Transcript

Katy Eagle

So to support the family as before we continued to make sure that they are able to have a balanced diet, to have enough food, to manage Ronald’s health condition, to make sure that the children are still receiving the support that they need through the school and the children’s centres and a whole host of voluntary organisations and charities within Luton and also to carry on making sure that they’re working with their solicitor and also to work with the solicitor in some ways to make sure that the solicitor’s got the evidence that she needs to put their case together.

In terms of the impact on each member of the family, so, starting with Ronald, his health is deteriorating and so he’s finding things progressively more difficult in the UK and to manage his own physical and mental health. So he’s needing a lot more support from his GP and other more specialist charities. Florence finds this difficult. She’s seeing her husband struggling with his health, the impact of that on her, the impact of seeing her children struggling is taking its toll on her and so we’re looking into places that she can have some support as her role as a carer. We’re also looking at some support for them as a couple because it’s taking a toll on their relationship as well. Peter is doing well at school, but he’s worried about the future. So, for him, we’ve been looking at life story work with him and some skills that social workers can use to help him come to terms with his experiences a bit and also to understand his dad’s health condition which he’s also quite worried about. Grace, who’s 3, she enjoys going to the library, she enjoys going to the children’s centre, but she’s starting to notice that maybe things are a little bit different for her family than others. And the focus for her is making sure that she develops into a healthy, happy child in the same way that another 3 year old would.

Jeanette Copperman

You mentioned helping to put evidence together to support the case with the solicitor. Can you give some examples of the kind of evidence that you’re talking about?

Katy Eagle

So with a family in a situation like Florence and Ronald, we have worked to produce a child and family assessment of the children’s needs and we’ve undertaken that because they’re not subject to local authority care plans or anything like that. So we’ve done the child and family assessment to look at their needs and what’s in their best interests and to understand what their lives are like here. We’re also asked into court to appear as witnesses to explain the child and family assessment in a bit more detail and to look at what is in the family’s best interests.