I hope you can help me; I have a shared residency order with my ex-partner for our 7 year old son. She has had previous issues with cocaine. This was never taken up by Cafcass during the court proceedings. I was under the impression she no longer used cocaine, but subsequently have discovered she uses regularly. I am concerned about my sons wellbeing and considering contacting Cafcass with my concerns.
I am worried about a few things.
1. Cafcass don’t act and request drug test
2. Causing myself more issues with my ex by reporting her to Cafcass. Especially if they do not act.
3. The biggest worry; as much as my ex restricted my access for over 12 months. I will not do the same to her. Our son needs both parents. I know she will test positive to cocaine use but I don’t want to cause my sons time with his mother to be jeopardised.
I just want her to stop taking drugs while she has shared residency of our son. She is a good mother and looks after our son really well, however I feel drugs usage is unacceptable while she has shared residency.
Anybody offer any advice? I just want what’s right for our son.
The only way to have a chance to achieve this with legal backing is to go to court, which will involve a lot of conflict, unless there is a danger to your son, in which case children's services could become involved. Is there any way you can talk about this rationally with your ex - it just seems to me that if you can get her to agree to abstain when your son is in her care, it would be the best solution rather than going to court if you can avoid it.
Hi there
Unfortunately, as your court case is closed, CAFCASS can't be involved, if you are concerned about your sons welfare, it would be Children Services that you would have to contact.
However, they will only take notice if her lifestyle choices are impacting badly on her parenting duties, for example, if the home environment is very poor, or if your son is neglected, or if the school have serious concerns about attendance and neglect.
If she functions well, holds down a job perhaps, and the home environment is good and your sons needs are taken care of, the authorities won't be interested, they generally only deal with crisis.
Thankfully, as you have shared residency, it puts you in a position where you can take action and keep hold of your son, if you feel that he is being badly effected by her behaviour.
If the situation reaches that point, then you would keep him and make an urgent application for a Prohibited Steps Order to prevent his removal by the mother and an application to have the existing order varied, to state that he lives with you. You would cite drug abuse and neglect as the reasons and you can state that you do not want to take your child away from his mother and will ensure that contact between them is fully maintained.
They would probably make an interim order in your favour, but there are no guarantees that they will air it into a final order, unless their finding s are that your son is suffering badly.
The middle way is to attempt to get this sorted out through mediation.
Best of luck