Employer attempted suicide... not sure what to do.

[Freakingthefeckout]

Please excuse me if any of this sounds callous, I'm trying to be practical and not get emotional until I have some time to myself.

I've worked for a lady on and off as a nanny for her small children, started when they were babies and they re school age now. I don't officially work for her anymore but I'm always at her house when she needs me, which is quite a lot. She has no close family and not many friends who aren't busy with their own children so I've become like a surrogate aunt to her children.

This year was a tough year for her, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently took a big back seat with the chilldcare. She had to give up her business and sell her equipment to a competitor. Her elderly father has been difficult for a while and makes a lot of demands on her time, and the children are going through a difficult phase. To top all of this off, I'm less available now because i have a new job and I'm freelancing with another and i have less time to give her. I also live very far away.

I arrived at the house to bri ng the children to the cinema like we had planned a while ago and was told she tried to commit suicide and is being held in a psychiatric ward for the time being. That's all ive been told. I took the kids out for the day to give their dad some peace and I'm staying here. He asked me to stay for a few days. I was supposed to go home tomorrow for Christmas. I don't know what to tell my family or how long they need me here.

Practically, I'm not sure what to do. Can anyone advise me on this please?

The dad is making me very cross ! Poor kids ... However sick he is he clearly isn't there for them.... Is he paying you to be there ?

I am glad for the kids you there for them but you should not miss out, make sure you get paid.

did the dad himself have something to eat? or did he not bother for himself AND for his children?

i'm beginning to see why the mother's so desperate. she needs proper help, practical help and to get herself into a more positive environment.

I wondered that too.

In fairness it may be he is genuinely too physically ill to do stuff like that. I know chemo can be completely exhausting, and made even straightforward simple tasks seem like an uphill struggle.

But something is not right in that house (apart from the immediate avg obvious crisis)

Made = can make

Who is going to find out what help your friend needs? Is she on some medication?
What has she said to the hospital about her family situation?

Maybe move this thread to MH board where you may get more advice?

You are able to look after their kids but that family needs a lot of help. You can't be expected to take care of everyone there!

This is why you absolutely must call social services and hand it over to them. I know the kids need you and I do understand that, and why you don't want to abandon them at Christmas, I wouldn't either. But going forward you need to hand this over to the professionals to assess. I would say that the children need section 17 support as children in need and that mum may also need a carers assessment if the strain of caring for her husband as well as the children has led to a mental health breakdown.

remember you are a professional nanny...you can offer so much for free as a friend (an extra hour here and there, a trip out to the cinema, all that is of course fantastic and my nannies have done that too for my kids) but after that get it back on a professional footing. would you give up your current job to go work for them again full time? would it work financially?

if the family need financial support they can access help thru SS to pay for carers (yes I know it s complicated to get; but SS will weigh up cost of emergency foster care versus direct payment help; however if family is well off then they should pay you anyway. depends how sick dad is? but he can access help too. he needs to ask for it. if he too sick to ask then sure you can help him ask. )

you should be being paid now for all the hours you there plus overnight allowance. are you being paid?

it is not your responsibility to work for them for free, however much you are a substitute aunt to the kids. the fact is you are not their aunt and unless mum/dad have named you in their wills as legal guardian you wont necessarily have continued access to the children should anything happen to mum and dad. this is a situation which will continue short term as a crisis but also medium and longer term from what you have said.

help them as a friend, as much as you would for someone else.... but don't miss out on being paid and don't put them before your own family.

I'm not concerned about the money, mum is very good at making sure I'm given money for when I've helped out during emergencies. At some point soon I'll have to go home, I'm running out of clothes and I'm exhausted.

Dad is not uncaring, to be fair to him, he's just a bit hopeless. He's an older father and both of them have been very indulgent with the kids, so he finds them hard to cope with now because they are so demanding. I stop by at least once a week to wash their hair, because neither of them can cope with the screaming that results. Dad is traditionally quite chauvinistic, thinks mum should take care of both kids and him too round the clock. Even this morning i overheard him complaining on the phone about needing someone to take care of him.

I wouldn't know how to broach therapy, social services, wills or the like with them. If it came down to it i think mum would sign them over to me if anything happened, but how woulld i even start a conversation like that?

How old are the children OP? Sorry if I've missed that bit.

Freaking It's becoming clearer, from what you say, that this family desperately need more support (practical and emotional) than they are getting. From what you've described, they sound very isolated.

I don't want to speak unkindly aboutt someone who is unwell but I feel very angry with the Dad from reading your posts. The more you type the worse he sounds. How DARE he sit around complaining that no-one is there to look after him when his poor wife was so desperately ill she tried to take her own life. I know he is ill but that is incredibly selfish. What about his children? His priorty should be them, not his own comfort.

