Maisie (simple judgment for parents with learning difficulties), Re

The names in this judgment have been changed.

I have been asked to decide what plan is best for a little girl called Maisie who is nearly one year old.

Maisie’s mum is Becky who is 20 years old, and her dad is Sam who is nearly 20. Within this judgment I shall refer to them as Becky and Sam, which is how they have chosen to be addressed within this court hearing.

Becky and Sam, live with Becky’s dad, Michael. Becky’s brother James also lives in the house together with a dog called Marley and two pet rats called Boris and Harry.

At this hearing Becky has been represented by a barrister called Jonathan and Sam by a barrister called Marie. Becky’s solicitor, Ellie and Sam’s solicitor, Lauren have also been here to help us.

This hearing has been listed to decide what the plan should be for Maisie’s future. Becky and Sam would like her to live with them, and they recognise they would need some support with this and would like to be able to live with a family such as a shared lives arrangement.

The social workers feel that it would be too difficult for Becky and Sam to look after Maisie both now and in the future. Maisie’s children’s Guardian, Sharon, agrees with the social workers and says that Maisie should now be placed with a carer or carers who have been approved as adopters.

I have decided that Maisie should be placed for adoption. I will try to explain why I have reached that decision. This judgment has been written for Becky and Sam, and for Maisie to understand when she is older.

Social workers began working with Becky and Sam before Maisie was born. Maisie’s social worker is called Emily.

Emily asked a psychologist called Dr Brown to check the parents’ understanding and to make sure that professionals working with the parents checked that Becky and Sam understood things. Dr Brown reported that Becky found it very difficult to understand some of the information and struggled to remember things. He recommended that she would need support from an advocate and that the Official Solicitor should also help Becky in these proceedings. Becky has also had support from Amy who is here to help Becky to understand what is being said in court. Her advocate Daniel from a local advocacy service has also been in court with Becky this week.

Dr Brown felt that Sam was able to understand these proceedings and did not need any particular help or support to understand what people were saying to him.

Emily also arranged for an independent social worker to do an assessment of Becky and Sam to look at what support they may need to help them care for a baby. That social worker was called Jo Ryalls. In her report Jo sets out that Becky had a difficult time when she was a child and her parents did not always give her the support and care that she needed.

Sam also had a difficult childhood in which he suffered trauma. His mother died very suddenly when he was a baby, and he was brought up by his dad and step mum but then his father died when he was still a teenager.

As part of her assessment, Jo looked at Becky and Sam’s understanding of being a parent. She had a number of worries about whether they would be able to look after a baby. She was worried that the home environment was not always very clean and that both parents struggled to understand why the social workers were worried about them looking after a baby.

When Maisie was born, Judge Kolinsky decided that Becky, Sam and Maisie should go together to a family centre that supports and assesses families with their babies or young children. Becky, Sam and Maisie were due to be there for 12 weeks, but the placement was stopped early. The workers were worried that Becky and Sam struggled to look after Maisie. Maisie also had a number of health needs and was very poorly whilst she was in the family centre. The workers there were worried that Becky and Sam needed one-to-one support at times to look after Maisie.

On 17 September 2024, the family centre confirmed that they were no longer willing to offer a place to Becky, Sam and Maisie and I therefore sadly agreed that Maisie should be placed with foster carers. I know the parents were desperately sad at my decision. Indeed, Becky has spoken during this hearing about how heartbroken she was and how difficult it was to leave Maisie in the hospital.

After Becky, Sam and Maisie left the family centre a new social worker called Lindsay met with the parents to do another assessment.

Lindsay has come to court to tell me about her assessment. She was very clear that Sam and Becky love Maisie very much indeed. They have been to all of the contacts that have been offered and attended all of the assessment sessions. She told me that they have tried their very hardest and have done their very best to care for Maisie. I agree that they could not have done more than they have done.

However, she felt that the only way that Becky and Sam could care for Maisie safely was with 24-hour support for 7 days a week. She thought that they would need this support for several years. She suggested something called a shared lives placement which I understand is an organisation that arranges for parents to be supported in caring for a baby by a family in the family home. The social worker, Emily, has made some enquiries to see whether a placement may be available, but she has not been able to find one that would be able to offer a home to Becky, Sam and Maisie and support Becky and Sam in looking after Maisie.

Lindsey was asked about missed opportunities for teaching. Sadly, she felt that in order for Becky and Sam to learn something fully, they would need to be taught, then the behaviour modelled and then some time for this teaching to bed in. She worried that in that time, Maisie would have moved on in her development and it would be time for the parent to learn something new. I accept this as I have looked at all the records from the family centre (and recent contact notes) and it is clear that there was much advice and modelling offered (and pictorial aids) but it was still hard for Becky and Sam to put make sure they did something in the same way all the time all the time (one important example is picking up on Maisie’s cues).

As Becky has been identified as suffering from some learning disability, the local authority has a duty to assess what support she is entitled to. This is called an adult care assessment. The assessment was completed by a different social worker, Rachel.

Rachel has also come to court to talk about her report. She told me that Becky is entitled to some support, and she recommended that Becky could attend some support groups or courses. In Rotherham there is something called a Community Connector who looks at what courses and groups might be best to offer the support.

