Release from prison brought lots of feelings back, apprehension, fear of the unknown, anxiety, joy, and happiness again.
We had only had 3 months without social care, which was done for a reason. We had had several social workers and wanted to remain under the same social worker. 2 months before release, I re-referred ourselves, as I wanted our son to remain having contact with his dad to have continuity.
However our son could not be with me to meet his dad leaving prison as contact had still not been sorted. I met my husband at the gates, it was very emotional and I had had to wait over an hour for him.
When we got to the car, he told me he had an appointment at probation at 1pm, What shall we do now, he couldn’t come home so we went for something to eat and a wander round the shops, he found this very overwhelming, the noises and the busyness. I went to the probation appointment with him, it was here he was given an address to go to, to meet someone, it was a shared house were he could stay for 3 months. I dropped him at the address after the appointment and it was only five minutes drive from where we lived.
I collected my son from school and went home, My husband phoned me later from a phone box( yes they do still exist) He let me know he had the keys and had a room in the shared house.
Things were not easy, as I was working full-time and could only see my husband when our son was at school, since the professionals still hadn’t finished their assessment. More bad news came when our social worker said she would be leaving. After a couple of weeks, we did get in contact in the community. This made things very hard and costly as we could go to a restaurant or pub, or for a walk but it was getting colder, and our son or I found this tiring. 3 months went by then my husband needed to be out of this property and housing hadn’t found him anywhere, his dad had passed away and on the day of his funeral he was homeless, he went to the funeral all dressed up in his suit then had to use public toilets to change. We had to go and purchase a tent for him to live in, My anxiety was through the roof as he had tried to kill himself before prison and now he was in a tent under a bridge by a canal. I declared him homeless and the homeless team checked on him to verify this. At this point no social workers were in contact as ours had left and a new one had not been in contact.He was in the tent for the weekend then found a bed in a homeless hostel.
I get there is safeguarding to adhere to but no one was thinking about the dangers to my husband and what this was doing to us, him living in a tent when he had a perfectly good home.
Anyway the homelessness hostel was the best help we had sourced for him, he lived there for a while, in a shared house with support. This was a massive relief for us. The hard work has started now to rebuild our family. Professionals were a nightmare; it felt like a fight all the way, ignoring what we all wanted, putting obstacles in the way despite social services paying £7500 for an independent forensic risk assessment on us both, which was a 2.5-day assessment for each of us, and then they completely ignored the outcome of this. A year after release we had a CIN meeting with all professionals involved and it was such a bad meeting, nothing about our son, just negatives and what ifs.We came away from the meeting so upset, it took us two weeks to gather our thoughts and decided to put a complaint into social services regarding how this meeting was held and how people were allowed to speak to us. Untruths and Biases
From this complaint we had a meeting with the social worker and her manager, we produced evidence of where lies were told and when this proof was shown you could see the realisation in there faces that they had been given false information. We spoke about our son and what he wants and that there had never been any doubt he was loved, cared for and never been put in any harm.
After this meeting social care were getting some legal advice, as far as we know or told this was still waiting to happen , but things changed and a plan for my husband’s return home was devised, a total reverse to what was discussed in the last CIN meeting. Two years from release he finally returned home after 12 months of a phased return.
I honestly thought release would be easier but the frustrations and fights continued. I say fights but I never got angry but I did get frustrated and then would get upset but when I was upset this was seen as weakness. I had to be prepared for meetings so I started writing everything down, recording meetings so I could listen to them again to clarify what was said. Being prepared was key.
I would say everyone is different, every case is different, I respect everyone’s choices whether to stay in a relationship or not. In our case, I will never understand what he did but I do understand what got him to that rabbit hole. He is a good dad and husband who made a bad choice. I would also say never give up hope. Release was just as difficult for us but I was in a better, stronger position to cope with everything thrown at me. The support I had from CHAS and from people in similar situations also guiding me in the right direction and helped re affirm I was strong and could do this.
We are now 6 years in November since the knock. We have been without social care for almost two years. For the over four years they were involved we had 10 social workers. Our son is now thriving at school and is happy, loving life and watching star wars with his dad at home. That is the shortened version, I always go by treat people the way you would like to be treated. I would never treat anyone the way we have been treated by professionals during this process.