Social services - absolutely terrified
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Hi,
I don't know if this is the right place to put this but my husband is up for sentencing this week or next and all of a sudden the thought of social services and supervised contact etc is scaring the hell out of me.
He has a brilliant pre sentence report, 2 psychiatric reports that all say how remorseful he is, the offences were linked to mental health rather than predatory behaviour etc. Then today we had an updated PSR which completely disagreed with everything, said the psychiatrist was wrong, the first PSR was completely wrong and she literally disagreed with everything. Luckily, our solicitor has said that a judge almost certainly won't believe one bad report over three really good ones.
Anyway, because of this new report, Ive all of a sudden become really aware that social services are going to become involved and it's not going to be over once he's sentenced, it's just going to get harder.
Can someone please tell me what happens?
If the SHPO does say about unsupervised contact with children, will he be able to have supervised contact straight away when he comes home after sentencing? Will I be able to supervise? My Dad lives with us and he's fully supportive so I always assumed that was a good thing. When he comes home (he was remanded), he has to live with his mother and the plan was to stay at his mothers with him all of us, until social services approved him coming home but now I realise that's probably not going to happen. I'll have to stay with him for a few nights a week at his mothers if I can have my parents have our 8 year old son. But can he still see him while the risk assessment is going ahead?
My little boy just wants his daddy and it's breaking my heart. I genuinely don't know how much more I can take, it feels like my life is being ripped apart every 5 minutes and just when I think things will be okay, my world shatters again.
I don't know if this is the right place to put this but my husband is up for sentencing this week or next and all of a sudden the thought of social services and supervised contact etc is scaring the hell out of me.
He has a brilliant pre sentence report, 2 psychiatric reports that all say how remorseful he is, the offences were linked to mental health rather than predatory behaviour etc. Then today we had an updated PSR which completely disagreed with everything, said the psychiatrist was wrong, the first PSR was completely wrong and she literally disagreed with everything. Luckily, our solicitor has said that a judge almost certainly won't believe one bad report over three really good ones.
Anyway, because of this new report, Ive all of a sudden become really aware that social services are going to become involved and it's not going to be over once he's sentenced, it's just going to get harder.
Can someone please tell me what happens?
If the SHPO does say about unsupervised contact with children, will he be able to have supervised contact straight away when he comes home after sentencing? Will I be able to supervise? My Dad lives with us and he's fully supportive so I always assumed that was a good thing. When he comes home (he was remanded), he has to live with his mother and the plan was to stay at his mothers with him all of us, until social services approved him coming home but now I realise that's probably not going to happen. I'll have to stay with him for a few nights a week at his mothers if I can have my parents have our 8 year old son. But can he still see him while the risk assessment is going ahead?
My little boy just wants his daddy and it's breaking my heart. I genuinely don't know how much more I can take, it feels like my life is being ripped apart every 5 minutes and just when I think things will be okay, my world shatters again.
