To think that forced adoption is the best thing for many children

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31089412

Clearly taking a child into care or complusory adoption should be a last restort. However I don't think that there is a fundermental right to be a parent. There is a fundermental right for a child to have a decent childhood. Parents should not be numerous chances to get parenting right. Baby P is a prime example of a baby who should have been taken into care at birth.

I feel the secrecy of the family courts is an issue. In many cases there are strong reasons why someone should never be allowed to have care of a child. We need a way that there can be an appeals proceedure that puts the right of the child first.

[MagratsHair]

It is a controversial practice and one that is facing criticism not just in the UK, but from politicians in Europe where forced adoption is rare.


It would be interesting to see the stats around abuse/neglect/death of children in Europe when the children remain with the parents where the UK would have forcibly adopted them.

[TooHasty]

I don't think that there is a fundermental right to be a parent

Really? So you think you have made and grown a person completely from your own body and you don't think you should have any rights over that little person?

[NancyRaygun]

Parents should not be numerous chances to get parenting right

If you have been lucky enough to have a great Mum and Dad, support, friends, money and live in a decent community maybe. If you have grown up with fuck all and have no guidance whatsoever in how to parent you might not get it right first time. You might need some support and another chance.

[PasstheDaimbars]

Really? So you think you have made and grown a person completely from your own body and you don't think you should have any rights over that little person?

Nope.

I believe you have responsibilities to that little person, but rights? Well I guess you have the right to make the best decision for them.

And if you cant do that, if you can't show that you are trying to keep them safe at the very least then . . . no

[Nancy66]

the welfare of the child is paramount and, sadly, there are many parents who are incapable of caring for a child. Even if they can't see it themselves.

[formerbabe]

Okay so what if a couple is nice but poor and they have a child? There is a rich couple who are very nice also and want to adopt child. Child's life will be nicer with rich couple. Do the poor parents deserve to lose their child?

[idiuntno57]

Of course the safety and welfare of the child should be above and beyond anything else.

However I don't believe it is always possible to predict who will be good or bad parents. By 'good' I don't mean hummus wealding super involved parents but just people who are going to keep their child safe, warm, fed and provide them with sufficient love and care. Whatever you know about someone's past you cannot predict their future and therefore shouldn't write off their parenting ability without giving them a chance.

More top class support (not financial but practical) for vulnerable parents is what is missing from the mix. Fostering and adoption are not a magic panacea and the outcomes for kids who go down these routes aren't always great.



NB fundamental not fundermental

[OneFlewOverTheDodosNest]

It's always a difficult balance between the welfare of the child and giving parents enough of a chance to get their act together.

About 10 years ago I think there was too much emphasis on the "rights" of the parents and my (adopted) cousins were really damaged by spending too much time with a heroin addicted mother before their adoption was made permanent. I believe they're redressing the balance now and that things don't have to be as bad before children are removed from an environment - Baby P was a big reason for that.

However there are 2 things that I think continue to make it hard - older children will always have a harder time adjusting to adoptive parents and/or foster carers and this can lead to placements failing, also there are many children of wealthier parents who also suffer from abuse and neglect but tend to slip through the system because no-one thinks to report them.

[FreudiansSlipper]

Really

Maybe do a little research on how children have felt being taken away from their parents for many this has a far more damaging impact than the abuse or the neglect the suffered plus many will have spent time in foster care too

Support for families is a far better option and to help a family stay together safely away from an abusive parent, step parent (if this is the case) or support for parent/s that are struggling and their life is chaotic to a point it is damaging

[LarrytheCucumber]

'Okay so what if a couple is nice but poor and they have a child? There is a rich couple who are very nice also and want to adopt child. Child's life will be nicer with rich couple. Do the poor parents deserve to lose their child?'

It isn't poverty as such that is the deciding factor. It is more likely to be substance abuse, or the fact that the parents don't take care of themselves properly, and would therefore find it difficult to care for a child.
Members of my family foster babies who are waiting for adoption. We do not usually gain much information about the reasons why children are taken away (it is all on a 'need to know' basis) but I really would not want to be the social worker who has to make the decision to remove a child from the parents at birth. Often the parents cling to the hope that the Court will return their child to them, but in the end the Courts are required to consider what is in the best interests of the child.

[Icimoi]

"Forced adoption" is an emotive term which is used only too often by some extremely irresponsible people who argue that adoption against the parents' will is never justified. I think it needs to be avoided.

I completely agree that the default position has to be to keep children with their families whenever possible, and to provide full support to enable that to happen. However, it cannot be denied that there are only too many sad cases where it isn't possible and there is little alternative but to make an adoption order for the child's safety. And that is not confined to cases of physical abuse but can relate to emotional abuse also.

[Topseyt]

Is this prompted by a thread which was deleted yesterday from the Parenting section?