I understand why you don't feel able to broach subjects with the family but I do think, as others have suggested, contacting social services would be a good thing here. They aren't child snatchers and will be able to help this couple access support - for example getting someone round to help the mum with cleaning (for example). Another agency that may be able to help is SureStart.

I suspect though that they will be involved anyway if the mum has attempted suicide, along with a CPN/CMHT.

Also, I'm not sure how old the children are but is a Health Visitor involved? If so they may also be able to help.

Please don't ANY of this as a criticism of you, you are doing something wonderful - but be aware you don't take on too much and in the process become exhausted and resentful.

Do keep posting here if it's helpful and please take care of yourself too.

I just want to say again that YOU are a true 'Christmas Angel'. To give up your own plans to help a family is crisis exemplifies everything that is good about the human race (and I think we don't see that enough!).

Yes, I agree that the family needs more help than you can give as far as the way it 'functions' (old-fashioned dad, unruly kids, etc) but you are seeing them through the eyes of what they need, not what they lack. You are lovely.

I wish you a blessed Christmas. I'm sure when the dust settles you will realize what a wonderful gift you have given them, and been given in return. The chance to show them, and yourself, what unselfishness and compassion really is.

These children are being neglected FFS, they are not getting their needs met by either parent, and have to call YOU in weekly to wash their hair?

he didn't wash them despite the fact that they had not been bathed in a week and he didn't feed them.

Just because they are not poor, living in rags, eating scraps does not mean that they are thriving. This woman - for whatever reason - is not coping. her H, their DF is not engaged and has chosen to ignore his role as a parent. I daresay his cancer is also pretty convenient for him not to have get his hands dirty.

I think he's undermined her to such an extent she now believes she can't cope with the children that he can't be bothered to care for either. Nasty buggers get sick too. My instinct is that this is an emotionally abusive situation and that her MH is being directly compromised by him. and probably on purpose.

call SS, call her HV, call everyone and report this to whoever you need to to get someone to intervene and support her and these poor children.

Ultimately, she may need to leave him. She's not strong enough yet, but her children's success/health rely on her getting stronger.

Yes call SS - but don't expect anything quickly. It can take 6 months plus to set up a care package - they are extraordinarily slow - even with families in crisis.

If you are able to talk to someone from the mum's mental health team about your concerns for the children that may help (presumably they could make a SS referral which might be easier than getting involved directly yourself - and nay fast track input a bit).

this man is taking advantage of you. sorry. she has been as well in a way but i can understand if her mh is bad that is another matter. you are not their unpaid childcarer. you should not be stepping into wash their hair every week, because they "cant cope". ...you could teach and show them how to cope....you are enabling him to continue to be a twat of the highest order. if he wants someone to take care of him; he buys in that help. if he is able to make phone calls he is able to make these arrangements. they have money, yes? he can buy in a housekeeper. he can pay you as a nanny, proper contract on temporary basis.

I feel sorry for the mum. I think she needs help - to get away. I am sure the set up has not helped her MH.

but they are the parents and they are legally responsible for their kids. this means making arrangements. proper arrangements if one or other is sick - cancer doesn't mean he cant make proper arrangements including paying you properly. and you need to be properly paid for what you are doing. you are being taken advantage of. send him an invoice for your hours worked.

you really need to speak to SS, speak to someone about these poor children. - at least try and speak to some one from her MH team about what you have been doing for this family and what you doing now.

as legal parent if mum died right now, dad would be in charge of them, legally. he might be happy to continue to keep you on as an unpaid skivvy. good for the children; bad for you. not fair on you. he is the legal parent. you are not a blood relation. mum maybe isn't in good place to care for them, she needs help. go speak to someone, call nspcc and talk it through.

Yes call SS - but don't expect anything quickly. It can take 6 months plus to set up a care package - they are extraordinarily slow - even with families in crisis

Once again, meaningless generalisations. Departments do vary across the country and if you have the
Misfortune of being in a failing borough then things can be slow, but in a functioning local authority things definitely do not take 6 months to happen. Are you thinking about a care package in adults services? Child protection has very tight timescales which are legally mandated.

agree again with ehric - actually if a family is in crisis then things can happen quickly - a cancerous dad, a mum who tried to kill herself counts quite high - neglect is high tho i presume they look good and have nice home? unless relatives and (unpaid)nannies are stepping in to fil the gap.

