van Nort case – Dark Sweden

In the haze of the craziness of our lives, we've not done a proper update of our case, besides sharing on social media. It's day 530... and I feel like it all should be ok, everything should be perfect by now, for we got our children back! Somehow, though, the darkness haunts me, haunts us, because the level of intervention, the insanity of the process was one big hell The milestones of 2021 Being caught in a lie...SS, not us! We were supposed to have a meeting on the 14th of December 2020. This was on the initiation of Will's lawyer, who was aware that Social services was supposed to have an implementation plan- genomförande plan. But we had not heard from Social services of progress on anything, let alone concrete plans of moving forward towards reunification, after our court hearing at the Administrative Court, Förvaringsrätten. We, our lawyers and us, offered to have a zoom call with video, but that was rejected by social services as an insecure means of communication for discussing sensitive personal information. Instead, the social secretary was calling everyone from her "incredibly secure" iPhone and trying to link the calls. The meeting got cancelled after 45 minutes of the social secretary trying to patch in 4 different parties- us, Will's lawyer, the Hungarian consul and an interpreter- and utterly failing. This was a complete communication failure and disregarded the need for action for the children's well-being completely. That was our last chance to discuss anything related to Christmas with the children! I reported the hypocrisy of the choice of the means of communication with the reasoning for security to the head and the division heads of social services and put it in the context of the child's best. Of course, I got no actual answer to the points I raised. The new meeting was scheduled for the 2nd week of January. This was in person with only some people dialling in, despite the COVID restrictions. (So I guess we did achieve something.) In the meantime, we had a non-Christmas Christmas, my oldest child ended up in emergency needing stitches for cutting herself too deep, we, parents, started crisis counselling with a wonderful actual professional psychologist (appointed by SS) and I had formally asked to be placed in an investigation home- utredningshem- with the children. A sparkle of light above Familjenheten Ling, where they had some true professionals for crisis counselling. In January, we finally had the meeting to discuss how to move forward: The meeting didn't start well as the supervisor social secretary, Special Handlegare (CS) tried to deny access to our friend and witness to the meeting. (It's important to know that in Sweden you are allowed, by law, a representative to accompany you to any important meeting. ...the supervisor tried to play us. Thankfully we knew our rights and our friend wasn't easily riled.) The meeting wasn't the smoothest: we asked too many questions. There were 2 points that were turning points in our case, I believe: 1) We repeated our request verbally to be placed at an investigation home. To which the social secretaries expressed, what they had used in emails too, that such institutions cannot accommodate parents accused of violence. I confronted them with the fact that having talked to numerous institutions I had confirmation that indeed each of them was especially equipped to deal with violence in a family. I also highlighted that I had given them the contact details of persons responsible within these institutions, with who they can clarify the same points with. They had little to respond to this except to say that their investigation did not support such action. 2) This took us back to the investigation document, the utredining and we asked how we could make corrections in that because there were gross inaccuracies. We were told that that document is closed and it is as it should be. It was at this point that the Consul spoke up: he apologized for speaking as he was there as an independent observer only, but he felt that he needed to respond and asked it to be minuted that the investigation had actually contained inaccuracies. One such inaccuracy, to which he could testify in his own capacity and because it was falsely accusing him of meddling in a police investigation. He stated the person that he was supposed to have talked to, according to the investigation, he had never even heard of that person before he seeing that investigation document. The Consul categorically stated that he had not done anything other ask questions to get informed about what was happening with us, which is his right and duty in his official capacity to represent the citizens of his country. ...It was at this point that one of our social secretaries looked very shocked as she realized that the person she had accused in her writings was there confronting her with her lies! (I wish I had a video of the fear in her eyes.) ... did the social secretaries amend their investigation document, when confronted with it containing untruths? No, they did not! After this meeting, though, thankfully, our case was transferred to a new department with new social secretaries and we started to talk about being