Child has been taken into care

[mumisskint]

Hi, am posting for a friend who is too beside herself to post.

To cut a long story short - her daughter moved in with a chap and took her 2 children with her. He is an odd ball. Children ended up on the child protection register. The daughter agreed the eldest could come and live with her grandmother but she was keeping the younger one. The younger one was taken into care on Friday.

The grandmother wants to take the younger child too. Oddly, or I think its odd, social services called during some hearing and asked the elder child if she was OK with the younger child coming to live with her and she said no. The elder child is just 12. She now regrets this and is worried sick about her sister. They have no idea where she is, if she is fostered or in a home. Social Services have said they have no permission now to talk the grandmother and will give her no information. They arent letting her elder sister talk to her either. She is a young grandmother - her own youngest child is 10. They have space and support for the other daughter to come and live with them and they are being totally excluded.

What can she do? Is there anything they can do to get social services to listen to her? There is no money to mount a big legal case.

Any advice would be massively appreciated.

[Kati]

Re: Child has been taken into care

[MENTION=8640]leclerc[/MENTION] might be able to advise (I've tagged him) xx

A couple of questions tho' ...

• did the older child have contact with her mum and younger sister while living with gran?
• are the SS involved with both children now?
• would the MUM give SS permission to talk to gran about taking on the younger girl too?
• were the SS involved in the decision to let the eldest live with gran (were checks done at the time etc...)?

[Kati]

Re: Child has been taken into care

The Family Right Group have a "family and friends carers" board on their forum ... it might be worth having a look
http://www.frg.org.uk/FandFCForum/

K xx

[mumisskint]

Re: Child has been taken into care

• did the older child have contact with her mum and younger sister while living with gran? Yes.
• are the SS involved with both children now? Yes with the younger one - no with the older one.
• would the MUM give SS permission to talk to gran about taking on the younger girl too? - Mum for some reason has decided she doesn't want the younger one to go to gran.
• were the SS involved in the decision to let the eldest live with gran (were checks done at the time etc...)? No. It was a voluntary arrangement and she still doesn't have any formal arrangement in place. That said social services did come and visit but it was after the eldest came and they were initially talking about the younger being taken from her mother.

[Openlaw15]

Re: Child has been taken into care

• did the older child have contact with her mum and younger sister while living with gran? Yes.
• are the SS involved with both children now? Yes with the younger one - no with the older one.
• would the MUM give SS permission to talk to gran about taking on the younger girl too? - Mum for some reason has decided she doesn't want the younger one to go to gran.
• were the SS involved in the decision to let the eldest live with gran (were checks done at the time etc...)? No. It was a voluntary arrangement and she still doesn't have any formal arrangement in place. That said social services did come and visit but it was after the eldest came and they were initially talking about the younger being taken from her mother.

Hmm how sad. You say oddball, but please be specific. How did children end up on the protection register? Tell us about mother and her relationship prior to meeting this oddball. What is mother's position now? For instance, what was her relationship with the children like previously? What am getting at is did or does mother pose a risk to her children previously?

[Openlaw15]

Re: Child has been taken into care

Hi, am posting for a friend who is too beside herself to post.

To cut a long story short - her daughter moved in with a chap and took her 2 children with her. He is an odd ball. Children ended up on the child protection register. The daughter agreed the eldest could come and live with her grandmother but she was keeping the younger one. The younger one was taken into care on Friday.

The grandmother wants to take the younger child too. Oddly, or I think its odd, social services called during some hearing and asked the elder child if she was OK with the younger child coming to live with her and she said no. The elder child is just 12. She now regrets this and is worried sick about her sister. They have no idea where she is, if she is fostered or in a home. Social Services have said they have no permission now to talk the grandmother and will give her no information. They arent letting her elder sister talk to her either. She is a young grandmother - her own youngest child is 10. They have space and support for the other daughter to come and live with them and they are being totally excluded.

What can she do? Is there anything they can do to get social services to listen to her? There is no money to mount a big legal case.

Any advice would be massively appreciated.

Grandmother and her siblings have rights to see their own relative. Social worker should have asked in person but am not certain whether a confused little girl, the 12 year old, was even minded to know the consequences of her own little innocent statement.

[leclerc]

Re: Child has been taken into care

• did the older child have contact with her mum and younger sister while living with gran? Yes.
• are the SS involved with both children now? Yes with the younger one - no with the older one.
• would the MUM give SS permission to talk to gran about taking on the younger girl too? - Mum for some reason has decided she doesn't want the younger one to go to gran.
• were the SS involved in the decision to let the eldest live with gran (were checks done at the time etc...)? No. It was a voluntary arrangement and she still doesn't have any formal arrangement in place. That said social services did come and visit but it was after the eldest came and they were initially talking about the younger being taken from her mother.

Is there a current court case ongoing? If you are the grandmother you can seek to become a party to the case and perhaps you need to look at the issue of Kinship care ie becoming the person who takes over the care for both the girls providing you have the room and are able to do that.

The older child has rights too. Here are a couple of links. The first will help you: http://www.grandparentsplus.org.uk/

The second might help you and YOUR grandchild that is staying with you to get contact with her sister: https://www.nyas.net/legal-services