op: by stepping in like this you are likely preventing urgent help for the family - you need to tell SS you can only do xx days then you have to go;

you need to be paid for what you are doing as emergency cover;

you need to tell them you wash the children's hair and that the kids were not fed when dad was in charge etc.

you need to tell them the truth about how mum and dad cannot cope with their own children. mum quitely likely has been ground down (we don't know) and dad sounds like a bully - but it is clear from what you say dad has not been able to step up whether because of cancer or twattishness or both.
you need to speak to the extended family, ascertain who will step in.

if mum and dad die (is the cancer terminal or not?) then the extended family will be first call, if not then ask them if you would be considered as temp carer? are you registered with Ofsted, can you let ss know you available? as for the kids clearly you would be better option as you know them.

you are invested in this family emotionally but there is no legal basis for you to be involved should things hit the wall. yes it is something you should broach with mum - who do they name as legal guardian in event of death?

No child services, and that's in a service which is supposedly performing well.

The people who think that SS will come in and getting everything set up within weeks have clearly never tried to access SS help. Yes there are mandatory time limits - which are helpful when making complaints. But the reality is (and believe me I have friends in this situation nationwide) everything in SS is shockingly slow.

Yes try to access support but don't expect it just up be given. I have (for example) just pointed out to my SS that they are behaving illegally & they don't seen to care -and sent them the evidence - I will get around to going to my MP soon. This is a LA that has won awards so his only knows what the bad ones are like.

And yes I thought the words 'crisis' would help, along with backup from other professionals. But nope. I used the word 'crisis' in July - first meeting was in November (by which time bones had been broken - mine so it didn't matter). They did acknowledge things were difficult - boogaloo. Still nothing has been provided.

So yes of course report to SS, but don't expect then to come in and help immediately. There may be more help available going via the MH team.

You sound like a very kind person and I understand that nannies develop a close bond with the children and you want to do what you can for them. A friend of mine was a nanny to a family for many years and even though the children are adults now, is still close to the family. Some of those children are godparents to her children, and they all still visit. It's wonderful that you've stepped in to help.

However...this is a little different. This is a family in crisis. You are not really their nanny anymore, and the parents have difficulty parenting even when well (if they aren't capable of washing hair!).

I really think it would be best all round, for the children, for the parents, and for you, if you could persuade the parents to ask for assistance from social services, and if they don't, report the situation yourself. These are not your children, these are not your charges as their nanny, and these were your employers not personal friends/family. There is only so much they can reasonably expect from you.

Reading more, I think you need to take an enormous step back as soon as possible.
You don't have to broach the subject of the Dad contacting SS or HV or GP or whatever. Stand up to him in a sympathetic way and point out clearly that you have a life elsewhere. And explain what you have done as you think they need professional support given the fact that they both have serious health problems.

This will sound trite but Mary Poppins and Nanny McPhee were only temporary and part of their role was to teach the parents to parent effectively.
It sounds as if they are well off and expect the 'staff' to pick up the pieces. And yes they will treat you as a treasure and someone they can't cope without and then wham - you will be cut off as you are not a relative.
You are, with the best will in the world, enabling their learned helplessness. And with the best will in the world you are too invested with the DCs to be able to show their parents how to cope.
You have family and they will be there for you long after this family and their DCs are grown up or moved away or found another 'treasure' to run their family life.
Please don't get in any further.

The cmht and related Ss need to know that there are dc who not being cared for by mum and dad. What they actually put in place is another matter.

Recent posts have shone a different light on all of this -- how about you advise the women to contact Women's Aid, and even Mind, the MH charity.

But I also agree there are problems here that need major sorting out, not the heroic stopgap measures you have been providing.

I'm surprised that the mum's sitiation didn't trigger a safeguarding alert, tbh.

People who are suggesting contacting social services is cruel are demonstrating a lack of understanding of their role. This situation are exactly what they are there for. They might well meet the criteria for cp reg, they might not. But it's about protecting the chn and meeting their needs, not criticising, or punishing, the parents.

I'm reading a lot I agree with here: learned helplessness; ineffective parenting; family in crisis...

The bottom line is that you are a professional and part of your role, as a professional, is to safeguard the children. Even where you are no longer involved with this family as a professional. You are witness to a situation where the children are not being cared for adequately - whatever the reason. It's one thing to step in to bridge a gap in the short term, but that's not what's happening. Your help is papering over some pretty big and serious gaps. It's great that you're helping but this isn't a broken leg and a situation you can practically step away from on 6 wks time.

The family and, more importantly, the children, need more than you are able to give in the long term.

Ss might not step in straight away - it's true that in some areas they are very overstretched. But at least you will have set the ball rolling.