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Hi.
Its a bit of a long story so I'll try to be to the point.
I have three children, aged 8, 12 and 17
All three children have been living with me for 6 months and my eldest has been with me since we split late 2019 and has no intention of going back to his mother or speaking with her.
Social services have been involved twice due to ex wife’s dreadful behaviour around and towards the children.
Social services were alerted a third time a few weeks ago due to stranger reporting her to social because she was acting deranged in the street. The person who called said she was concerned as they had seen a child in the house, my youngest daughter.
I have a social services report that states the children are in my care.
The social services report states supervised visits for my ex with a family member present.
My two younger children have been classed as "children in need” in the report. My eldest hasn't as he decided to stay away from her for himself.
The “children in need plan” states the following:
1) Mother to seek counselling through work - No idea if this has happened because she lies as easily as telling the truth.
2) Mother to consider seeking support for alcohol misuse - This hasn't happened at all.
3) Children to be able to discuss their wishes about there lived in experiences in mothers care - If this means what I think it means theres no way that has happened either. My ex just tells them she hasn't done anything and also tells them to tell school the same, I've read it in messages a few times.
4) Mother not to expose the children to further trauma due to alcohol use when the children are in her care - This hasn't happened at all on many occasions and I've kept the kids away when I know she's drunk.
5) Parents to seek legal advice with regards to residency and contact matters - This is why I’m here.
The children have and will continue to be exposed to trauma because their mother is unstable and is also an alcoholic in my opinion. Theres more to it than that though, she’s taken an overdose roughly 6 months ago whilst I had the children and then a few weekends ago my daughter proclaimed “mum took too many pills because she fell out with her boyfriend and was drunk when we arrived”. Her “boyfriend” has sent me over the photographs that are time and date stamped of her drinking vodka at 9:00am before the girls arrive there at 10:00am. He's usually pretty good and contacts me to collect the girls but this time he didn’t and I found out the next day. Theres been inappropriate sexual advances made towards her “boyfriend” when the girls are sat on the same sofa and this is evidenced in screenshots has sent me of private conversations between the pair of them and also notes his disgust. To be honest he seems like a decent enough bloke but he isn't strong enough to rein my ex in and lately he's been asking the girls not to tell me about what's happening over when they're over there for what I suspect is an attempt to protect my ex as much as possible. Personally when the kids aren't there they can drink themselves stupid and behave however they want to but I can't have my kids around it, its messing them up.
I've discussed it with social before the report was complete and asked them if we should build up slowly to unsupervised visits and they agreed it is the right thing to do. The problem is we never get more than a few visits before it all goes wrong again, so we never seem to actually get anywhere. Up until this point it hasn't really been an issue because frankly, she says she misses the kids for a day or so and then disappears back into the bottom of a bottle but its getting to the point now where I feel I need something concrete in place so we all know what’s happening moving forward. There are plenty of other instances of issues with her behaviour as well but its more of the same, just over and over again.
Social were due to do a conference call with us all but it didn't happen, we should have had a review by now but that also hasn't happened. They don't know anything thats happened after January and I will be contacting them on Monday to find out what, if anything is going on and also update them to what the kids have been around but other than that I have no idea what I do next. Has anyone had similar issues and/or have any idea what I should be be doing?
Topic starter
Posted : 10/04/2021 8:46 pm
Children are in your care and it dont look like changing anytime soon. On that basis there is no point going to family court as it will cost you money and potentially a lot of it. Keep working with social services and you will be fine
Posted : 11/04/2021 9:46 am
Sounds as though you are doing all you can for the children. You might look at counselling for them perhaps. It seems as though supervised visits will continue and they may be best anyway, so no need to rush for changes.
Posted : 12/04/2021 10:01 am
I think you're right to contact Children's Services as it's been quite a while since they were involved.
If you think Children's Services aren't doing their best, you could apply to the court to have the situation formalised and the court can order certain work for CS to take as well as considering what is in the best interests of the children going forward.
The fee is around £200 to make an application and you pay that once, not for each hearing. If you are unemployed or on a low income, you can claim a reduction or exemption from court fees.
Posted : 12/04/2021 2:21 pm
