[Solved] Son is under police protection in my care?

By the sounds of it, there will be no concerns raised against you in the section 7, unless your ex makes up some allegations that they will have to investigate. It seems as though she has had enough chances now but thankfully he is with the "safer" parent now. I assume SS may recommend some sort of supervised contact with your ex for a while.

Hi Stamina,

Looks like you are in a good position to be granted sole custody of the kids.

My only advice would be that there could be a possibility that the mother is given restricted contact but that you should make the right judgement calls based on the children and allow access based on what you believe is right for the kids. So if you do believe she should get more than what the courts say (the courts may not say but in case they do) then try to arrange this. Even if it does mean you are chasing up the mother to spend time with the kids etc. Due to drink and drugs, the mother may not care about the situation as you say however I'm sure the kids do and maybe in time they will benefit from the contact even if it is limited.

As many parents on here will attest to, we are all here trying to do the best by our kids and are all concerned by the long term impact of the children not having contact with both parents. My view is that if the roles were reversed I wouldn't do what my ex has done and be prevented from having access unless of course there is the risk of harm to the kids but even then I would consider how could I mitigate and reduce the harm as a responsible parent before cutting off access totally.

Just my thoughts, good luck.

hi stamina,

sounds like you have full backing of social services to get sole custody of kids. section 7 report is what social workers complete. they look into welfare issues of child and decide whats in best interests of child, e.g. spending more/equal time with both parents, or recommending change of custody etc. they will interview and talk to child. report depends on each case and circumstances of children and parents. i wonder if you would be allowed to have custody without going through courts.

Assuming you get residency, I would say that contact must definitely be supervised at a contact centre, both for safety and for record keeping of attendance. I did this a long time ago - initially twice monthly contact, fully supervised, but she couldn't maintain that, so it went to monthly, and then to supported, before she finally stopped bothering to attend.
My circumstances were remarkably similar to yours, except in my case, social services didn't know about it until they were presented with a fait accompli, after which the fully supported me, and wrote a letter saying that the case was closed as long as they remained with me.

Thanks very much to all of your replies, however, i only thanked actd with the 'thank you' link because his seemed more pertinent.
It very much going in the direction i stated initially. Social worker said that she will advise at the conference and court that he should be with me.
I am finding this very difficult emotionally though. But the bottom line is, im more stable than her.
He's such a wonderful boy and i will never let him down.

[quote="actd" post=108821]Assuming you get residency, I would say that contact must definitely be supervised at a contact centre, both for safety and for record keeping of attendance. I did this a long time ago - initially twice monthly contact, fully supervised, but she couldn't maintain that, so it went to monthly, and then to supported, before she finally stopped bothering to attend.
My circumstances were remarkably similar to yours, except in my case, social services didn't know about it until they were presented with a fait accompli, after which the fully supported me, and wrote a letter saying that the case was closed as long as they remained with me.

Hi actd,

I have been granted full sole residency of my five year old son. She has already missed 70% of the contacts and we are where we are. The problem I'm now struggling with is my son feeling rejected by his mother and it's dawning on him that he won't liver with her again. Any thoughts?
The judge in his final ruling also permitted her to certify 24 hours prior to contact that she will attend. 2 or more concurrent absenses will prompt a review. Currently weekly contact, she's already canceled the first on this week. Probably gonna go to fortnightly.
Any tips on how kids deal with this sort of thing?
How do you, or did you cope with this?
Sorry, I'm using my phone but I come to your comment from months ago quite often, so that I feel less alone in all of this.
Regards

Stamina congratulations 🙂 seems like it will be difficult for your son to adjust, as his mum is unreasonable with contact. Would video calls help?

Thankyou Bill.
He has been having video calls and physical contact. It was two video calls a week and one physical, now it's one video call and still one physical.
He supposed to have one later today.
He is struggling to adapt, and to be honest so am I. I'm doing well but I honestly never thought I'd be in this situation. I'm happy with it don't get me wrong, but you just assume that mums get the kids or want to keep them etc. But due to the drink and drugs she's just not mentally stable. I feel rejected as well, but it's not about me. He is adapting and I'm changing his school within the next few weeks but it's all surreal

The thing you and your son need is consistency and stability. In my own case, I had residency and contact was in a contact centre (supervised initially and then supported) every 2 weeks, but when the mother failed to mange that, I went back and had that changed to every 4 weeks so that my daughter knew when to expect contact (rather than sit in a contact centre waiting for the mother to appear, only for the contact centre to ring her and find she wasn't coming - happened on a couple of occasions) until the mother finally decided she couldn't even do that, and contact stopped altogether. In all of this, my role was to support my daughter (I was helped by my new wife at the time, who was brilliant), and to make sure that my daughter knew it wasn't her fault that her mother wasn't making the effort.

It's possibly worth contacting your local gp or the child's school to ask if there is any provision for counselling for him? It might help him deal with what he's going through. It's something you could consider for yourself as well? It must be an extremely difficult time for you both whilst you're adapting to your new situations.

Best of luck

Hello Stamina9008,
I’ve read through your threads and would just like to share a couple of thoughts with you that may help with the current situation you are in. It reads like you have a great bond with your son, so whilst there are some things in his life that at the moment cannot be changed - your relationship with him is a positive one, and one on which you can continue to build upon. I understand that currently , time with his mum is not ideal, but keep telling your son that you love him and that you will always be there for him, and encourage him to try and articulate how he is feeling on a daily basis. This maybe in the form
of 1-1 playtime - where he chooses the activity and where he may open up and talk about what’s on his mind, or put up a poster of emoji faces and he can point to how he is feeling and then you can ask for example “ you’ve chosen the happy face , what’s made you happy?” Your son will feel safe and loved through reassurance. Encourage him to draw pictures for his mum to give to her, do times like Mother’s Day and her birthday etc, so he knows that he will always have a mum and that you as his dad always kept the lines of communication open regarding his mum. Reassure him that he has done nothing wrong, it’s that mummy isn’t well at the moment. I understand it’s not going to be easy for him at this age to understand the whys, but by helping him to understand a little you can always build on it when he’s older. Plan things for him to look forward too, so that he understands that life goes on and he is loved, unique and special. I hope this helps in some way. Quite often we don’t ever fully understand people’s life choices fully, but if you do the best that you can and take it one day a time , you will get there. Hope this helps in some small way. Kind Regards, Fegans PSV. Ps Fegans and Care For the Family are two great charities and have lots of online information.