Help us protect a little boy

Hello, my names Leanne and me and family need some help!

In October 2022 my nephew came to live with us, The social services took out a child protection order to remove him from his home as it wasn't safe, they phoned me to collect him from nursery that day, he wasnt allowed out till I arrived..I had 15 minutes notice..and he's been with me ever since.

It's been a longggg struggle, daily battles with social workers, solicitors, contact orders and his behaviour but we are getting to the end of the road, hopefully!

The social services have been amazing, unfortunately there legal team, the childrens reporter, are useless. This is the second time they have failed him (he was removed from her in 2020 and given back to her 6 months later!)

So, I instructed a solicitor and I got granted PRR and interim residency and have been preparing for a proof case ever since. That date came up on May, we didn't finish so had to go back in July, still we didn't get through it all, so we are back up in October, for hopefully the final time!

I cannot go into too much detail of why he's with me, or what's going on, I simply don't have enough space to write it and as above there's a continuing Court case. What I can tell you is, she was facing charges of neglect, which is a class 1 offense but the childrens reporter dropped it due to lack of evidence!!

What I will tell you is this:

When he came to ours his behaviour was awful, he screamed and would cling to me, he wouldn't go to nursery for fear of me not going back to collect him, he woke having nightmares, he did and said things no normal 3 year old child should do, he was traumatized, and there's little wonder As a family we spoke about his behaviour and decided it's not normal, after requesting a psychologist twice and several conversations with the health visitor to no avail....a decision was made to drug test him and the results made me sick to my stomach, I still can't read it again. The results were positive for cocaine, now this wasn't just passive, there was a metabolite present which tells us he has ingested this drug through his tiny little body and the amount found was what would be 'normal' for someone who went out every weekend and took cocaine recreationally! He's 3!!! It answered our questions around his behaviour so for a couple of months we had to treat him differently when he played up, when he woke with demands, when he cried for for hours for no reason...he was detoxing...a child?? a tiny little innocent human was going through something most adults haven't!

Fast forward 9 months and what a different little boy. He's happy, social, smiles constantly, loves to play with other kids, eats healthy, meeting his targets and is all round a great kid!

As family we can support him emotionally, physically and mentally but after already paying around £9000 to the solicitor we are simply running out of options to support this financially, for those who know us we already have 4 children between me and my husband, and a poorly Labrador who gives us endless vets bills but endless amounts of joy! ...we have just received another bill for £4500 and have two more days in October to get through, which we estimate to be around £6/7000! We get no help from legal aid, or the social! Nothing.

I really didn't want to do this, I've put it off for months and months but as my husband says if 5000 people could give £1 it would save us so much extra stress and give us the ability to keep him safe and provide him with a good, safe happy family home for him to thrive in.

Please share our story and thanks in advance for reading and donating.