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Hi LollyThis is a bit problematic as if the dad has parental responsibility, and from what you say about his name on the birth certificate he has then he should be involved in decisions about his children. The only way that he can be excluded is if Children's services have enough evidence that he poses risks to the children, violence, drugs etc it isn't enough that he is useless. Request that Children's Services carry out an initial assessment to make sure he has enough skills to care for the children. Offer to have them every weekend. If the dad isn't keen ask if CS have a Family Group Conference option. This provides a neutral chair to help families negotiate an agreement about caring for children.Legal advice is likely to be costly- but you may find local firms specialising in family law offering a fixed fee interview.Your Niece and nephew are lucky that they've got you to look out for them.

Cs have already suggested the family conference but will only proceed with my sisters consent and she doesn't want to do it. At the moment we're as worried about her as what could happen to the children, I don't think she'd try again at the moment but something's not right and she won't talk to any of us about what's going on, just goes quiet until you stop asking her about it or hangs up. Don't know what to do or say anymore

The hard thing about this is that the father has rights and if you want to look after these children for whom you obviously care, then you will either need to work with him or prove that he will neglect/abuse them.not seeing the children isn't proof of this, as there are cases of absent parents who are prevented from seeing their children for months/years, but it doesn't mean that they couldn't care for their childrenAlso being an idiot isn't proof or holding a grudge against the other halves' family - Theoretically your parents could ask for a kinship FC allowance to help your mum be able to give up work to care for the children, but whether this would then affect the nursery placement might be complex. I would suggest you contact the AUK helpline and ask for advice as you can do this even if you're a not a member, but having seen first hand the results of neglect, I can well understand your concerns and hope you can find some solution

He's not been prevented from seeing them he's just not shown any interest in seeing them until he heard she'd taken an overdose. He's been offered supervised contact via solicitors (there's a court order that prevents him from going within so far of my sister due to violence) so was offered supervised contact at a contact centre but refused it.

How involved are social services? From what I've read its important to know if social services placed the children with the grandparents or whether the grandparents just assumed responsibllity. As ss are providing child care it sounds like the former. In which case I think father will have to work with ss - they will not just hand the children over.I would advise you to inform ss that you would like to have the children so that when they are planning the childrens future they will know what options are available. Do you think that mum won't be able to have them back?Take a look at Family Rights Group. They have advise sheets and a forum.

Ss haven't officially placed the children but have said they want them to stay with our mum. The sw said that for them to be placed with mum they would have to asses their father first so at the moment they're just staying there but with support from ss. The sw already knows that we would have them but we come after their father if he's decided to be unsuitable. The plan was for them to stay where they are in the short term with them going back to their mum as soon as she was able but that doesn't look like its going to be any time soon.

Then I think you might need to see a solicitor to see if you can get support to extend the court order to cover the children as well as your sister, then SS may be able to over-ride his parental rightsi think you may also need to get a solicitor to give you advice about the legal situation of the children and how you can deal with SSthe cost of taking these children into care will be huge - even if a placement is available locally, which isn't certain at the moment, so SS will be looking at getting these children into care with family So first their mum, then their dad and then other family members approved by their mum/dad, then family member not approved by their mum/dad - so you're mum/stepdad will need to be competely at breaking point before SS will want to move them to anyone other than your sister or her exI wasn't suggesting the ex couldn't have access, but that not seeing children doesn't necessarily mean can't care for children, so getting proof is harder if he's not been seen with them for such a long time I think AUK may have a factsheet on this type of situation and if you ring the helpline I think they will send it to you, but you may need specialist legal adviceI would also suggest you and your mum look into the affects of early trauma on young children, as all this may have some affect on their long term development and you may want to find out how different parenting styles can help overcome the affects of this and AUK do have leaflets on this

Just to add that the leaflet mentioned (no 7) is on the AUK website, members area, accessible any time. For general info: There are 15 really useful Factsheets, covering areas such as:1 - Attachment 2 - Post Adoption Support Service (Northern Ireland)3 - Assessment of Support Needs England & Wales 4 - Tracing 5 - Adoption Pay and Leave 6 - Parenting Adopted Teenagers 7 - Special Guardianship Orders 8 - Making the Most of Meetings 9 - Overseas Adopters Wanting to Adopt Children from the UK 10 - Adoptive Families - a guide for professionals11 - Benefits and Allowances 12 - Supporting Prospective Adopters with a New Placement 13 - Disruption and Placement Breakdown 14 - Post-adoption depression15 - Assessment of support needs ScotlandLog on as a member, you'll see the Members' area tab at top of screen, it's then the 4th option down to access all the Factsheet pdfs. Alternatively AUK may be able to send you out a copy, but if you're a member, far easier to help yourself and to then get the updated version whenever they're revised/more come out.Blueberry2