Grandparents As Parents

I am going tell you two stories

The first concerns ourselves my wife and myself and our grandson
The story began with a visit from the police at 1.00 am. who informed us that they had our grandson with them. They explained that he had been found alone on a still busy street. Panic stricken at  finding him gone from where she had left him, [ visiting someone she had apparently fallen asleep]  our daughter eventually located the police station where he was being kept . Since the police would not return her son to her she asked for him to be left with us The police asked us to take care of him pending decisions by Social Services.

Some days later our daughter came to collect him, while we were out. Our son was looking after him. She persuaded him to let her take the boy by saying that she had permission to do so. He felt he had to give her the child; a difficult decision  for a young man of 20 to have to make. She then tried to escape the attention of police and social workers.

Eventually our daughter and her child were found by the police, the boy taken from his mother by the police and Social Services and put into care.

They did not choose to place him with us as they should have done.

In the meantime our daughter, apparently convinced, that we wanted to take her child away from her, suggested to Social Services that we were in some way unsuitable as carers. Social Services were swayed by this. There followed an appearance at a magistrates court at which we argued as grandparents for our right to look after our grandson. We had by then learned that we should have been first port of call for Social Services.  The magistrate made the decision that the case should go to the family division of the high court. We were at this point visited by a police woman with responsibilities relating to children in our grandson’s position. She came to look around the house and commented that there was a lot of ironing that needed to be done! After what we had been through not very surprising really. But apparently this made us unsuitable as carers since her opinion was that our grandson would be better off with his existing stranger carers!

By this time our grandson had been with two different families all within a few weeks. We were allowed access by Social Services for a short period once a week in a small cramped noisy room along with other children--impossible in those circumstances to form any bond with him.

At the high court we made our case that we should be allowed to care for  our grandson. Social Services argued that we were too old, although adoption was offered! So too old to be carers  but not too old to adopt him! We argued that adoption would be too distressing for his mother, and would leave us in an impossible position with regard to our relationship to our daughter. What would we do if she wanted to see him? How would we handle this? What about his reactions? In the event the court accepted that we should be carers for our grandson.


We now had to go to court again to determine what type of care order would apply. We were advised by a social worker friend that a residence order would be not advisable since that would leave Social Services with little responsibility towards us or our grandson. Instead we were advised to apply to foster our grandson, which would tie Social Services into supporting all of us and would also mean that they would have to make a payment towards the expense of bringing him up.
After this third and final  court case, with a different judge,which  went in our favour, we became approved foster carers for our grandson and that has been our situation fort the past 6 and half years.

At this point we asked  for some financial support from Social Services and were told that the amount would be at their discretion but that the as relatives we could not expect payment at the usual level! Even though we were now approved foster carers.

We were determined to contest this. At this point we were told about the Munby judgement, [by the same friend in social services in another Borough], which in a nutshell states that all children in care are entitled to the same level of support.. We put this to Social Services but they informed us that the Munby judgement did not apply [I forget the exact words]. We then made a decision to take the political route. We wrote to the then children’s minister Margaret Hodge about Social Services’ attitude and received a letter from the minister stating that the Munby judgement did apply. This letter we then copied to Social Services,and two local MPs and the Fostering Network. Within a week we received a letter from Social Services  informing us that we would receive the full grant and we noted that they had copied their letter to the minister the two MPs and the Fostering Network.

During all of this we were of course constantly beset with the problem of our daughter’s addiction and her natural desire to see as much of her son as possible. A very difficult situation to be in

Now I just want to say a little about our grandson.

A quote from a report by the educational psychologist attached to our grandson’ school gives some idea of his problems. He is now in year 8 the report was written near the end of year 6.He’s now in yr 8
He was extremely self-conscious about his work and very sensitive about any evaluation. He fervently wished for it "all to be a lot better" but his main technique seemed to be to wish it away as fast as possible. He still seems ill at ease with himself and his lot. He is articulate, creative and of average ability but despite a wide range of input from school and home, is underachieving. This appears to be due to motivational factors rather than to specific learning difficulties. In addition, he missed the first two years of school when the basic foundations are laid. He finds it difficult to accept teaching and is very self-conscious about his performance in school work. This causes a further vicious circle of lowered self-esteem. He finds it hard to retain information that he does not use all the time.

Our experiences raises significant  issues. The  struggle which we had to undertake while we were both working, would not have happened if Social Services had followed the correct  procedure and placed our grandson with us immediately. It would not have happened if Social Services  had not tried to discriminate against us on the grounds of our age.  It would not have happened if Social Services  had not tried to save money by a] suggesting adoption, b] ignoring the Munby judgement and by implication our grandson’s human rights. It took about two years to finally resolve all issues. It is clearly outrageous that we should have had to go to all this trouble. Furthermore we were fortunate in that we had some crucial information from sympathetic and knowledgeable individuals, without which we might well have floundered, in spite of all our efforts. Because of course we had no social work or legal background.
How many other grandparents find themselves confronted with situations where the law is not applied, and where there is discrimination on the grounds of age, and where there is no sensitivity to their feelings? How many grandparents find themselves completely baffled as we were initially by the care system? How many fail to secure the best arrangement for themselves because they do not have access to good advice and do not know who to turn to  get advice.

And another  point here--though officially our grandson’s carers, we are not of course paid one penny of the money which would be made available to us, if we were stranger carers. Although everything that stranger carers do, we do, and that includes training and all the meetings. We are in effect discriminated against because we are related to the child we care for. There is no legal basis for this behaviour.
We sometimes sense an unspoken belief within the care system and perhaps even more widely, that in caring for our grandson we are only doing our family duty and therefore we should not expect any financial support for him or other support for ourselves.