[Solved] My friends predicament

Hi Kyakuu,

I have asked a couple of our experts to take a look at your queries and hopefully we will have some responses for you shortly - keep checking back.

Thanks

Gooner

Ok, thanks 🙂

Hi Kyakuu,

Welcome to DadTalk.
It’s great that your friend has someone like you that so obviously wants to help and support both him and his girlfriend through what may be a very scary time for them both.It strikes us that there will be a lot of positive things in this situation, despite the challenges.

The first thing that your friends can both do and can be very supportive, is to go along to their nearest Pregnancy Crisis Counselling Service. These services are sensitive and confidential. If you don't want to give full names or information, they won’t insist that you do so and they will be able to offer support and advice. This will give both of your friends someone impartial to discuss everything with, which can be the start of feeling more able and seeing a way forward. If you let me know the area that your friend is in, I can post details of your nearest centre. the British association for Adoption and Fostering can also be contacted for information about how adoption works, for parents who decide that this is the way to best meet their babys needs. The website for this is here

Because of the age of the mum-to-be, social services would need to be involved, in order to ensure that the baby has the best possible life chances. It may encourage you to understand that the law says that any decisions about who a baby lives with would be based on whether parents can care for the baby. Whilst the age of the parents may suggest the need for support, it can't be viewed in itself as a reason to remove a child. Even where it is viewed that there may be some gaps in parenting skills, social workers can and do support parents to gain these skills. In all cases, social workers try to keep a family together wherever possible.

Because this mum-to-be is "in foster care", she will already have a social worker, and some experiences of working with them. Some of her experiences may be positive and some may not be so positive. Help her to think about how she can tell her carers and social worker, and to identify any personal friends or professionals that she has met that can help her with this. maybe your friend could support her. I would suggest that the girlfrriend applies for a Youth Advocate to help support her. These are people whose job it is to make sure her opinion and wished are heard and they may be really valuable to her if a lot of professionals become involved, to ensure that her voice is not forgotten. A Youth advocate can be accessed on line through the following website .

One thing that your friend does need to be aware of, is that he has broken the law – the age of consent in the UK is 16. If he or his girlfriend identify him as the father, there are some consequences to his actions and they will depend on the age difference between them and other factors. In some serious cases, this may involve being listed on a [censored] Offenders Register. Though this is obviously not desirable, it does not mean that they will have the baby removed from their care, if he is a good dad and doing all he can to support his girlfriend and his baby, then this would go in his favour.

We would advise that the more open, honest and transparent your friends can be, the more likley they are to get support. This isn't easy and there are tough times ahead on a lot of fronts, but think back to where we started......there are also some real strengths in the situation-not least of all your support. Don't do that alone...make sure you get support too, and your friend and his girlfriend find other sources of support alongside you...the more the better!!

If you want to talk, then use the forum as much as you like...we will be here for you and we are happy to coach you through this experience if it helps, through the messaging system, At Dadtalk, we can access free legal advice and social work advice to help you to help your friends.

I really hope you find this useful - please keep in touch.

Gooner

Thanks alot, you've really helped me, hopefully i can relayt this to them shortly

Dear Kyakuu,

For a person over 16 to engage in sexual intercourse with a person under 16 it constitutes a criminal offence regardless of whether the person under 16 consents. Your friend will therefore have committed a criminal offence but it is possible that the police will consider it not to be in the public interest to proceed with prosecution. It may be advisable for your friend to consider approaching a local solicitor who deals with criminal law.

Due to the mother’s young age she will be eligible for legal aid and will be able to instruct a local solicitor and the government will help pay her legal fees. She can find the contact details of local solicitors on the following website: http://www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingan ... icitor.law . She needs to ensure that any solicitors she does approach offer legal aid and deal with child law.

Yours sincerely,

The Children’s Legal Centre