but they used have a woman on the phone line during the day and man in the early evening, depending on who you and/or your friend would be more comfortable talking to.

There's also this leaflet that has advice for friends and family towards the end.

How is your friend ? Is he recovering from his injuries ? He must be feeling so broken right now

Ss have told him mum can have no unsupervised contact??

Thought only a court could do that?

SS can recommend that contact be supervised. OP's friend can choose to ignore that recommendation.

However if he does ignore it then SS can see it as him not putting the child's safety first at which point SS's involvement could get a lot more heavy-handed.

What snorbs said. Basically ss can recommend that the mother have no contact.

It's a given really. If you don't comply then they'll take it to court to force the issue. Taking the dc's out of the home completely.

Their decision is no suprise, given the level of violence here.

Where is the ex girlfriend now? I take it they were living together? If so is she likely to come home?

mankind

National helpline: 01823 334244

Bloody hell if only they took my Ex's violence this seriously. SS came round,had a chat and that was that - fuck all!

It's a given really. If you don't comply then they'll take it to court to force the issue. Taking the dc's out of the home completely

That's the type of inaccurate alarmist statement that gets Social Services a bad press.

Take no notice, OP. From what you've said, albeit that he accidentally bumped his head on the wall because of his dm's action, it would seem that the child is not at risk of violence from either of his dps and he is therefore unlikely to be placed on the Child Protection Register.

Any recommendations that SS may have made at this extremely early stage are exactly that; namely, verbal recommendations rather than written directives that may be issued after a child protection conference has taken place.

At the present time, 'supervised access' in this case is likely to consist of both dps, or another party acting in loco parentis for the df, voluntarily agreeing to be present when the child has contact with his dm, which may take place in the family or a relative/friend's home or other venue agreed between the dps.

In this case, should SS deem any voluntary contact arrangement unsatisfactory, the dps would be given ample warning to alter them before any consideration is given to further action.

In general, SS work to keep families together and removing a child to a place of safety and seeking a care order in favour of the local authority would not ensue solely from unsupervised contact with a dp or other party unless such contact was deemed to place the child at serious risk of harm.

Izzy, stop picking fights. You don't know what you are talking about here.

Snorbs does, having been there, as do I.

With this level of violence in the house, ss will seek to enforce, their recommendations. If he flouts their recommendations, they will remove the children.

SS, take very seriously now, dv, more so if the children witness it.

it can take months and months and months and months and months to get a child into foster care where there is serious risk of harm from both parents; where one parent is safe, it is even harder (obviously).

Pay no mind to alarmist headline statements about child removal - it is NOT easy or quick.

Also, there may be a conference to determine whether there needs to be a child protection (cp) plan - they may also refer to Child in Need (cin) or Team Around the Child (tac) - or not - this is not, again, a step closer to removal of children as the media would have you believe.

It is a piece of paper and a team of people that sign up to give the family the best and most appropriate support they can - and they are accountable to the lead professional for doing what they say they will, when they will. There is an end to that too - not only child removal, but coming off the plan when everything settles and the risk is diminished. It is not a one way road to having your "kids taken off ya and stuck in care" as newspapers may have you believe.

Their decision is no suprise, given the level of violence here.

As far as can be ascertained from the OP's words, this would seem to be a one-off incident that posed no risk to the dc nor, apparently, has the df sustained any injury that necessitated hospital treatment. Given the alleged presence of blood, I presume that the dm may have injured herself.

Many thousands of children witness frequent incidences of domestic violence between their parents or main carers without coming to the attention of SS.

Many thousands children who have come to the attention of SS witness frequent incidences of domestic violence between their parents or main carers without being taken into care

but true.

Indeed you can also follow a plan, which they will see out. But if you keep ignoring ss advice then it will not end well at all.

It all depends on what the bm does to help herself too.

One last post to Izzy. I don't talk to bullies, I told you this last night. So if you want to stalk me on the boards, with your cronies, looking for a bunfight, go for it. I'll be ignoring the lot of you, so maybe you do the same. So if you want to pick on every post I make go for it.

I shan't be responding to you

I am not picking fights and, as it happens, I do know what I am talking about here bubble.

Izzy.

How did you come to the assumption that the blood is the woman's blood?

Evidence for your assumption?

But if you keep ignoring ss advice then it will not end well at all

This statement is markedly different to your earlier alarmist statements bubble.

FTR, taking issue with a responder who is disseminating inaccurate information does not constitute 'stalking' nor does it constitute bullying on these boards.

Izzy

no where in the OP's statement does the OP say that the mother hurt herself.

FUCK! What a situation.

Emmie - I don't have any direct experience to offer of SS, and it seems there are several here who do, so I'll leave it to them.

I would say one thing however, which I always say to people who are sensing that a difficult legal struggle might be brewing somehow down the line, and which does come from experience. That is: get into the habit of meticulously recording everything. Exact dates and times that things happened. Letters sent and received in relation to them. Exact times and dates of phone calls - who was spoken to, what they said and what the follow up was. Turn your life into one big filing cabinet.

In a year's time, when your friend has been given custody of the kid and his ex is turning maniacal stalker and making up shit to make his life difficult, he will be SO much better placed if he has done this. Faced with one person making loose, incoherent and emotive claims about stuff and an opposing person stating very clearly a dozen dated events and correspondences that support their case, courts of any kind are likely to lean towards the latter.

Good luck. How awful for the poor kid.

Also DS's mum can come back to the property at any time as I assume she lives there and the OP's friend hasn't issued any emergency non occupation or non molestation orders. There is nothing to stop her.

SS would not make any recommendations at this stage I wouldn't have thought given that the violence wasn't directed at DS