In just a few hours, it will have been a full week since our daughter arrived at our door — shaken, triggered, but safe. Not in crisis. Not hiding. Not unsafe. Just a child who needed comfort and ran to the one place she’s always instinctively known to be home.
And since then, she’s still here.
Still safe.
Still unheard.
We’ve had no safeguarding checks. No urgent interventions. Nothing to suggest she’s at risk — only silence, threats of court orders, and a refusal to answer the most basic question: What now?
Living in Limbo
We are trapped in a cycle of not knowing.
Not knowing if today is the day they knock on the door.
Not knowing what the “plan” is — because even the social worker refuses to say.
His only response?
“It’s not up to me. It’s legal’s job.”
But what is his job, then?
If not to safeguard, not to communicate, not to answer a child’s fears?
I asked him what the current concerns were that prevent our daughter from staying here permanently. He wouldn’t answer.
He pointed back to court papers from January — papers I’ve read a dozen times.
But that’s the past.
I wasn’t asking about who we were. I was asking about who we are now — and about the daughter who came back in a moment of crisis and has been safe and calm ever since.
He couldn’t answer.
Or wouldn’t.
When Fear Replaces Freedom
Our daughter is scared to go to school.
She doesn’t want to leave the house in case she’s taken.
She’s stuck in this emotional limbo — waiting, watching, wondering.
She’s asked repeatedly if she can collect her things from her placement. The answer?
No. Because “the local authority doesn’t support her being here.”
We understand their position — but that doesn’t change the fact that she still needs clothes.
So they sent “essentials.”
Five crop tops.
Four pairs of underwear — mostly dirty, pulled from a laundry basket.
Two packets of crisps.
And a hairbrush that isn’t even hers.
Imagine being a teenage girl and being treated like that.
Imagine finally choosing to speak up and being met with this level of disregard.
This is not support.
This is not care.
This is system-led shame.
A Voice, Silenced
She rang her social worker. No answer.
We sent an email. No reply.
The only update we’ve received?
They’re now looking at a “bridging placement.”
A stopgap.
Another stranger’s home.
She’s confused.
She no longer knows what she wants — and honestly, I don’t blame her.
Because the moment she chose to speak up and go against the grain, the warmth disappeared.
When she did as she was told, the system bent to accommodate her.
Now? They fight her.
And They Call It Care
“In this system, obedience is loyalty.
Defiance is betrayal.
They don’t fear danger —
They fear a child who won’t stay quiet.”
That quote sums up the last seven days of our lives.
We’ve done everything we’re meant to.
Informed them. Supported her. Asked for clarity.
And still, the silence continues.
She’s not missing.
She’s not unsafe.
She’s just… here.
Waiting.
And no one can say for how long.
thegirlspeaks.uk 