Friend can't look after her kids, how can I support her?

gorgeous_gwen

I'm writing on behalf of a good mummy friend of mine, I said there'd be some great advice on here so she's asked me to post and I'm going to get her to have a look hopefully later today.

She's actually an online friend I met through us both being single parents. (I'll call her) Lisa, she's been single for (I think) about two years and has two LOs, both preschool but one is due to start school this September.

Ever since I've known her she's had depression. I actually think she copes quite well, we often meet up to go to soft play or go round to her house for lunch, but she confided in me yesterday evening on the phone that she has asked her parents to look after her LOs as she feels unable to cope right now because her depression is so bad.. I know a little bit about how Social Services works but not enough to advise her what sort of help she could get, but I think that although she's okay with 'reaching out' for help as it were (she texted me this morning to say she's seeing her Health Visitor next week about it), I think she is also worried about the longer-term repercussions. She is quite young and I know she'd like to meet someone eventually, which obviously carries the possibility of having more children, and although she does not want this now, she is worried if she does get better, that whatever happens right now with the children might have future consequences if she ever did have more children.

I think she is a great mum and I keep telling her not to worry, the kids are in good hands and she needs to work on making herself better. Her children's dad does have them (not sure how often but I know it's not every week) but from what I know I don't expect he'll be much help so I want to help her out by being able to guide her with who she can talk to and phone, maybe make some phone calls for her.

She's on some anti-depressants but I don't think they've started properly working yet, and I know she saw her GP the other week who is referring her to see a psychiatrist but I'm assuming that's going to take a while, so what can I say to her about things and how can I help and support her?

Anything at all would be useful, I don't really know where to start!

charmed-imsure

Ahhh, big hugs for Lisa. I'd say she's doing a brilliant job by taking all this into her own hands & doing something about it. She sounds like a very positive person & maybe just some re-assuring words & kindness from you is all she needs to continue on a positive note. Depression is an awful thing to go through & effects people in so many different ways. Sounds like she could probably do with a time out, doesn't need to be long, perhaps a lovely little pampering weekend break somewhere with you for instance?

Social Services can be very helpful but they'll probably want a life history before attempting to assist. They'll also want to make sure there's no other possible option ie: parents or the father that could help. They can do temporary foster care for say a month but if Lisa's parents would be kind enough to help out, that would be a better option. If SS decided to help & place them into temporary fostering, they could end up being shifted around to a few homes in a short time. Only saying they could be, doesn't mean they would be.

I think it sounds like she's coping really well & doing all the right things to help herself. And you just being there is going to be one HUGE help in itself. Sometimes the gesture of a good friendship is all someone needs.

Hugs
x

gorgeous_gwen

I was thinking of asking her over to stay for a night or two, just so I know she's not moping about on her own though I'm not sure if she would or not as she said earlier she just wanted to be on her own for a while.

As I said, I think she's a great mum. I know she struggles but I keep telling her anyone in that situation would find it hard, and she's had some other things happening in her life that have made things particularly difficult to cope with so I can totally see why she feels like she does. Her little ones are totally adorable and a credit to her, I do tell her that it's due to her (the dad left when the youngest one was a baby) but she still thinks she is awful and can't give them the time and attention they want from her when she feels like she does now. It's awful because she really believes she is a bad mother and she isn't at all.

Her parents are lovely and are helping out, but they're retired and not int he best of health, so it would only be on a short-term basis. I'm not sure if she's spoken to the kids' dad yet, but as I say I can't imagine him doing much.

Zziggi

If she has a supportive health Visitor then that may help. Social Services can be a mixed bag. They may want a life history, they may go overboard and take more action than is needed and it may become out of the hands of 'Lisa' despite her being the one who asked for help in the first place. It's an unknown situation.

