Another update:

A while ago I posted on here that I wanted to go back to CPS. FDH already tried once before about 5 yrs ago but CPS saw no cause for concern... (if I was FDH I'd try for full custody once more, but he doesn't want to 'fight' anymore).

This time we have better 'evidence' of the neglect. The girls missing too much school, BM leaving them alone to care for babies when she goes out drinking, the girls roaming the internet without parenting controls & chatting to strangers in the middle of the night when BM is out, staying up till 4am in the morning waiting for her to come home, incidents at BM's house where the police is involved (recently they were there again because BM and her brother had a drunken argument that turned violent).

There's a lot more stuff going on but trying to prove these things are happening is always hard because of the lack of evidence. One example of something that happened that we cannot really prove: We got a desperate call from SD14 on New years Day around 11am because she had to go to work and BM had taken off after argument with BF around 1am and not come home all night. Couldn't be contacted either. SD's had been home alone looking after babies, worried sick. Of course we could have called the cops so we would have that evidence, but if we'd do that the kids would not call us again for fear of getting BM in trouble. And we do want the kids to ring us when they are in need, so we ended up going over there to help them out. Once BM came home she went straight to bed cause she was hungover and slept rest of day, SD14 came back home with us, SD13 insisted on staying with BM.

We have been unsuccessful trying to prove BM's alcoholism and related issues in the past (not calling cops to file a report doesn't work in our favor I know), but I do hope something can be done to improve the girls school attendance. At least we have proof that they're not sick when BM gives the school a note to say that they are. We have tweets from the girls showing they're doing just fine 'chillaxing' at home, up all night surfing the web, caring for baby siblings while mum goes out all night etc etc. Also work records for SD14 are showing she was doing shifts on days she missed school.

I was going to see CPS without telling FDH so he wouldn't have to stress out about it, he's desillusioned and doesn't want to try again, he thinks it won't help. But I find it hard to sit back and do nothing. Anyway, my friends advised me against it, warning me of the burdon of carrying a secret. They're right, of course, so I spoke to FDH about it and he doesn't want me to do it.

So now we are going back to the school, we've received info from the Dept of Education on the procedure that needs to be followed. If attendance falls below 90% over a period of ten-weeks, intervention strategies should be implemented. Guess what, SD14's attendance has been consistently under 75% and it has been 2 years (with this High School), and still nothing! I might post the letter that we wrote on here later, but it's a bit long and I already explained the outline of it.

Maybe that is the better way to go, after all perhaps CPS would also contact the school or Dept of Edu, so possibly we have the same outcome anyway. As I said; I would go back to court if it was my decision and fight for custody, but FDH doesn't want to go down that road again (although he did say something about it the other day which surprised me..maybe he's starting to reconsider).

I'll post an update once I know what's happening with it all.