I am in a panic / driving myself mad ( I’ll happily admit that)
I am the mother of a child whose father is seeking a contact arrangement. I am more than happy with this.
I was looking for others experiences with mental health / psychological assessments. My daughters father has multiple times within his court forms and position statement said he has mental health issues and has been referred to a psychiatrist, he is blaming me for these- hence cutting all previous contact with our daughter, currently just having phone contact.
Has anyone been in a similar situation, I’ve has a quick chat with cafcass in which I said when he was having contact with our daughter I had no concerns anout his ability to parent her, my only concern was his disregard for our daughters emotional well-being by cutting the contact.
As he has said he has been referred to a psychiatrist donyou think they will ask him to have a psychological assessment? Will they allow unsupervised contact?
Surely if he's admitted to the court he has psychological issues, then he would agree to supervised contact himself?
I don’t know is my honest answer. I think he is thinking that contact will resume straight away with his new times / days he has asked for, he has disclosed these mental health issues using them against me, he is saying I have caused them and for that reason there is to be no contact between us, I am to have no contact address or contact number for him, I don’t think he has realised his ability to safely parent our daughter will now be questioned. I never felt like his mental health had any effects on his ability to parent whilst we were together or since we split up, he hid them VERY well throughout our relationship. I feel like my head has just been mushed into a big ball of just not knowing what’s right anymore. I am glad it’s out of my hands and cafcass will make that judgement.
The initial hearing is in a few weeks, he currently has no contact other than phone calls through his own choice.
I’m guessing by your reply that supervised contact is generally requested in this situation. Could I hand our daughter over to him at a centre? Or would I have to leave her alone with staff for them to hand her over? I think she will become very distressed if I left her with strangers!
It's a long time since I've used a contact centre, but if I recall, they invited me in with my daughter a couple of times initially so that she got used to the staff their first, and then it wasn't such a deal when it came to the actual contact, especially when she saw that I was happy with the staff. You may be able to go in to the contact area yourself with your daughter a week or two before contact starts, so she gets used to the place, and maybe makes a friend or two - that will make it less stressful for her. Don't forget, the contact staff are used to dealing with these situations, so will know what is best, especially if you can work together with them.