social services taken my son

[amanda1989]

hi about 3 months ago my ex partner took my 4 year old boy to the hospital due to a bruise on his head, i told the father he had head butted the wall that morning and that he had the worse tantrum hes ever had. that night i get a phone call saying that the doctors have rang social services and im being investigated. they took pictures of my child and said there was 14 unexplained injuries. i told the social services that my son has done the bruises himself- for some reason he pulls his ears and headbutts things when on naughty step i was planning to take to the doctors on the monday after it happened. plus the other bruises where when he has fell over and banged himself like kids do but he is very accident prone.the social put me on supervised visits in a centre two hours a week and my son went to live with his dad
the police were involved and i was questioned about the bruises after 3 months the police came back and said they are not charging as i was not guilty, however the social still think someone has done these injuries and he wud remain on achild protection plan and would not go back with me.they have told the dad to apply for a residency order which he has done for 100%. i am still on supervised visits, however i went to speak to the father about it and we argued he called the police and now the social have stopped my visits. my ex partner lies about everything and anything i say they do not believe. i can not afford to miss out on another 3 months of my sons life while they wait for court, i brought him up for 3 and half years on my own. is there any advice anyone can give me

Obviously we don't and can't know the full story, but I don't think it matters. She needs and has a right to good legal representation no matter what the situation is, and we have no power or control over what happens here. There's no point trying to second guess the situation, IMO, so I for one suggest we don't try. And a poster is plainly very distressed, so why try to investigate the unknowable?

Amanda, I can't stress this enough: you need a good solicitor. Nobody else can help you in this position. If you are being unfairly treated a good solicitor, with expertise in the area, will establish that. And your relationship with your son will be their first priority.

Oh Amanda I do feel for you - you must be distraught. I have a 3 year old who for about a year after she started walking would self harm very badly (it actually started ealier but was not as severe when she couldn't get around). Not accident prone, but purposely banging her head into walls/doors and also hitting things into her own face. Her father and I really struggled to control her behaviour and ended up covering her cot in foam padding (the sort that goes round outside pipes) so we could put her in there without fear that she would injure herself. I don't have any useful advice to add to your plight, but only wanted to chip in to back up the claim that sometimes young children do cause consistent and bad injuries to themselves. There was a period of several months when my daughter always had bruises on her head and face.

I am a 33 year old married woman with a supportive husband plus I involved the health visitor, my GP, a peadiatrician and eventually CAMHS and I still found it horrendous to deal with. So I can only imagine what it's like for a 22/23 year single mum (guessing your age from your name) with an ex-partner she doesn't get along with.

The biggest issue here is that you didn't seek help and i'll be honest and say it took me a while to seek it myself. I guess it could easily have become a social services issue for me too and I would urge anyone finding themselves in this situation to go to their health visitor/GP as early as possible.

Good luck for you and your son. I agree with the poster above who said the most impotarnt thing you can do now is get the very best legal representation. The solicitor linked to above looks great.

to prove its a special blood test that is needed get a letter from your family doctor and give it to your solicitor and get them to forward it to the judge to prove the test you are saying he should have is a special type of test. If you have contact which is supervised at a contact center then the person who is supervising your contact should do a contact write up which you should be able to read through either at the end of the contact or at the next contact session. When your child turns up for contact if you see any bruises, cuts, scratches on him inform the person supervising your contact and get them to write it on the contact write up.

Are you sure ss are saying you caused the bruises? Is it not that he is covered in bruises that you did nothing about? That you have just carried on putting him on the naughty step even though he has been self harming?

The reason they are leaving him with his father being that he IS and did do something about the bruises and possibly that he may be doing something about the self-harming that caused the bruises. I don't think your ex was wrong to take him to a&e because of his numerous injuries and after headbutting a wall so hard he bruised. It seems harsh to just take him though, although they didn't really do that, your ex partner just didn't return him to you because they were worried about your care and then they requested supervised contact for you because of that. If you didn't have a residency order then your ex can just do that.

I think you do need a super hot lawyer as has been suggested. Ss may just see this requesting the blood test as a sign you are not taking responsibility.

And I also agree that there will be a double standard because of economic status at play here.

You really need to avoid arguing with your ex too.

I once took dd to hospital as she fell and banged her head. Dr said we did the right thing taking her straight there as they take a "dim view' on situations where children are injured and no immediate medical attention is sought.

Op you were planning to go to the Dr about your son but didn't. Your ex then does seek medical attention for him an he has a lot Of UNexplanation injuries. Clearly this is going to be of concern to ss. See a solicitor about access but it does seem that your son may Be better off where he is not left with untreated injuries. Self harming while on naughty step is not normal but it was allowed to carry on. I feel really sorry for your son.