Supervised contact how?
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Hello all, this is the first post I have made on this forum. After reading lots of other posts I thought I would post my own and see what others have done in the situation, I am desperate for some advice. I had the knock coming up to 6 weeks ago now. I made the decision to separate from my child's father, previous issues in the relationship contributed to to this and this situation was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. What Im struggling with the most at the moment in how to go about allowing contact between my son and his dad. I have wanted to do everything the right way in the eyes of SS and keeping my child safe. My ex is allowed supervised contact under his bail conditions and the advice from SS is for this to be with a third party and not myself. I do not feel at all ready to talk to him or be involved in this (they have had one face time call so far and this did not go well with me facilitating it) The advice of SS at the moment would be for any contact to happen at a contact centre however I don't know how to go about setting something like this up. Originally I didn't want my son to see his dad at all but he is really struggling with not seeing him and missing him terribly it's starting to affect his mental health and sleep (He is 8 years old). I don't know if a contact centre is the right way forward or if I should try to sort something another way as I have heard contact centres can be expensive. My son doesn't know about the offence committed (this is another thing I am struggling with knowing what to do about) however he knows he was arrested and for his safety right now he can't see him and he won't be coming back home to live with us.
Hi,
do either of you have any trusted family members who would supervise contact? xxx
do either of you have any trusted family members who would supervise contact? xxx
We had family (approved by social services) supervise. I eventually was allowed after a capacity to protect assessment. I would recommend the child friendly book someone should have told me by Holly Ann Martin for explaining to little ones. There's a few videos of people reading it on YouTube too!
We explained to our child that dad had been unsafe online and the grownups were worried he'd been talking to people he shouldn't and because of that we needed to stick to some rules to make sure dad was being safe around other children (them).
You can then Link it to the dangers of talking to strangers and then the nspcc pants talk (theyre called private parts because as they're private-just for you).
I explained that people can be silly and sometimes take photos like this of themselves (boys and bum/fart jokes harmless photos in the bath-so it's child friendly to explain as to why they might exist) but those photos are private and everyone will have these but we don't show them to people. it's not safe to share them online as you might be embarrassed or people might be nasty and use them to try upset or hurt you and it's against the rules and nobody should ask you to take or share those photos. You're not allowed outside with no clothes on, and the same for the internet.
It's not a nice conversation but one that will keep your children safe.just reinforce that they've done nothing wrong and you know they are very clever and follow the rules and can ask mum or your trusted grown ups (teachers, social worker, mum etc) if they're worried or have any questions and you'll try to answer or help if anyone makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable about breaking the rules and you will help. It's not for them to worry about-this is how your trusted grown ups take care of you and help stick to the rules.
if you wanted to you could explain to your child that one of the rules is that when they spend time with dad it's with a trusted grown ups (the contact centre). And the trusted grown up is like a teacher for dad; who understands the rules- and they are just going to make sure you can still play and spend family time with dad.
We explained to our child that dad had been unsafe online and the grownups were worried he'd been talking to people he shouldn't and because of that we needed to stick to some rules to make sure dad was being safe around other children (them).
You can then Link it to the dangers of talking to strangers and then the nspcc pants talk (theyre called private parts because as they're private-just for you).
I explained that people can be silly and sometimes take photos like this of themselves (boys and bum/fart jokes harmless photos in the bath-so it's child friendly to explain as to why they might exist) but those photos are private and everyone will have these but we don't show them to people. it's not safe to share them online as you might be embarrassed or people might be nasty and use them to try upset or hurt you and it's against the rules and nobody should ask you to take or share those photos. You're not allowed outside with no clothes on, and the same for the internet.
It's not a nice conversation but one that will keep your children safe.just reinforce that they've done nothing wrong and you know they are very clever and follow the rules and can ask mum or your trusted grown ups (teachers, social worker, mum etc) if they're worried or have any questions and you'll try to answer or help if anyone makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable about breaking the rules and you will help. It's not for them to worry about-this is how your trusted grown ups take care of you and help stick to the rules.
if you wanted to you could explain to your child that one of the rules is that when they spend time with dad it's with a trusted grown ups (the contact centre). And the trusted grown up is like a teacher for dad; who understands the rules- and they are just going to make sure you can still play and spend family time with dad.
Thank you that's really helpful. I know my son has had a thew conversations with our social worker about staying stafe and they also looked at PANTS too. I had no idea there was a book, that be would be great to look at. It's a very difficult conversion to have at this age because he's old enough to know there are big changes happening and is asking questions but not quite old enough to understand the full extent as to what daddy has done and why he can't see him. I spoke to our social worker today about it and her advice was to not talk about why he was arrayed at all because it cannot be done in a child friendly way but the way you have explained it makes a lot of sence and sounds like something I could try. Thank you so much :)