Because Becky (and Sam) do not yet have their own home, some of the support that she would not yet be appropriate. A short intensive package of support for up to 6 weeks can be put in place if and when Becky and Sam to get their own home. She told me that the support could be as much as four visits a day.

I was surprised and disappointed that Rachel did not offer more support to Becky. She had just left things to the community connector and had not done any follow-up. However, even if she had offered more support to Becky, I do not think that would have been enough to change my decision about Maisie.

Emily has come to court and has told me about some of the arrangement she has made and tried to make to offer support and teaching to Becky and Sam. Whilst I know that Becky and Sam feel let down by Emily when I listened to her I thought she had tried very hard to put as much support in place as possible. She sounded a little frustrated that there were not more services for Becky and Sam. She has tried to find a “shared lives” home that Sam, Becky and Maisie could move to together but has not been able to find one.

She also told me that the formal sessions of teaching that were originally planned had not taken place because Lindsey’s assessment was intended to cover some of those areas of assessment and teaching, and that the workers that supervise the contact and the foster carer have given regular feedback to Becky and Sam as to how to look after Maisie.

I think it is a shame that Emily had not been to see Becky and Sam in contact more recently, but I do accept that she had regular feedback form the contact workers.

Sam gave evidence to me, and it could not have been clearer how much he loves Maisie. He told me that together with Becky, she is the most important person in his life. He gave me some lovely descriptions of things she likes, particularly snacks and her toy dinosaur.

Becky has written me a beautiful letter which she read out to me. Again, she told me about the things that Maisie loves such as jammy dodgers which she gets all over her hands. She is growing very quickly. Becky told me she had bought Maisie a toy cow which has Maisie’s birthday printed to its ear. I agree this is a very special gift for Maisie.

Sharon, who is Maisie’s guardian in this case has told me that she agrees with the social worker’s plan. She agrees that it would have been useful for her to see Becky and Sam with Maisie since they left the family centre, but she does not think it would have changed her view. Also, she does not think that further teaching for Becky and Sam would change things.

She was also worried that if there was a shared lives placement, this may not be the best thing for Becky and there would be many uncertainties for Becky and her parents if they were to move to a family placement which could be anywhere in the country. She was worried that this would be very similar to Maisie remaining in foster care but with her parents living in the same foster home. She was worried that there could be disagreements between the parents and the carers. I accept entirely that Becky and Sam do not fall out with people or argue with them. However, I can see that it may be difficult for everyone if they were sharing a home and perhaps used to doing things in different ways.

Becky and Sam love Maisie very much indeed. I have been able to look at some beautiful photos and videos of Maisie with her mummy and daddy and I can see that she loves them very much as well.

I know that they have some real fun with her when they are having contact However, I do agree with Lindsay that in order to look after Maisie, Becky and Sam would need a lot of support, all day, and every day. I am very sad to hear that this amount of support is not available.

I have thought about whether I should delay a decision for Maisie to allow for some teaching to be given to Becky and Sam. Delay in making decisions for children is not usually thought to be in their best interests. However, if I thought there was a good chance that Becky and Sam would be able to learn how to care for Maisie, in a reasonable time, then I think it would be right to delay the proceedings. Sadly, whilst I know Becky and Sam would try very hard to learn, I think that the time they would need is too long for Maisie to wait.

When I am deciding what is best for Maisie, I must think about Maisie not just now as a young child but through the whole of her life. I have thought about how she will feel if she is not able to be brought up by her mummy and daddy who love her very much.

I have also thought about what life would look like for Maisie if she was looked after by Becky and Sam, so that she would still be a full member of her birth family and would grow up with her parents but that this would mean that someone from social services would need to be present for all, or nearly all the time for the next few years.

I have also thought about whether Maisie should live with foster carers so that she can carry on seeing her parents regularly and not be adopted. I do not think this is a good option for Maisie. Foster placements do not give her stability. She would not be a full member of the family that she was living with and there would always be the risk that a foster placement can break down, sometimes very suddenly. Because Maisie is so young, I do not think that foster care is a good option for her.

The social worker has looked at whether Maisie could be brought up by someone else in the family but sadly, there is no one in the family that could do this.

I have decided that I agree with the social worker and the children’s Guardian that the best option for Maisie is that she should be placed for adoption. I know that Becky and Sam will be desperately upset about this. I want to make it clear that this is not because I think they have done anything wrong or that they would deliberately harm Maisie in any way. I just think that they need too much support for themselves. I think that having someone else in the home with them and Maisie all the time would be really difficult for Becky and Sam and would not be fair on Maisie. It would be a very false and strange environment for her.

I do agree that the local authority should promote direct face to face contact between Maisie and her parents at least once a year and that only adopters willing to agree to this would be suitable for Maisie. Becky and Sam will need some help with seeing Maisie in the future given there will be such long gaps between each Contact session. It is important that Maisie sets out a plan for how this support will be given.

I was pleased that Emily told me how important it was that any placement for Maisie must be one that will keep seeing her parents. I agree with that, and I am going to make a court order to say that that must happen so that it is clear to anyone who is learning about Maisie that she must see her parents at least once a year (and I would like the possibility of more visits to be explored with any prospective adopters).