Cafcass Question?

Could anyone tell me if it is right that cafcass had a chat with my sons childs Mother at a directions hearing, before approching my son for a chat with the two of them. Surely this is not an equal process. My son felt he was attacked and bullied by the two of them with only his x parters side of the story to go on. We talked to his solicitor about this, and his advise was not to say anything yet as he did not want to upset cafcass about the case. My son does have his child in his care at the moment with a prohibited steps order. How can cafcass dicuss something with the two of them when she has not had a talk to them both individuely?
In any other areas it would be discrimination.

Realistically be very prepared to have problems with cafcass as they do discriminate in favour of the mother. Make sure everything is written down and not just that they verbally agree with you. Keep copies of all your evidence and don't be afraid to use it.

Mothers are given a huge amount of leeway (sorry ladies) and allowed to get away with things as they are classed a being under extreame stress and emotional upset.

Hence why contact becomes such an issue and the mother has to be persuaded (in some cases - not all as I am aware that some mothers do care about their children I just have a particularly bitter experience at the moment)to allow the child to have contact with the father. The father will have the accusation of he's only doing it for financial reasons thrown at him at every turn whereby the mother would never dream of doing this and is only worried about her child in 'that mans' care.

I currently have a child hearing up coming over a report they wrote and the inaccuracies supplied therein and the fact that even when evidence from the school was provided stating dates etc they still refused to correct their report. If the correct information is put in the report the whole thing is turned on it's head.

The main person you have to persuade and reason with is the judge. His is the final decision and cafcass is only a recommendation.

T

I'm not sure there is evidence to suggest Cafcass discriminate in favour of one parent or another. There is often no right or wrong about parenting issues and individuals including Cafcass, the legal profession and the judiciary can have their own attitudes.Some fathers feel there is a bias against them, and some mothers feel there is a bias against them too, but with only hearing the stories from one side the truth is unverifiable.

However, Ofsted reports of Cafcass are not exactly glowing and many problems have been identified. Often the best thing to do is to cooperate, let them make their report and if necessary challenge it on legal grounds in court.

Sorry Fiona but my opinion of cafcass probably is biased in the:

When interviewing our children they did not listen to them and in the end our eldest child had to remove himself from his mothers home without any belongings and still they wouldn't pay any heed to this. The judge was the only one who took his wishes on board. The cafcass officer had to intervene just so he could have his clothes (toys and easter eggs and watch were all given away along with his bike).

The whole issue was caused by my ex preventing contact consistantly throughout and trying to cause as much distance as possible between myself and the children. All interviews were corrupted by my ex with cafcasses permission as they certainly did not request that there be parity and all of them only took place after my ex had spent time with the children before hand. On one occasion she even removed our eldest child from school 6 hours before a meeting with cafcass meeting. On another she took them for a drive round a rough housing estate far from where they live and told them that they'd be living there if daddy got his way as they'd have no where to live and daddy would go back to where he came from. They'd have to move school and they'd not see their friends.

They did not behave with any parity in the interviews and the children were not interviewed or visited at my house.

They permitted my ex to get away with all manner of methods to circumnavigate any meetings such as arriving 30 minutes before they were due to close and 1 hour late for their meeting.

Part of this last report includes a statement that the cafcass officer feels that the educational psychologist and the school are incorrect in the assessment of my oldest child due to an incident which took place whilst he was living with his father.

The incident in question actually took place when he was living with his mother and 3 weeks before he walked out of aresidence he was desperately unhappy in. When a letter from the school was given to them regarding the correct date the cafcass officer in question refused point blank to amend her report before the court hearing took place. The same report was deliberately not given to me till the day before yet my ex had it the week before.

A reconcilitary meeting was arranged by cafcass for my eldest son and his mother yet there has been no such intervention with regard to my daughter and myself.

The first cafcass report that was done mentioned that my ex was confiding in our daughter too much and treating her as a friend rather than a child and as such would cause emotional damage for the future particularly as my ex used to try and use her to negotiate finacials for the divorce. Cafcass are fully aware that my ex has shared all the divorce papers including the 6 page list of reasons for the divorce petition (one of which was alledged that I demanded that my ex have our youngest child aborted which was untrue) with the children including the youngest child.

For christmas contact the cafcass officer actually took the diary off my ex to arrange dates as she was too fully booked to spend time with the children with her social life and unofficial working. The good thing for me is that it meant I had the children 75% of the time over the christmas break rather than misc relatives and childsitters. Strangely non of this ever came out either.

So I'm sorry but my opinion about them definately falls in line with the Ofsted reports.

T

Thank you both for your comments.
My son was nearly in tears after this meeting.
His X partner has been neglecting his son and has also admited to taking recreational drugs in a statement. The cafcass lady wrote down aledged taking of drugs.
Dispite my son saying he was prepared to also give her extra contact if she shows interest in the contact she has already been given, ( in 7 weeks she has missed 3 and turned up and dropped off late for all the others)the Cafcass lady said that is a no then, which is not what he said.
Does cafcass not care about the distress that has already happened to his son with all the messing about by his mother because she can not get up in time for her contact. I thought they are suppose to put the child first. She did not ask my son once about the welfare of the child. We now all feel cafcass do not care about the child, only the Mother.
His X also has an older son by 5 years and a younger child by 3 years, all from diffrent fathers. The older child has missed so much school that the education authorities have tried to fine her but because she is on benefits she can not pay it. So they have had to fix up a lift for her to get this child to school and he is still late when they can get him there and she is always late picking him up too. She has already displayed this with my sons son too. with already missing so much playschool and late drop offs and pick ups and on several occasions no breakfast either. Do Cafcass not care about this either?

My best advice would be to write it all down clearly. Try to keep it to the main points and don't loose the reader by bringing in trivial points.

Look at it from the perspective of the child and what they want and need rather from the perspective of the father or mother.

Put with it evidence of incidents if you have it.

If she has not shown up for contact meetings then see what you can get to support that. Is there a register if it's at a contact centre? At the very least a diary record?

Put together a schedule of contact that your son would be happy with bearing in mind it is up to the child to draw his/her own opinions of their parents in their own time.

Then copy all this and send one copy to the judge and one to cafcass. If it's in writing then they're not relying on notes for an underpressure organisation.

Also I did a letter for the judge which was basically my involvement in the past with the children (activities, role models, routine etc), one for the present and then another for the future should I be given the opportunity. Showing what I want to do with them, explore with them and support them through.

It may or it may not work but at least you can try.

T

This week my son has been contacted by social services by phone to tell him they are shocked that his x partner has not been put on the At Risk register as they have been involved on and off for nearly 5 years. They also said they would be talking to Cafcass about this as they are thinking of removing the other half sibblings from her care too and would be recomending that my son has residence of his son.
Two days later he got a phone call from Cafcass talking about him having residency and did he want to cut down the contact his X already has. He said no, as he felt that his son should have contact with his Mother. They have now made an appointment to come and see my son and child next week at our home and there is talk about trying to wind everything up at the next court hearing in two weeks time, which was called for by his x partners solicitor for more contact while a section 7 report was done. Is it normal for cafcass to contact you by phone?
It suddenly seems as if everything is changing since social services has been looking into the case. I keep thinking someone is playing games, as so far we have had nothing in writing.
I don't know what to think about all this, has anyone had this happen to them or know about it!