able to move into an investigation home with, at least, our sons. Court- Kammarrätten We had informed our children of their ability to ask their own lawyer to appeal to the decision against the LVU, something that none of 3 of the children's lawyers did! My oldest son's obliged his lawyer to appeal. The lawyer also spoke to my son at length before the court case once. Though my son was so uncomfortable with it that he recorded it and sent us the video recording. Court, in February 2020, was another bizarre experience, this time in Stockholm! I will spare you the details, but despite the judge and the jurors nodding at us in agreement with us several times during the trial, with us giving very reasonable responses and with us presenting evidence both to counter SS allegations and of the steps we had taken to improve our parenting abilities it was all a show trial like usual. At the end, when asked to take a stance, our son's lawyer actually supported the continuation of LVU, so she turned on him, again! And the reasoning social services gave for not removing LVU is because they did not feel that we would cooperate! The court judgment stated the decision for keeping LVU for our children was because, I, the person who had researched and forced the investigation home through, was not willing to move into the investigation home even though social services had decided that's the best course of action for us! I hope you get the mind f****** in this! The Investigation Home /Utredningshem and Signs of Safety The mind f****** and power games continued: we, parents, were supposed to move into the investigation home 2 weeks before the children. This was totally novel even for the investigation home and they said they'd never had such a case before. March -June 2021 boys and us, parents, lived in an investigation home, with lots of "treatment". This, however, was not for investigation (that part of the process for done and dusted, nothing on Earth was going to change that holy scripture produced by the 2 original investigating social secretaries!) Sadly, there was no psychologist available at the utredningshem. Though the staff were reasonable, some very young and not very experienced but we did have a couple of very good members of staff, social workers working as investigators and counselors. Initially, we weren't allowed to spend any time unsupervised with our children (besides sleeping in our room with closed, but not locked, doors), we weren't even allowed to drive the boys to school. The staff ferried me to school for drop off and pick ups. In the meantime, the signs of safety "treatment" started by our main social workers. Unfortunately, we got the stick end of signs of safety where they "forgot" to actually do the investigation properly according to the methodology and assess the protective factors versus the threats. On the other hand, we had the most wonderful group of friends and neighbours who came together around us and stood by us in this process. Our wonderful network (which according to our investigation documentation doesn't exist and was one of the main reasons for removing our youngest), joined us for many-many hours of meetings with SS. With the help of the friends, we navigated the consistent gaslighting by social services while our social workers robotically implemented a methodology devised for communities with serious drug and alcohol addictions. (In their defense, the actual social workers we had weren't bad people: both young mums, one had a big heart and genuinely wanted to do good, the other one was purely emotionally totally out of her depth. However, both good foot soldiers, good at following the directives of superiors, who had reasons to cover up their actions. Interestingly though, our old special handleggare, the supervising social secretary originally on our case, ended up being the new manager of our new social secretaries. ) For the whole period we lived in the utredningshem, we were only allowed to be together with the kids outside of the utredningshem under the supervision of our official network and it was under strict timescales and terms. Through good behaviour, we gradually negotiated more time away from the utredningshem. We were even allowed to sleep at home one night a week, though only with our neighbour sleeping on our sofa. Our friends were amazing in this insanity! They truly saved our family and our lives! HVB and BUP From the 4th of January and over this whole time, Gabby was in a group youth home, a HVB- home for treatment- where the home was proactively protecting its income source and alienating our child: They were being difficult in bringing her to family sessions, were "treating" her for made-up problems (like teaching her independence, by forcing her to take the bus to school...this to a child who over year before flew across Europe on her own!) We got to see her once a week, at most, and only when we all refused "treatment" till she attended. She was also under the treatment of BUP (Barn och ungdom pyskiatri- child and youth psychiatry) and being prescribed progressive more psychiatric medications. The psychiatrist was refusing to take our calls. (Later, after a formal complaint against him via