Good Afternoon,
I never to know where to start this, I was in a relationship with my ex for 10 years we never lived together as such mainly at weekend or holidays as arguments or others interfered (ie her other children), even though I could have done more to resolve some of the issues.
I have 7 year old son with this lady (I am on the birth certificate), also he has special needs. Since he was born he has been under Social Services, I have also paid for my son since the day he was born, anyway we split up last year in September and since then Mum has with with held the information and or dates of the appointments even though Social Services continue to tell mum, she must inform me of them.
Is there anything I can do to stop mum doing this, is my first question?
My son also attends a school out of the borough different to the one he lives in, the school have allowed mum to swear at me and my family during a meeting on School Premises, and also allowed her to tell my "mum" who was at the meeting to drop "dead", in the minutes for the meeting there was no mention of this mum later told me the headmistress had a quite word with her however, the relationship between the school and myself lets say is not good?
Can you advise me of anything I can do, as the citation between myself and the school is now at all time low?
And my last question is in Three parts;
A) the first being Social Services now want to "close the case" so they have nothing further to deal with, however Mum still does not tell me about the appointments, Social Services have said speak to his doctors, I do have access to my sons doctors however every time I have spoken to them, I feel they have not given my the correct information, hence I feel this is useless.
B) If Social Services do close the case, a work friend has suggested I should approach "CaffCass" for assistant to get some help, as mum has a new "Grand Child", which is making things even more difficult for me to see my son, and to be honest its ripping me apart.
Any advise on any of the above would be grateful received.
Many Thanks
I would suggest you contact the family rights group (www.frg.org.uk) with regards to the social services, they are probably best to advise on the situation. They are correct, though, in that you can contact the doctor etc directly - the question is what you think it is that the doctor is telling you that isn't correct.
If you aren't happy with the way the school is handling things, I would say that you need to have a meeting with the school initially, to voice your concerns and to see if they can resolve it in a way you are happy with, and in a manner that they are able to do - that will get you the quickest resolution, if it is possible. Otherwise you could write to the local education authority to see what their complaints procedure is.
Thank you for your reply, I will contact FRG on Monday, with regard to your point about the doctors my son has up to 5 professional working with him at any one time, and I know he has regular appointments, with them "all", quite frequently as Mum does not tell me about them, I contacted the "GP" and they said they had no knowledge of them, I know he has the appointment as the school via Mum post things on the internal page for Parents.
With regard to your 2nd point about the school, I had a meeting scheduled with them for Tuesday this week, I e-mailed them yesterday to confirm the meeting was still going on with myself, the head mistress and my sons teacher,
Only to be told they had forgot to contact me and luckily I had as the meeting has been cancelled, as they had to forgot to let me know this. I am getting extremely annoyed with them as for doing this.
If you continue to be overlooked as far as the doctors appointments are concerned, you can apply for a specific issue order from the family court to deal with this. You would need to attempt mediation first, but if the mother understands that you’re prepared to take court action, she may decide to share the information with you.
As far as the school are concerned, I agree with actd that you should seek to resolve the issues with them directly. Ask for a new meeting to be arranged, perhaps putting it in writing.
Here is a link to some articles that might help you tackle the school and GP issues