I have known social services get involved in a situation like this where the mum was on her own with 3 kids. Of course they want to find out if the father, grandparents, other relatives or good friend can help out by having the kids. That's the cheapest and easiest option. Sometimes people don't think of the simplest option! If this is not possible then they do have the means to pay for a childminder/nursery place for the children if the SS are happy for the children to stay with their mother and there are no at risk issues. I know of a family that has this option and SS pay for about 15 hours per week childcare for the mother. This gives her enough of a break to cope. The children still live at home and the child-care is just a means to help the mum cope. This means the children are able to stay at home. HOWEVER i do know that this family did have problems in the early days where the SS tried to imply the mother way sooooo ill the kids needed removing due to being at-risk. This led to other people getting involved, asking GP & HV for their opinions, asking the eldest one's school about the situation, SS sticking their nose in aspects of the parents relationship breakdown etc etc. The mum had quite a stressful couple of months proving this was not the case and the SS was overacting (basically saw a diagnosis on a piece of paper and panicked!). It also made the mum embarassed to go to the HV and eldest ones school because they got to find out info about the mums diagnosis that she had chosen to keep private. It actually wasn't the schools business to know such details about the mums health but they got to find out due to the SS involvement. This is what i mean about it could be a mixed blessing getting the SS involved.

I hope the situation improves for 'Lisa'.

gorgeous_gwen

Thanks Zziggi. I had heard that Social Services can pay for a nursery place but I didn't want to mention it to my friend in case I'd got it wrong. I think this would really help her, as I said her parents are helping out but that's only really a short-term practicality, I don't think the dad would be much help other than what he does already.

I've texted her back after she told me she was seeing the Health Visitor, to see if she wants to come round. She said she was going to go to the gym, I know it's something she's just started doing but found it hard to find the time with the LOs around, and is going to come round later. I told her a bit about what I'd posted and what has been said and she's quite interested, she seems a bit more positive than last night which is good.

lhd4

@
Im just recovering from PND myself and was in very much the same situation.
It has taken 6 months of antidepressants, a very good doctor, health visitor and two pyschiatric nurses but im on track. There's no quick fix unfortunatly.
My husband nearly lost his job thanks to my not wanting him to go to work so i didn't have to take care of my two littleones ( 2 and 9months) i had no family nearby. My husband had to be firm with meand go to work regardless of how i felt and that made me deal with them. It was small steps, small goals but at the time feeding and changing the children was a effort. Once the medication kicked in and i could see clearly ( a little anyway) I found that there was a pattern to how i felt ( okish in the am, worse in pm) so If i woke up feeling a little better than normal i would just keep doing any thing ( washing up etc all the boring stuff). A few weeks ago i left the house on my own for the firsttime in 9 months. And now im here posting to people i don't know. Things will get better for your friend but she probably won't see that. I think your doing a great job in being there to support her, well done.:T

Pooky23

This has to be quick as I am going out, but how about the voluntary organisation Home Start? They have volunteers who visit mums (or dads) in their own hope and offer support. This could be playing with the child/ren whilst Mum has a bath, helping with feeding or taking the children out to the park. They also run Family Support Groups around the country. It's like a small toddler group but is by invitation only. I will check back later and give more info if needed.

morganb

Zziggi wrote: »

Social Services can be a mixed bag. They may want a life history, they may go overboard and take more action than is needed and it may become out of the hands of 'Lisa' despite her being the one who asked for help in the first place. It's an unknown situation.

I would definitely second this.

charmed-imsure

Pooky23 wrote: »

This has to be quick as I am going out, but how about the voluntary organisation Home Start? They have volunteers who visit mums (or dads) in their own hope and offer support. This could be playing with the child/ren whilst Mum has a bath, helping with feeding or taking the children out to the park. They also run Family Support Groups around the country. It's like a small toddler group but is by invitation only. I will check back later and give more info if needed.

Cool idea, we have one of them around here & I didn't realise they did so much for people. That's really good.

With the SS thing, I truly now believe it's completely dependant on where you live. Myself & my partner looked into doing short term foster care ourselves a few months ago. We had a social worker come round (she was retiring 3 weeks later) & so she told us some facts about fostering which I must say I was truly shocked by, I think she was telling us these things because she was leaving!

