Care proceedings - reasons for the granting of the supervision order.
Before : |
Sir Michael Birt, Commissioner, and Jurats Pitman and Dulake |
Between |
Minister for Health and Social Services |
Applicant |
And |
A (the Mother) |
First Respondent |
And |
B (the Father) |
Second Respondent |
IN THE MATTER OF EVELYN (SUPERVISION ORDER)
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE CHILDREN (JERSEY) LAW 2002
Advocate P. F. Byrne for the Applicant.
Advocate B. J. Corbett for the First Respondent.
Advocate N. S. H. Benest for the Second Respondent.
Eleanor Green, Guardian of the child, in person
judgment
the COMMISIONER:
1. At the conclusion of the final hearing in this case, the Court granted a supervision order for 12 months in respect of the five year old daughter, Evelyn (not her real name), ("the child") of the First Respondent ("the mother") and the Second Respondent ("the father"). That order was made with the consent of the parties and with the support of the guardian. The Court indicated that it would issue a short judgment in due course. What follows constitutes that judgment.
2. As already mentioned, the child is the daughter of the mother and the father although they were not married. The child lived with the mother until 2017.
3. As the threshold statement prepared for the hearing makes clear, the mother has a history of associating with violent men who drink excessively and are prone to domestic violence. It is not necessary to record matters in detail given that the threshold statement was agreed by all parties but we would mention the following:-
(i) There is a history of domestic violent incidents reported to the police involving the mother and her then partner ("the previous partner") in 2014 and 2016. In November 2016, the child was placed on the Child Protection Register under the category of emotional abuse due to the number of domestic violence incidents reported.
(ii) The previous partner was remanded in custody from March 2017 until 31st May 2017 for breaching bail conditions. Whilst he was remanded in custody, the mother began a relationship with another violent male. There were two incidents of assault by this male on the mother as a result of which he subsequently received a custodial sentence.
(iii) The mother was granted a restraining order in respect of the previous partner on 31st May, 2017, but, despite this, allowed him back into her home on 17th June. He was found by the police hiding in a wardrobe in the mother's bedroom.
4. The Children's Service was concerned about the safety of the child in view of the mother's decision to allow the previous partner into her home and with the agreement of the mother, the child went to live with her maternal grandmother ("the grandmother") on 19th June 2017. A further breach of the restraining order against the previous partner took place on 23rd June for which the previous partner was sentenced to five months' imprisonment. On 3rd July 2017, during supervised contact, the grandmother suspected the mother had been drinking. When she confronted the mother about this, the mother walked away with the child and failed to return her for two hours.
5. In the light of these developments, the Minister applied for and was granted an interim care order on 25th July, 2017. The child remained living with the grandmother pursuant to the Minister's care plan with the mother having regular contact.
6. Various reports were prepared from which it was clear that there were two significant factors which affected the mother's ability to provide safe and consistent care for the child, namely, alcohol misuse (which consisted of binge-drinking rather than continuous misuse of alcohol) and her association with violent men.
7. In December 2017, the mother became pregnant. She describes this as a turning point in her life and says she has not misused alcohol since then even though she subsequently sadly miscarried. A further change has been the allocation on 18th October, 2017, of Ms Anne Nelson as her social worker. It is clear that Ms Nelson has developed a strong relationship with the mother and indeed with other members of the family.
8. The mother has begun or has enrolled for a number of programmes which are designed to help her. She completed the online version of the Freedom programme designed by the Women's Refuge and is on the waiting list for the live version. She has also enrolled for the Mindfulness programme at Overdale and a programme for Emotional Coping Skills administered by the Health and Social Services Department. Contact sessions between the mother and the child have been observed and the evidence is that they are going extremely well and there is a very loving relationship between the child and the mother.
9. The mother's progress has been such that in February, the Minister decided to propose that a plan for reunification with the mother be developed. After preparatory measures, the child moved back to live with the mother on 10th May. Ms Nelson gave evidence before us as to how this had gone. Her evidence was that it was working very well. The child was delighted to be back home and was a happy girl. The mother had made enormous progress and seemed like a different woman. The mother has said to Ms Nelson that, when considering the person she was at the time of the interim care order, "I cannot believe that was me". She has not misused alcohol since December and in particular has broken off the relationship with a particular friend who drank too much herself and encouraged the mother to do likewise. The mother is not in a relationship at present and has asserted that she intends to concentrate on bringing up the child. The grandmother is also very supportive of the reunification with the mother and still has the child to stay for one night a week.
10. All parties before us agreed that the threshold criteria for making a care order or a supervision order set out in Article 24(2) of the Children (Jersey) Law 2002 are satisfied. We agree. A combination of the mother's binge drinking and her association with men who perpetrated domestic abuse upon her in the home whilst the child was living with her gave rise to significant emotional harm or a real risk of the child suffering significant emotional harm at the time of the interim care order. The Court therefore has jurisdiction to make a care order or a supervision order.
11. The question then is what, if any, order the Court should make. The Minister submits that a supervision order is the most appropriate order. Although the engagement of the mother with Ms Nelson and the relevant services in recent months has been meaningful and consistent, it is fairly recent. A supervision order would provide the Minister with the opportunity to maintain an overview and to support the mother should any of her vulnerabilities manifest themselves in relation to her parenting of the child. The mother and the father support the making of a supervision order.
12. The guardian also supports the recommendation. She says that the child has remained remarkably resilient during her time in the care of the Minister, largely thanks to the care which the grandmother has given her and the efforts of the mother to make such significant changes. The situation is therefore far more stable than it has been in the past but, it is still potentially vulnerable and she therefore supports the imposition of a supervision order so that the Minister can support the family on a formal basis.
13. We agree with the Minister's proposal, supported as it is by the guardian and both parents. We agree that, in the light of the mother's progress, it is not necessary at this stage to make a care order. However, the changes in the mother are comparatively recent. We think therefore that she - and therefore the child - will benefit from the assistance which will be given under a supervision order and the fact that the Minister has a formal role as a result. Ms Nelson has emphasised that she will be taking an active role in seeking to assist the mother and we commend her for the work which she has done so far.
14. We also commend the mother and endorse the observation of the guardian in her report that:-
"Both her mother and grandmother have worked together to ensure that [the child's] experiences over the past months caused as little disruption as possible, and should be congratulated for doing so."
We hope very much that the mother's progress is maintained and that she fully understands that, should she regress and once again associate with men who are violent such that the child thereby suffers emotional harm, the Minister may well be forced to intervene once again.
15. All parties agreed that the Court should grant the father's application for parental responsibility and we accordingly did so. As to contact, the father has been having supervised contact. There is however an issue which arises from the contents of a police report which suggests that contact should continue to be supervised for the time being, but there are practical issues relating to the time when, following his change in employment, the father is able to see the child. There is a need to find a supervisor who can attend at that time. The Court accordingly made no order for contact and one of the terms of the supervision order is that the mother and the father are required to adhere to contact arrangements as directed by the Minister. It is undoubtedly in the child's interests for contact with the father to continue; the reports of such contact occasions are before us and are very positive. The Minister and the parties will therefore need to work as a matter of urgency on how to make contact work in a practical sense. Ms Nelson said she would be working to progress this as a matter of some urgency.
Authorities
Children (Jersey) Law 2002