To think SS killed autistic mother

Exactly - In some ways I feel we are better mothers as we are so hyper aware and hyper vigilant and attention to detail is so important to me that I’m always trying to go above and beyond but I’m regularly shocked at the assumptions made by others about my parenting capacity

Have you actually read the judges summary of the inquest though @CeciliaMars - the LA missed many opportunities to support

You know ONE person on the spectrum who did that.

One.

It's great that she was open and honest, but if the information she provided showed she wasn't capable of parenting responsibly and safely, surely SS had to take the baby away? They'd be vilified if they had information to suggest otherwise and didn't take the baby away! Damned if they do and damned if they don't...

Heartbreaking. It’s likely there wasn’t availability at a mother and baby unit or funding for immediate support in the home - it was probably easier and cheaper for SS to remove the baby which is awful when had the direct support been in place they would never had to separate mother and baby

I'm horrified at the way society view autistic mothers. Do they think we are all off in a corner somewhere counting matchsticks like in Rain Man? Not wiping the tears after a fall, cuddling while watching a film, spending ages doing Panini stickers, chatting about our days, doing the grocery shopping, checking the school bags and doing the school runs just like all the non autistic mums?

I know of someone on the spectrum who talks about their mental health problems in front of their children all the time, they constantly say in front of their children if it was not for them they would kill themselves, can you imagine what on earth that does to the children's mental health?

Surely the solicitor is at least as much to blame as SS? He should never have said that in a letter. News like that needs to be sensitively delivered and it wasn't definite but did she realise that, did she know what she had to do to avoid it?

Yes there was a lot to this case, hence the inquest. In which a judge ruled that the LA were at fault.

We dont know this mother was a good mother though there is not enough information about why the child was removed
I think the fact she is autistic is a red herring here ,as as we all should know ,its a huge spectrum and some people with autism will be very capable and others can't even look after themselves let alone a tiny baby
And everything else in between.

Fern wasn’t “unstable” until after her baby had been taken from her. The OP was disagreeing with your swapping the order of events.

What a tragic case.

Clearly more support should have been given, but we all know how stretched support services are.

I'll put this one down to the Tories and their stripping of support from those who need it.

May she rest in peace.

OH MY GOD, I wrote death but I meant BIRTH of my second child. I'll report and have it deleted but my point was, even with severe PND/PPP I was still a bloody good mum.

Nope. Read further up the thread. OP is now weirdly denying it, but she literally wrote that a baby staying with an unstable “mother” is better than “allowing” the woman to kill herself.

People who are not safe parents can also be autistic. Most parents with autism are safe parents. The baby had to be protected from harm. It's sad that this young woman could not access support. Everyone does NOT have mental health 'issues' & depression. We all have mental health. If the diagnosis was schizophrenia with a tendency to harm would people think the baby should have been left.

Have you read the inquest?
Nobody here is advocating for a child to be with an “unfit parent” so calm yourself ffs.

Do you understand that the support referenced here was legally required to be put into place while she was pregnant?

This. Even if they were at fault, they didn't "kill" her, she did that.

She wasn’t an unfit parent. She was a disabled parent denied the support she is legally entitled to that would have enabled her to be a successful parent.

"With the right support, Fern would have become a wonderful mother.”

Don't you understand that sentence? As in, in the future after getting support she could be a good mother, but at the time was not. That means the child needed to be taken away but could have potentially gone back.

I think there is a lot more to this case than what is in the article. Why was the baby fostered in the first place? There must have been significant concerns at how at risk it was and possibly they didn’t feel it was safe for the baby if mum didn’t have 24/7 support which perhaps couldn’t be provided. The autism part could be a bit of a red flag, plenty of people without autism self harm and don’t get adequate support. Plenty of autistic people make excellent parents.

Ultimately, better care for any vulnerable person should be given and nobody should be told in an email their baby is going to be adopted, it’s definitely the kind of thing that needs to have been properly discussed face to face.

But that's emotional blackmail, I'll kill myself if I dont keep my baby. SS want to keep children with their parents as much as possible.