I'm writing too late for Saturday's visit, but if I thought it would work, I'd suggest you send a sick note for your son. There is too much chaos at that house.

I'm glad your ex's lawyer made ex inform you. I suspect there's truth to the accusation. These are learned behaviors. Maybe we are beginning to get a picture of stepson's mentor.

I'm sorry your atty couldn't give you a definitive answer about this. It seems like something that might be spelled out in a law somewhere. A caseworker can only have flexibility to advise or negotiate within existing law. There are online attorneys with whom you can consult, but I have no idea what they cost, but this 3-year-old article lists sites where you can get free legal advice:

https://blog.capterra.com/free-legal-advice-5-easy-to-use-sites-that-are-actually-free/

If you don't have to give personal info, and don't have to agree to receiving spam for the rest of your days, these might be options to help you decide for Sunday.

My heart is right there with you.

It also miffs me that a caseworker can go on vacation with no transfer of authority to another caseworker while she's gone. Likely the agency's fault, not hers, but still....cases do not go on vacation.

I agree a case worker should always be available.Since your atty told you to check with your case worker and you can't I can't imagine the judge would fault you for making an executive decision to not sent your son there."Your honor,I could not reach my case worker and I had to put my son's safety first and had to make a decision" I think it would be fine.You are for sure between a rock and a hard place,because if you do send him they might question you putting him in harm's way.The law does not make it easy for us.

So sorry I didn't see this until now. For future use for anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation, you can go to the police station and file a report and explain the situation, and ask them to call the judge on call if you can't make it to a municipal or county court on time (for instance in most of our towns there is no municipal court each day, only on 1 or 2 afternoons each week so you have to go to county court which is not close and is overloaded and takes hours to even get before a judge, so if you can't be there by 2ish, you can go thru the on call judge), and the judge can give a temporary ruling to the police officer. It works in a similar manner to a temporary restraining order. Hope this helps...

First, I misspoke in the original post. There was no trying; he was accused of touching her butt.

Naive, the stepson was actually abused by his former stepfather (the father of the girl now accusing my ex). I always feel like I need to draw a chart when I explain these things. Too many people.

Yeah, the problem was that he informed me around 2:30 on a Friday afternoon, so there was obviously nothing that could be done via a judge at that point, so I’ve been left up to my own judgment until next week.

Our official court order says that visitation is to take place at the grandparents’ house, with the implication being that they supervise visitation. That is not implicitly spelled out in the order, though, so them being there has never been enforced, as long as he’s at their house. I decided to ask the grandfather to guarantee me that either he or his wife would be there at all times on Sunday(today), and explained why. He of course went on about how he doesn’t think it’s true, but agreed (I got it in writing). Luckily my ex’s schedule changed and he suddenly had to work yesterday so the entire visitation was just me taking my son to a restaurant to meet him for dinner and waiting outside in my car. I’m going to talk further to my lawyer and caseworker on Monday.

The juvenile court judges in my county are known to be a little bonkers, so i didn’t want to risk the rest of my case falling apart because I refused the visitation without authorization. My only option was to get supervised visitation.

I’ve asked my son, “Has anyone other than [stepbrother] ever asked you to keep a secret like that? Anyone at all?” And he said no. I’m trying to figure out how to explicitly ask about his father without upsetting him. Any tips?

So I finally got in touch with CPS, and she advised me to have my lawyer file an emergency injunction to stop visitation.

I know it’s the right thing to do, but it breaks my heart. My son loves his father. He looks forward to his days with him. I’m going to be breaking my son’s heart, and he has enough going on right now (my mom died two weeks ago and they were very close; we lived with her for the last three months to take care of her). I know I have to do it, but I don’t want to.

Has anyone else been in this situation, of having to separate a child (who was not abused by his father) from his father? How did you handle it? We already have a therapy session scheduled for next week, I just need advice for the meantime.

I am really thankful for this community.