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Hi all hope you can help me with this please, recently i have had a court order in my favor in which for 12 weeks i will see my child in a contact centre unsupervised and after that in community for 4hours and then 6hours every saturday, the problem is i havent seen my little girl who is 16months old for nearly 8 months, since court order i have seen her 4times at the contact centre but my ex is being v unco-operative on purpose, she refuses to come in the same room so when the child is being brought to see me the child starts crying and then the contact centre people take her away, my ex is doing that on purpose so that the child never gets used tro me and keep crying whenever sees me, contact centre people said they cant force my ex to be in the same room as me if she dont want to, so its going against me even though i have a court order, can any of you please suggest a way out?
also last time the contact centre worker sat with my ex and then came to me and said contact wont happen becuase the child is crying and stressed and asked me to see my solicitor and get new arrangement( supervised)- it seems she is just letting my ex win by taking her side.
i have a full and final court order why should i seek any new arrangements?
and also even if i go for a supervised arrangement the child will still cry.
i want to know cant the contact centre people tell my ex that she should be co-operating if she dont want to be in the room she can stay behind the doors or something like that to make child comfortable?
or atleast can they give me in writing that the mother is not cooperating ?
thank you
t
Hi LongJohn,
From my understanding and own experience.... if one parent wants t make it difficult they can and will, and in most cases there seems precious little that can be done other than to record the incidents...... and at the right time return it to court if it comes to that.
Unfortunately the staff are right in that you simply cannot make someone comply, the only way that i can think of is to remove the mum from the equation somehow, i.e. Does your child go to a nursery? if so then you pick up from nursery.... or playgroup.... or such like..... or you make arrangements for your child to attend a nursery so that you can then have contact following, either way it sounds like you may have to get a variation but to do that you have to go back to show how the mother is frustrating/blocking contact.... if the mother does not agree to the variation voluntarily (in writing!)
It may be that you take a step back and have to jump through the hoop of supervised contact if it means that you can finally start to have regular contact and start getting your little one use to spending time with you.
It may be worth writing to the mum in the mean time and explain that it will make it all the more difficult for your little one when it come time to hand over in the community and on Saturdays if you don't start having regular contact immediately to build up the bond, and that you wish to avoid any unnecessary upset all around at these times if the mum is use to more direct handovers when the time comes.
Hi many thanks for the reply, yes my child goes to the nursery but the problem is i live about 150miles away so not possible to collect the child, at the moment i see my little one every saturday but child cries because im like a stranger to her and thats what my ex wants to use against me, she doesnt want the child to get used to me or to be comfortable to me at all, she is doing this on purpose because she had to agree to the contact when the cafcass report came in my favor but using the child against me.
the court has made a final order stating unsupervised contact so should i wait and let her make/ask for supervised contact? i mean why should i apply for a supervised contact, why not let her go to solicitor and do that
i will stick with the arrangements agreed and if she breaks it and then shall i send her a letter advising of the consequences?
thank you
this is a case where simple bribery might work, so try taking something small that will keep interested for the first few minutes, and something small for the first few visits.
Hi Thanks, yea i do that every time, take little toys with me to keep the baby distracted, she is getting comfortable with me now but ex is still being very difficult and [censored] bent in trying to make contact fail
It's a matter of finding a way to thwart her attempts without affecting your daughter, sounds like it's starting to work.
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