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Hi, i'm pretty new here but i'm so desperate for any help and advice.......
I was with my ex for 8 years (were were engaged) but she left me for another man she met through FB. When we met she had a boy of 5 and a 18m old baby girl. They come from C and after 6 months living in N (where i'm from) we moved down there. I hae brought the kids up as my own and love them more than life itself. Even the ex says i'm a brilliant dad.
When my ex told me she was returning to C i was obviously devastated and a few weeks before she left she sent the kids back to live with her parents while she tied up things here. She moved into a friends place which she only had the 1 bedroom in it so the kids stayed with their grandparents. Her friend hadn't been paying for the house so my ex and her friend's family had to vacate the house leaving my ex homeless. She has never got on with her folks as they were violent and abusive people and put my ex in care at the age of 12 (after her stepdad got drunk and tried to molest her). They are truly vile alcoholics (the stepdad regular drunk). My ex moved to a bedsit arranged by her new boyfriend in M (where he is from) and the kids still at grandparents. The ex and her parents regularly fall out and around Christmas time someone contacted Social Services concerned about the kid's safety. The SS are now doing a core assessment and even though my ex has expressed that she wants the kids returned to me the Grandmother is saying all i am is her ex boyfriend.
The Grandmother is a vile foul mouthed woman who is very domineering and the kids have told the SS that they want to stay with her (the Kids were absolutely brokenhearted to leave me in the first place and they cried pretty much the entire car journey from N to C). Now my Son is having really bad behavioural problems at school and has been assigned a Social Worker (the lady doing the care assessment). I just want them safe and home with me but i don't know where i stand or what i can do.
Thank you.
I have contacted the lady from Children Services who i doing the assessment rugularly and at first with me being "a significant and positive part of the Kid's lives", i would be kept informed of what was happening and also would be interviewed as part of the Assessment, however last week she seemed to go cold and would only say as i had no legal rights she wouldn't be telling me anything that was happening. This seemed to coincide with the completely untrue allegations against my ex.
I know exactly what is happening here - The Grandmother has done such a great job manimpulating my Son and the Social lady has swallowed it all hook line and sinker. They put my ex in care as a teen and with their history of violence and abuse seems to have been overlooked.
The alegations against my ex were only made AFTER she implicitly stated that the Kids were to be returned home to me. I cannot fathom how a trained professional can not see what is happening
I wish I knew what to say. How sad that all this has happened and you've been excluded from things.
I really do wish you all the luck in the world with getting the children back with you,
Don't give up, and as Louise has said, stay calm at all times, (though of course you must be seething). Good luck with everything, and let us know how things are going.
Hello Steve 1701
Welcome to One Space.
You are in a really difficult situation. Things would be much easier if you had Parental Responsibility for the children (you would have had to apply to the court for this during your realtionship) but even if you do not have this, you can apply at a later date if this is deemed approrpriate.
There are two things you can do at this juncture. The first is to contact Social Services yourself, explaining (very calmly) that you have brought up these children for eight years and you want to take care of them and can apply for Parental Responsibility. Unfortunately now that Social Services is involved it will ultimately be their decision, If their mum was in care then surely there has been a problem with her parents in the past, so again you could mention this....STAY CALM and polite at all times (difficult though this must be in the circumstances)
The second thing you can do is to have a look at this website (click) and contact the Helpline to get some specific advice.
Hope that this helps