patientnämden, we got a meeting months into the process and he said "social services had told us not to involve you in the treatment and plans". ) Instead of a psychologist, our oldest child was seeing a nurse(?) to talk to weekly, but, as far as we know, without any thought-out plan or methodology. It seems like it was a "let's be seen to be doing something". However nice the lady was, who at least communicated with us, she didn't seem to have much insight into even the basics of psychology. She was always asking me of what I thought. At the same time, we were trying to spend more time with our oldest child, but time was never enough! The weight of that original snowball thrown was weighing too heavily on our drugged up child. There was never enough time to help her understand that we were never and will never be angry at her! But we will probably always be angry and disgusted by the incompetent social secretaries who did the sloppy "investigation", their managers all the way up the chain to the head of Uppsala social services and the despicable "yes men" politicians who sit on social boards and sign paperwork without questioning. Our child needed us, but we couldn't be there enough because we weren't allowed to! Gabby had a suicide attempt at this point. Thankfully, this cry for help came when she was with us and were there to hold her up, at least in that moment, before the insanity of social services kicked up a notch. It came after a couple of weeks of indecision from social services about who was going to take over her case and what was going to happen with her. They had suggested that we do the whole signs of safety program again. Our wonderful network said of course, I said no. I just couldn't, mentally deal with the gaslighting, the psychological torture of having to explain and accept false allegations, made up problems! I was at the edge of breaking and I was vocal about this. (Even though it is suggested not to show this in front of social services as it has been known to extend LVU for families, as they are judged unsuitable.) LVU at home At the end of June 2021, the boys moved home with us- it was LVU at home- and Gabby was moved to another group home, straight after the suicide attempt. A bizarre summer followed during which we could only see Gabby very little. When they moved Gabby to the new HVB, just a week before we were moving home, we were forbidden personal contact for 2 weeks. The reason was given: so she would settle better in the HVB home. This HVB home was right next to the main railway tracks and she was forced to go out for walks daily, unsupervised. The only place she could walk to from this remote house was the church and the graveyard. Perfect for a teen, who apparently just had a suicide attempt, right? To take our mind off things and try to return to normality, we did go sailing for 2 weeks. This was bittersweet with a crew member missing. In August, after months of social services pointing at each other about who was responsible for our oldest child, Gabby was finally assigned a new social secretary. This lady was a true angel sent from heaven! Travel under LVU We knew many months in advance that our cousin was getting married in Hungary. The wedding had been postponed due to COVID from September 2020 and Gabby was supposed to be a bridesmaid. Something she had been so looking forward to since Christmas 2019, when she was asked. We were asking for clarification about whether and how we can attend the wedding FOR MONTHS. I spent HOURS on the phone, with different managers, advisors, doctors, nurses, HVB staff and so on, asking and advocating the child's best interest and the child's right. It kept falling on deaf ears! We even involved the Hungarian higher authorities responsible for child protection. They sent formal requests and reassurances of collaboration with the Uppsala social services to assist our family and a firm assurance to provide child protective services during any visit to Hungary. Finally, less than a week before the wedding, we heard the boys were allowed to travel to Hungary for the family wedding, but Gabby was refused permission. In one conversation, the head of the unit, which was handling our case, who I spoke to for well over 2 hours, spoke fondly of the years she spent in Hungary and got involved with social services there. She spoke of how the two countries' social services being incredibly similar and acknowledged how important such family events were in our culture. May I remind the readers, she is not a Swedish citizen and the request was for her to travel to the country where she holds citizenship, AND the authorities of that country had given assurances of protection. My child, in a desperate attempt even created a petition and asked us to print fliers. Gabby and a freind then spent a couple of hours on the streets handing out the flyers, asking people to support the petition and sign online. and then... Administrative Court again The social services told us their decision about forbidding travel for Gabby, but allowing the boys to travel. They actually took a formal decision. (Well, they did, once I forced their hand and asked how this decision can be re-evaluated.) As we soon found out this