have not been on here for a little while.. but wanted to say thank you to everyone who has previously been very supportive and update on the situation now.
i finally got the paperwork thro and a court date has been set for the 25th of April .. between now and that time i have been told to expect a call from cafcass to discuss issues regarding my daughter.
i feel so much happier now after all these months , it actually feels as tho there is going to be a resolution and me and my daughter can finally get to spend time together again.
if anyone has any experience with cafcass or first court hearings , any advice would be very much appreciated

I only have experience with Cafcass from a 'parent with care' perspective, but they were very pleasant ... spoke to me at length about the children and my concerns and then went away and prepared their report.

Once the Cafcass report was submitted to the court it was more or less a rubber stamping exercise - it's rare that a Judge will go against Cafcass recommendations.

My advice would be to focus entirely on what is best for your daughter when speaking to Cafcass - they really don't care about you and your feelings, so you have to show that you have your child's best interests at heart. Talk about how much you love her, how you want her to have a consistent and fulfilling relationship with her father so that she feels loved and cherished by both of her parents. How you believe that having that will give her a sense of security and self belief to last her whole life

Tell them that you are concerned that not having you in her life might lead to her having a sense of abandonment and that that might damage her in later life, no matter how good a parent her Mother is ... and whatever you do DON'T criticise her Mother in any way, shape or form - they will want to see that you bear no animosity and are more than happy to work with your ex for the benefit of your daughter.

Good Luck! I'm sure it will be fine

thanks very much for taking the time to reply. the words u use are very good are pretty are exactly how i feel and what i want to say... u put it much better than i ever would tho ! lol. so is the purpose of the call with them to put forward days and times for contact or just to discuss why im going to the court?

im at this stage too

the call is to kinda get the jist of why u havent seen your daughter
they will ask mum what she wants and why
and you the same

cafcass then write a statement to be read in court
providing their judgment on the situation
aka if its a straight forward case or if there are issues to be looked into further ie drugs or violence

Sorry for the delay in answering ... it's been a busy couple of days, so I've hardly been online

Angel is spot on

Depending on what her Mother's objections are they might also want to discuss what arrangements you have in place for when you do finally get contact, so things like what you will do together during your access time, do you have a home suitable for taking your daughter to, if you are prepared to start off with supervised contact (as it has been a while, they might suggest that so that your daughter gets used to you again ) - practical stuff really, so that they know you are fully aware of your daughter's physical needs as well as her emotional ones

well finally today after so many months i finally reached court. i really hoped to get this whole situation resolved today. to cut a long story short my daughters mother stated via her solicitor to the judge , that she did not feel i was capeable of ensuring my daughters needs if contact was to take place and that my daughter would be at risk and also she did not feel i was comitted to my daughter. because of these "lies" the judge declared that a section 7 report would have to be completed before a decision could be made , to find out if thier was any truth in what she was saying.
i have to say im very disapointed that my daughters mother still continues to lie and delay the proccess once again !
does anybody have any experience with a section 7 report?

sorry no advice but hope you get a result soon
nice to see a dad who cares enough to fight for his child

read my thread please comment if you can have any imput

my fob will be issued a section 7 report and drug testing

when is your next hearing?

i heard a section 7 report can take UP TO 6 weeks tops

if you google it a section 7 report there are examples for cafcass to do x

your thread is really long with lots of diffrent points of discussion , is thier anything in particular you would like to no? and i will try my best to help.
the judge advised in court the section 7 report is a 12 week proccess and when completed should be heard at the first available court date.
so no news on next hearing yet just have to be patient and allow the report to be completed.
yeh i googled it and it was quite helpfull but still a little vague lol

Hi Dave w, could go one of two ways. FOB did not agree to any of the unsupervised contact we offered him so judge ordered section 7 report, cafcass decided FOB is unstable, needs psychological assessment and should only see lo in contact centre until testing and observations conclude whether he is capable of meeting lo's needs, judge then disregarded EVERY single reccomendation made by the cafcass officer and came up with his own reccomendations for contact which currently involves me supervising still and if the visits have gone satisfactorily then would look to move to unsupervised in a few months. The cafcass report was ordered around xmas time 2011 and filed by end of feb to appear in court in march. Hope that helps a bit.