It takes about 6 months (sometimes longer) to become a foster parent. Each council have a target & our particluar council apparently failed all their targets for that year. The targets being... sending as many kids to care as possible to fill the budget allowed for that council. The government privatised fostering too, so now you have private foster agencies who do not need to have a referral via a social worker. They pay each foster parents up to £500 a week, yes £500 a week (councils pay about £300) to look after kids but what happens is... the council, when they get kids that need care, they take the most troubled ones & pile them off to the agencies so they don't get the bad publicity. The council take the 'easiest to place' children (or our council do anyway). Our council didn't have enough carers for the year so most of their latest children got palmed off to private agencies.

Sometimes SS can interfere really really badly & some don't give a monkeys. I went into voluntary care when I was 14 because my Dad (god rest his soul) was getting into hard drugs & was alcoholic. I contacted SS myself pleading for help. After about 3 months, they finally gave in & paid my Dad a home visit with me in tow, the only reason they took me into care was because of a 'communcation breakdown'. Nothing to do with the booze & drugs. My Dad used to threaten me with putting me into care if I asked him to stop drinking or doing drugs! So, tables turned & so my life was turned around.

When someone is in genuine need & approaches them, they tend to be helpful but probably don't shift it too high on their priority list.

Lisa sounds like she needs a good break & that Home Start thing sounds excellent, or at least an excellent place to start. You're being a truly good friend already.

kisto

You sound like an absolutely fantastic friend gorgeous_gwen. It's great that you're offering her encouragement and support. :T

My children are older but I don't think it will be too different. I can relate to the feeling unable to cope. I reached a stage of wanting to be locked up in an institution. I hear lots of horror stories about social services, but they're not always 'against' you. Generally they like to keep children with their parents.

I had several bout's of depression over a couple years (during/after my marriage breakdown). I initially visited my GP who prescribed anti-depressants (which seems to be their standard treatment). I really wanted counselling too and I made this clear to the GP. I was then referred to an adult mental health care coordinator at social services (as they don't offer counselling in my area). My needs were assessed by the care coordinator and part of my issues were feeling like an inadequate mum. I was offered the opportunity to have a meeting with the children and families department of social services. From that I was given a family worker (she was really lovely) who would visit me once a week and we'd discuss the issues and concerns I was facing. She'd normally visit when the children were at school, but she did meet the children on a couple occasions (at my request). I was also offered a morning of respite care during school holidays.
At no point did I feel like my children were going to be taken away from me - social services were offering me all the help they could to enable the children to remain with me. I cannot fault the support and services they provided for me.

I would also meet my social worker weekly initially so that I could have someone to talk through my concerns with. The sessions then became fortnightly as I gained strength.

I'm now 'recovered' and have been discharged from the mental health team and social services. I'm aware that they're there if I need them though.

One thing that really helped me cope with the depression was to keep my mind busy (but not busy with worry/anxiety). Going out and meeting people, being away from the house, clubs, groups all really helped. chatting on the phone or spending time chatting online was also a welcome distraction. I found that if I was sat at home with just myself for company, this would offer too much thinking time for me and my thoughts were generally negative.
I also kept a diary. Before I went to sleep I would release everything that was going round in my mind by writing it down. This became a very useful coping tool as previously I'd had a habit of churning things over and over in my mind. Once they were written down, they bothered me less and gave me some clarity.

It sounds like you're already very positive to her, keep this up. It might be hard for her to digest and accept though. It took me a long, long time to accept that I was (am) a good mum. Even now that is still a weak area for me. I think it's because it matter to me enormously. I absolutely want to do the best for my kids. My only dream in life as a child was to be a mum. My kids are my life, my world, my everything.

Does she like reading? I read lots of self-help/positive thinking books. Some methods/styles didn't suit me, whilst others I could really relate to. My library always had a good self help section.

Are you able to do any pampering sessions together. Even just a haircut. It's amazing how good you can feel after having your hair done.

I wish you and your friend all the best. Things do, can and will get better.

seven-day-weekend

I have no other advice to offer other than the excellent advice already given, but just wanted to say what a good friend you are being to Lisa and this is just what she needs at the moment, as well as any other help. Well done!