could only be appealed in court. I contacted the administrative court, Förvaltningsrätten, and requested an emergency hearing to appeal the decision 2 days before we were due to travel. We handed in several supporting documents, even the new social secretary went out to interview Gabby and provided a supporting document for our case to be allowed to travel. As we later found out, social services purposefully withheld evidence about the Hungarian authorities assurances. Despite the efforts, the spineless courts ruled with Social services and their decision parroted back the submission and reasoning of Social services, even though it was ludicrous, obviously stood against several articles of the child convention and we had provided strong, supported counter to each of the 3 reasons given by Soc. It was a bitter experience but was the real lightbulb moment of exactly how the Swedish court system works: They are puppets! End of LVU and LVU at home Our child was incredibly vunerable at this point and our old social workers' last actions were to put in place a visitation restriction, umgänges-begränsning, for the duration of our trip, so they took away the option for Will to stay behind and support Gabby while me and the boys could attend the family wedding. How is this considering the child's best is beyond me?! August 2021. Gabby started a new school while we were in Hungary. Her new social secretary accompanied her on her first day, sent us pictures and looked out for her while we were away. he really is a good egg among the rotten ones! On 26 August 2021, the boys' custody was formally returned to us, the protection order -LVU- was formally removed by social services. We (and our network) were still required to attend monthly meetings. These were follow ups with us and our network reporting on whether the signs of safety method was still working. Our network was required to report on "conflicts" within the family. September 2021 was a strange month: Gabby kept escaping from the youth home. We called the social services duty line quite a few times: sometimes because our child was home, sometimes because the HVB called and they didn't know where our child was! In the meantime, social services were trying to figure out what to do. They couldn't just return the child home! At one point, the boys and I were going to have to move out to our summer house for a couple of months for Gabby to move home with Will only. We went to see a new HVB, which is owned by the kommun (municipality) to discuss treatment options and possibilities of some sort of intermediate, relief option. Then, on the Thursday, I got a call to say the following day, 24 September 2021 Gabby was moving home. She would still be under protection order- LVU at home- (which gave SS full power to remove her at any moment). We were assigned a family counsellor at the new HVB. With his supervision and advice of our own family doctor, we took away all the psychotic medicines that Gabby had been drugged with for the year that we had no say about her medical care. 530 days later, we still see the counsellor weekly (Gabby for a couple of hours and we, parents, for an hour and half). He is another good egg and, despite the assignment details, has openly stated that he is focussed on treating us for the trauma caused by social services and diagnosis for our oldest child. In the autumn and into the winter of 2021, there were ongoing social services meetings while we were trying to rebuild life with all three children at home. Each meeting was traumatic not only for us, but the children too, who were triggered each time we said we have a Soc meeting. The end? Finally, in the beginning of December 2021 social services closed the case for the boys. Then, 449 days after the ordeal began, on 20 December 2021 the protection order, LVU was removed from Gabby and we had full custody back of all our children. Long road ahead All our instincts said RUN! and be with family. However, Covid restrictions interfered with our plans to travel to family for Christmas. Gabby's angel social secretary left just before Christmas and we are yet to be assigned (or know of) a new one assigned our case nearly 3 months on. But the case is still open. The family therapy is definitely helping. It's what we should've got in the summer of 2020. It's the help that was needed for our family when SS decided it was best to throw us into jail and rip the children from all their support networks. We all struggle with PTSD- post traumatic stress disorder (I am formally diagnosed, the rest of the family just show symptoms). We now have a lot of things to take into account about our future: where? when? how? With 9, 13 and 14 year old children in school these are not simple decisions, especially with dyslexia, a unique gifted child and importantly, rebuilding after the trauma. We the road to recovery is not smooth and the insane intervention into our family life has left permanent scars, including literally, which will take a long time to heal (if at all) and knocked the confidence of all of us. Our trust in doctors, teachers and authorities is incredibly low: something I openly state to each at points of contact. Maria, a forty-something mother.