Hi,
have you had any involvement from ss upto this point? There's a lot going on in your post but for now I'd suggest creating your own plan for supervised contact in preparation for them getting in touch. I'd advise holding off your son having contact at least until after your OHs first probation meeting. This will pave the way for a better relationship with probation. His first meeting should be within a week of sentencing. It's the responsibility of his solicitor to push back on any proposed SHPO if it is not proportionate to the offence. Even without a no unsupervised contact clause it's better to wait until this has been verified by probation, you can also send a copy of his SHPO to ss if you want to once you have it. To address the issue of where you live it's the amount of time and potential for unsupervised contact that is the reason why they recommend offenders not living in the family home rather than them just having the same address as a child. I hope this helps. Have you done research around offending and risk? How much does your son know/understand? xxx
have you had any involvement from ss upto this point? There's a lot going on in your post but for now I'd suggest creating your own plan for supervised contact in preparation for them getting in touch. I'd advise holding off your son having contact at least until after your OHs first probation meeting. This will pave the way for a better relationship with probation. His first meeting should be within a week of sentencing. It's the responsibility of his solicitor to push back on any proposed SHPO if it is not proportionate to the offence. Even without a no unsupervised contact clause it's better to wait until this has been verified by probation, you can also send a copy of his SHPO to ss if you want to once you have it. To address the issue of where you live it's the amount of time and potential for unsupervised contact that is the reason why they recommend offenders not living in the family home rather than them just having the same address as a child. I hope this helps. Have you done research around offending and risk? How much does your son know/understand? xxx
I'm really sorry I didn't see your reply! We've had no involvement ever, the police said they had to refer when we had the knock 3 years ago but we never heard anything from social services. Our son knows now, he didn't but he does know. He knows daddy is in prison on remand but not what for. I take it social services okay supervised contact when they first get in touch? Lucy Fairhful gave me a safety plan, I haven't got it in me to look at it yet, I know I'm ridiculous. How long does it roughly take for unsupervised or even for them just to come home? XXX
Hi,
I think you're stuck rather than ridiculous. We talk about fight or flight mode as a response to trauma but there are also freeze and fawn too. I think you're possibly in both freeze and fawn to an extent. I'm going to be very honest with you from what I've gathered from your posts, if any of what I'm saying isn't your situation then I'm sorry.
If the original knock was 3 years ago I'm assuming there has been another knock which prompted him being remanded in custody. Ss will likely have concerns about why you didn't get in contact when police said they were putting in a referral and you didn't hear anything from them. What did you do between arrests for contact with your son? What does your son know about privacy, pants work and staying safe online. Whilst you're in freeze or fawn your decision making abilities will be impaired. I'd look into some trauma therapy for yourself. You do also need to have more knowledge around offending and how to keep your son safe before you begin to move forward to unsupervised and living together. It's important that you are aware of risks even for you to be able to supervise contact xxx
I think you're stuck rather than ridiculous. We talk about fight or flight mode as a response to trauma but there are also freeze and fawn too. I think you're possibly in both freeze and fawn to an extent. I'm going to be very honest with you from what I've gathered from your posts, if any of what I'm saying isn't your situation then I'm sorry.
If the original knock was 3 years ago I'm assuming there has been another knock which prompted him being remanded in custody. Ss will likely have concerns about why you didn't get in contact when police said they were putting in a referral and you didn't hear anything from them. What did you do between arrests for contact with your son? What does your son know about privacy, pants work and staying safe online. Whilst you're in freeze or fawn your decision making abilities will be impaired. I'd look into some trauma therapy for yourself. You do also need to have more knowledge around offending and how to keep your son safe before you begin to move forward to unsupervised and living together. It's important that you are aware of risks even for you to be able to supervise contact xxx
Social services can be a mixed experience. They've been in my life since the start of our journey. Ive got a love hate relationship with them I will be honest. Ive never felt theyve ever taken the fact i was trying to recover from my birth trauma and has PPD due to it right when the arrest happened. My daughter got put straight on a CIN plan and ive supervised contact since the beginning with us living separately. We are now being moved onto a conference to see if a CPP is needed because theyre worried about future potential harm (no evidence of past or current harm) because of him possessing and distributing images and theyre worried both our mental healths could cause harm. They've spoken about it for months but it's now happening. Theyre probably not going to like me because I will be stating that the SS handling of our chase has caused me undue stress which has damaged my mental well being. Since they've backed off and stopped contacting me ever week and a half ive actually been able to recover mentally.
My case was very similiar to yours. Although my ex got a SHPO that specified no direct contact with children his own child was an exception to that (as long as social services were happy). It took a while - around 4 months - but social services did allow unsupervised contact with our son. The issue I had is that to allow that contact social services insisted on telling my son all the awful details about what my husband had done. What I learnt from my own experience is to insist the social worker discusses that conversation first. And that someone else is present. I found out afterwards that the best approach was to do at school with a counsellor present. Social services were so desperate to keep my son "safe" that they traumatised him instead. So fight to make sure as the mother you can control those conversations