Not sure what was discovered about the origins of that thread, but it really had to be seen to be believed. If there was any grain of truth in what was said in it then yes, I am with the OP, and there are possibly extreme cases where the state taking the children into care and perhaps eventually forcing adoption is justified.

The Baby P and Victoria Climbie cases are examples where, with hindsight, this should have been done. I know there have been others, but the names elude me at the moment.

[BarbarianMum]

Maybe do a little research on how children have felt being taken away from their parents for many this has a far more damaging impact than the abuse or the neglect the suffered

I would love to see the evidence this is based on Presumably you'd only be able to gather opinions from the survivors, what do the dead ones feel?

[FreudiansSlipper]

Yes I am well aware of all that Tiggy the complexities of dv

More support is needed for these women in this situation to get out safely and support to stay out

All they get is threats from all sides and very little support until they escape then they get some often far too little support

[Behindthepaintedgarden]

No, YANBU. There are some people who are in such dysfunctional or chaotic circumstances that they really aren't capable of taking care of a child. And also, of course, there are people who deliberately abuse or neglect their child. In those cases it is in the best interests of the child to be adopted, and that is what has to come first. It doesn't mean that people lack sympathy for some of the parents who lose their children. But at the end of the day the child's safety and security has to be paramount.

[ReallyTired]

I have met children who should have been taken into care sooner. Children who were kept in dirty conditions, abused, not sent to school and the decision to put them into local authority care was made too late. They have been profoundly damaged by their parents. I am sure that there parents had all kinds of sob stories why the child had recieved inadequate care. However children suffer for the rest of their lives if they continue in a birth family that is abusive more than if they are taken into care or adopted. Children are not seperated from their parents for the fun of it.

Sadly not all people are capable of being decent parents. Social workers are right to make the decision that no amount of support will make somone a good enough parent. If someone has failed five children then its stupid to allow them to attempt to parent a sixth.

A family should be there to benefit the child and not for the benefit of the parent. Children are more than pets. They are individuals in their own right who deserve the best start possible.

[FreudiansSlipper]

Sadly I have been that child

I have worked with adults who have been that child

If we supported more women (and sometimes men) to get out of an abusive relationship we would have less need for children to go into foster care where many have tragically have suffered further abuse that is not to say that there are not many wonderful foster careers out there

ABC book on child's account of their childhood and abuse is a difficult book to read but from a child's perspective

I have not said this is the answer to every situation but taking a child away from a parent who could given the support and right circumstances could be a good parent is better for a child in many cases

[Chattymummyhere]

It's hard when the courts are secret.

It only takes the very few cases that have made it to the papers to see not all social workers can be trusted to do their jobs correctly and do remove children just because they can. Where evidence that it was not the parents fault (medical conditions) where the social workers have not put that doctors reports though, where by the time the parents managed to try and get their children back because they where taken wrongly are told too late they have been adopted.

Some children need help and removing from the family's but most of those who really need the help never get it while social workers as chasing the "little problems" so to speak.

[Crusoe]

Forced adoption worked for my son. He would have been dead if left with his birth parents - no doubt about it.

[WannaBe]

If someone abuses a child there should be no second chances.

SS were involved with my dp's family before he was born. As a tiny baby he sustained injuries which left him VI. It took another five years and three more children before they were all permanently removed, but only one was placed for adoption. As such my dp grew up in long-term foster care.

IMO as soon as he became disabled he should have been removed and all subsequent babies should have been removed as well. If you are not in a position to prevent injury to a child then you shouldn't have one.

And no, domestic violence and poor self esteem are not an excuse to allow your child to be abused - as an adult you are responsible for your own situation, you may not have the strength to leave an abusive relationship but the instant your children become involved it becomes about them, and if you cannot leave for their sakes then they should be removed for their own safety. Far better then to remove subsequent babies at birth than risk them suffering the trauma of intervention at a later stage.

And while it's very easy to feel sorry for the parents who are not adequate parents and who need help to get back on track, how many of us would associate with parents like that when it came to our own children? send our children there for a play date? sleepover?
even if they'd had intervention and help from ss would you still want your child going round there?

[TidyDancer]

I don't think you'll ever arrive at a genuine consensus on this subject. Everyone has a different standard which they themselves regard as 'acceptable parenting'.

I know someone who has two DCs. Her house is a shithole. Dirty everywhere, animal poo all over, box of dirty nappies kept on the landing, no cleaning done ever (tip of the iceberg, but I'd be here all day if I described the lot). She has a background of mental health difficulties and admitted past alcoholism. Definite problem with anger and controlling emotions. DCs are almost always filthy and fed on a diet of shit.

That, to most people, is a parent who is not fit to be a parent. To social services however, it is not worthy of an intervention. Would adoption of the DCs be better than what they have? Is there a middle ground (SS haven't offered one but maybe it's out there)?