Hello

I’m after some advice for how to navigate child contact with my ex and also how to approach his drug use.

We have a 13yo together and have been split for over 10 years.

Since being split it’s been very difficult to get him to commit to days and times to collect her and see her. School holidays being especially difficult.
We had an arrangement for every other weekend which works fine for a while. When school holidays approach I ask if he’s seeing her during the weeks as well as the scheduled weekends. He often doesn’t reply to my messages then will tell her he will collect her the day before. Randomly on a Friday or a Thursday. Usually we have things planned so it’s not always possible to throw our plans out for him last minute. She gets upset as he tell her I’m not letting him see her. Which is true to an extent, but I offers the chance for him to give me dates when he’s free and he never did. As you can imagine, this causes a lot of unpleasantness within my household.

He will also randomly either tell her midweek he’s picking her up for dinner and she tells me as she’s going out the door. Or he will message saying he’s collecting her for dinner. Won’t says a time or where he’s picking up from. She regularly has after school clubs so it’s nice to know if he’s collecting from school or not as it causes worry for me if she’s not home at the expected time.

Also, he does recreational drugs. At festivals and clubs. I’ve heard from a friend he’s after some cocaine soon but not sure when. I’m worried he might be under the influence when he is looking after her or on a comedown and not able to care for her.

So I have 2 questions:

How do I get proper structure with child contact . I can’t afford court and solicitor fees unfortunately.

What do I do about this drug use?

Please all suggestions and advise welcome