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Sep. 24th, 2020 11:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
girlofpreyWe had a bit of a palaver today. Contact has been getting established again for my nephews and the rest of the family, as I said my parents went through to Cumbria last weekend to see my youngest nephew. They were supposed to see my middle nephew in Lancashire sometime this week - and then got a call on Sunday, I think, asking if they were coming down tomorrow. Which was a surprise to them. In the end they arranged to see him this weekend - then the new restrictions came in. Mum got a call from my MN's home yesterday to say they'd have to cancel the visit. She asked who had said that, whether it was them or Social Services, and they said they had to follow the national guidelines. She pointed out that the national guidelines didn't actually say family couldn't meet up outside, and the guy at the home said he would ask the kids' social worker for a final decision.
They called this morning, before I got up, to say the social worker had okayed it and we could go see him on Saturday. Then - possibly because I was worrying a bit about travelling, using public toilets and going to cafes - mum actually looked up the current guidelines, and realised that the place my MN is in is currently under one of the North-East lockdowns. And it explicitly said, in a regional newspaper article, that people cannot socialise outside their own households in the area, and that people from outside the area shouldn't visit. Which is pretty clear-cut, and since my mum is in one of the more vulnerable groups, she wasn't comfortable going anyway. So then they had to call the home and cancel the trip, after the home had told my MN they would be coming. Which was a real shame. But it feels like they and the social worker should have been a bit more on-the-ball about their own local restrictions. But anyway, it's done now.
And the social worker was possibly busy, because it turns out the hearing for my sister's custody of the kids has been moved up to tomorrow. She currently has 50% custody, as she voluntarily agreed to give them up into care. The court case will determine whether the kids go back to her, or whether Social Services gets 100% custody, for I don't know how long. We can't really see the kids going back to her, so we're expecting a very particular outcome for the case. The hearing was supposed to be held in August, and then the lockdown meant it was pushed back to October, and then my mum heard it might have been pushed back again to December, and then today we found out it was tomorrow. Straightforward.
They called this morning, before I got up, to say the social worker had okayed it and we could go see him on Saturday. Then - possibly because I was worrying a bit about travelling, using public toilets and going to cafes - mum actually looked up the current guidelines, and realised that the place my MN is in is currently under one of the North-East lockdowns. And it explicitly said, in a regional newspaper article, that people cannot socialise outside their own households in the area, and that people from outside the area shouldn't visit. Which is pretty clear-cut, and since my mum is in one of the more vulnerable groups, she wasn't comfortable going anyway. So then they had to call the home and cancel the trip, after the home had told my MN they would be coming. Which was a real shame. But it feels like they and the social worker should have been a bit more on-the-ball about their own local restrictions. But anyway, it's done now.
And the social worker was possibly busy, because it turns out the hearing for my sister's custody of the kids has been moved up to tomorrow. She currently has 50% custody, as she voluntarily agreed to give them up into care. The court case will determine whether the kids go back to her, or whether Social Services gets 100% custody, for I don't know how long. We can't really see the kids going back to her, so we're expecting a very particular outcome for the case. The hearing was supposed to be held in August, and then the lockdown meant it was pushed back to October, and then my mum heard it might have been pushed back again to December, and then today we found out it was tomorrow. Straightforward.
