What to do?

I am a foster carer and I can assure you that SS always try to ensure children can remain in contact with their relatives if at all possible. Even when family members take drugs or abuse alcohol they still encourage supervised contact. If these children are being exposed to these terrible conditions you describe it is not fair on them to allow it to continue and would be far kinder to notify SS who usually try to work with parents to see if they can improve lifestyle and accommodation before they would remove the children. You have to think of the children who are innocent in this and need a stable and safe home life.

Let's understand this. The mobile home was filthy so she was then given a better cottage! This woman cannot take care of herself and hold down a job but was employed as a carer! Who makes these ridiculous decisions? Contact social services and say you will continue to be a grandmother only ( not a carer) to these children but I would suggest you wash your hands of this stepdaughter or your own health and bank account will suffer and you will not be in a fit state to be able to help anyone. Also, these children are French citizens and should have stayed in France and let their tax payers pick up the bill, not ours.

The children are very unlikely to be denied contact with their mother (and you, if you want to be in contact) which can even include overnight stays and holidays if you're willing. So it's not like today's foster care breaks up family relationships necessarily. If I were you I wouldn't offer to have any of them living full time in your home at all. If you did, all the help would fall away and you'd be left struggling with the whole lot - mother, children and all.

quiz the children are EU citizens until Brexit. So, just as the million plus Brits living and working in Europe benefit from the health and social care offered in Europe, these children benefit from what we can offer. Are you really suggesting these kids be sent back to France to an alcoholic father who lives in one room in a friend's house? Clearly OP needs to make sure she's not imposed on and can't cope in her mid Seventies with bringing up young children but if she can keep in touch with them that will give them a reassurance that someone cares even if the parents are incapable.

quiz the children are EU citizens until Brexit. So, just as the million plus Brits living and working in Europe benefit from the health and social care offered in Europe, these children benefit from what we can offer. Are you really suggesting these kids be sent back to France to an alcoholic father who lives in one room in a friend's house? Clearly OP needs to make sure she's not imposed on and can't cope in her mid Seventies with bringing up young children but if she can keep in touch with them that will give them a reassurance that someone cares even if the parents are incapable.

The children will be EU citizens after Brexit too, as their father is French.
If he can give them nothing else, that would allow them to have a French passport and EU citizenship. Presumably they have British citizenship too and then they would have dual nationality.

Not that I am suggesting they be sent back to their father.

Also, these children are French citizens and should have stayed in France and let their tax payers pick up the bill, not ours.

Probably untrue. The children are likely to be British citizens if their mother is a British citizen. Children take the citizenship of their parents.

i may be slated for this but i can see why your bil has washed his hands of her you need to think of yourself for once maybe grieve for your husband we all have problems but she sounds selfish and a user for once instead of running round after her maybe the kids need foster care you need to involve social services and she needs tough love left to her own devices

Sadly I have no contact with my stepdaughter any more. She was a lovely child and my husband adored both her and her brother but as a teenager she became very spiteful and treated her father horribly so he never saw her again after the age of 18. She refused to go out for a meal with him when invited and when her godmother gave her a beautiful and expensive piece of jewellery as a gift, godmother was appalled and embarrassed by receiving a message which was “actually I wanted money”! Very sad, though I am still in touch with my stepson, who gets on well with my 2 sons. My husband died a while ago - stepson came to the funeral with his wife and teenage children but neither first wife nor stepdaughter bothered to give my husband the respect he deserved...

We hear so many bad things about social services and other government bodies but I'm very impressed. We had a long meeting yesterday with a social worker from child services. My stepdaughter was there as was my step-DIL. Stepdaughter looks miles better, I do know there is many a slip between cup and lip, but she looked clean, tidy and bright-eyed and I have been like a storm-trooper going to her cottage every day. It is immaculate now and when I took the children down to see it, even though they wouldn't talk to their mother they told me they thought it all looked lovely. K, the social worker, is organising parenting classes and also arranging for the children to go to Teen-Anon. They are having counselling at school and the stepdaughter is having counselling from a local addiction specialist and is also going to AA. The children are going to have a phased return to contact with their mother. She is going to pick them up from school on Friday and give them tea and spend a couple of hours with them and then I will pick them up and bring them home with me. K will check with the children that they are happy with this and then their mother will gradually have them more and more but with social services (and me) keeping a beady eye on the situation. She is getting amazing support but has been warned that if she doesn't keep it all together the children will be taken away formally as opposed to, as now, informally, with family support. Anyway, at the moment I say hurray for social services.

AS a retired social worker i am very pleased you have had such support, and hope that your stepdaughter is able to benefit from their help. good Luck daisy and well done for being there for the children.