Reasons why children become available for adoption?

[melvinscomment]

Re children available for adoption at either Local Authority or private adoption agencies, is any detailed information provided as to why they were removed from their natural parent(s)?

thank you wastht/melvin/whomever won't be clicking on anymore links of yours. Good luck with your crusade. I'm still a bit confused about what you want form us? Surely we are the enemy?

Does anyone care about the US system? I know it's far worse than ours and apart from my family suffering that side of the pond I don't care. I know a lot about ours and happen to think on the whole we have it pretty good. You'll never stop the wrong people going into a profession whether it's Harold Shipman or a bad social worker but most doctors are brilliant and no Harold Shipman just like most social workers are good and working damn hard to do their best. More children are protected than either are removed wrongly or not removed when they should have been.

Agree with Kewcumber.

"Does anyone care about the US system?" well presumably guy does! The more pertinent question might be - do we care that he cares?

Why is the US system worse than yours? (Genuinely curious :) )

I thought you were going to say the Americans do! Yes, apart from the Yanks and guy/ Melvin/ John, I don't think anyone else around here does or even that the annoying trinity do.

I know he really has no understanding of the uk system let alone the us one social workers their have far more powers of removal and the child go to adopton far quicker also its far more easy to become an adotive parent far less checks

Hence why madonna had to use her us nationalty to adopt as she wouldnt of been aloud to here .

Clearly knows little about adotion here on in the sates

Heres a joke lady how many time dose it take a troll to change his id

Thing with the US system, it's hard to say anything definite because ever state has slightly (or majorly) different rules. I know in some/most(?) there is a time limit of like 15 months before Termination of Parental Rights is filed for automatically if the parents hasn't worked a case plan. Also some states have Trial by Jury available for parents to request if their rights are being terminated. Plus children are usually adopted by their foster parent, who are licensed for both adoption and fostering (fost-adopt, although some counties don't have that). But some counties will be rubbish, and some will be very good. I'm not sure you can generalise and say it's all worse, because the state laws can be very different - and we sure have some rubbish LA's over here!

Kewcumber Adopters aren't the enemy. The enemy are medics and social workers who recommend children for forced adoption for no obviously adequate reason, eg the child hasn't suffered any significant harm in the past but the medics and social workers think the child may suffer significant harm in the future.

But the only reason that happens is if there is evidence - that the parents are leading a lifestyle that makes them incapable of caring adequately for children or if they have abused previous progeny. They don't take children into care on a whim.

Hard not to engage isn't it christine. My dd was removed at birth so no actual evidence of harm to her. I have never had a moments doubt that SS did the right thing though.

Two of mine were removed at birth due to them having very experienced and knowledgeable social workers who knew birth family very well and for a very, very long period of time.

One of mine wasn't removed at birth despite bf having extensive involvement with police, social services, prisons .... you name it. My child has likely developmental trauma, has a psychiatrist, is medicated, is about to start long term therapy, is unable to access mainstream education - and it's all down to dangerous, chaotic, violent, drug and alcohol abusing birth parents.

So please .... don't preach to me about the rights and wrongs. I live it every day.

It's all about the parents rights mary (it's ladybiscuit here - had a namechange) in his world, children are but chattels of their bio parents until such a time as they break them irreparably and then SS are allowed to step in (presumably - or maybe even that isn't okay)

Part of the reason you don't get a balanced view on the paper is that SS (at least where I come from) doesn't ever comment on cases because of strict privacy laws. So parents are free to say whatever they want and you get an unbalanced view.

Emotional injury in legislation here in Canada is defined as :

(a) if there is impariment of the child's mental or emotional funtioning and or if there are reasonable and probable grounds to believe that the emotional injury is the result of:

-rejection
-emotional, social, cognitive or physiological neglect,
-depreivation of affection or cognitive stimulation
-exposure to domestic violence or severe domestic disharmony
-inappropriate criticism, threats, humiliation, accusations or expectations of or toward the child
-the mental or emotional condition of th guardian or anyone living the the same residence
-chronic alcohol or drug use by the guardian or anyone living in the residence

A social worker cannot just "take a child away". They have to make application to the courts and show that there is just cause. It is a very long and difficult process to permanently keep a child away from its parents. AKA parents have to have seriously F*#&ked up in no uncertain terms and totally failed to resolve the situation over the course of many chances.

And remember - parents aren't just hapless victims (though perhaps sometimes just hapless) - they get to have lawyers and they get to give the judge their side and all that. The law is tilted to the parents rights so again -you really have to be ridiculous to have the kids taken away as opposed to the court granting some kind of supervision order where the situation is monitored with the children remaining in the home. And its not just one court application - its many. So parents get multiple chances to fix things.

All this Human Rights stuff really annoys me. Who says that the rights of the birth parents should take precedence over the needs of they helpless children who didn't ask to be brought into the world. What about their rights?

walesblackbird Thu 24-Mar-11 19:10:05
"All this Human Rights stuff really annoys me. Who says that the rights of the birth parents should take precedence over the needs of they helpless children who didn't ask to be brought into the world. What about their rights?"

I agree with this - what about a child's right to not be totally screwed up for all time because their parents had a zillion chances to do better and all the while the child suffers? By the time they can get adopted they are too old for it to be likely they will find a forever home and/or they are incredibly damaged. It sad. Sorry to say I'm not that empathetic about parents who can't get their shit together and put their kids first.

Forced adoption my ass.

I knew a dad who wanted more than anything to keep his kids, because he liked having three little girls to rape every night. But let's worry about his rights, shall we?!!?!

my friends (a) daughter was taken into care shortly after birth having minimal abuse and neglect because of severe violence and sexual abuse of her 2 year old brother who was filmed by a neighbour flying across the room hitting the wall. Guess they should have taken him into care and left her until there had been actual similar abuse to her.

The children I've come across (friends' children) who have been adopted despite not coming to any direct harm themselves were all the 6th, 7th or 8th child of a mother who had patently shown that she could not cope with the older children, all of whom who had generally also been taken into care, sadly only after neglect or abuse had occurred. I'd say the lucky ones were the ones taken at birth on the whole. It doesn't always seem to happen though- if the mother has taken active and meaningful steps to ensure that she is not such a shit parent*, I have heard of nth number baby (7th in 11 years in the case I'm thinking of- mother still only 26/27 herself) being left with her.

*battling the addiction, going on parenting courses, chucking out the low-life she was living with, etc...

My DD1's parents sure knew all about their rights when their children were taken away! They really didn't think that she or her siblings had any at all, in fact they regard her as a peice of property and nothing more. I don't understand why 'forced adoption' is even a bad thing, it gave her another family, and a chance in life

The children must come first. I know I have an enormous amount of respect and empathy for DD2 and DS mum, because although they were taken away from her, truly it wasn't her fault. She always put their needs first when she could look after them, she adores them, and sacrificed everything for them..just like we all do here. Trouble is, she was abused all her life, and has PTSD just like DD2. So when she got triggered by something, or had horrendous nightmares, the kids suffered. There was no other family there. So onto the scene comes her one time boyfriend and his family, who forced her to let them into the house, and they abused her and the children. Kind of hard to escape or help your kids when you're physically chained up with a knife at your throat though. Thank God a neighbour realised, although after an entire year had passed, and the police got there (but only one bloody person got prison time. One!!)

So the kids were taken into care. Mums mental health went to the point she was in hospital, but she always asked afte rthe kids, and thanked God they were with a loving foster family. But she just needs so much therapy and help, she couldn't care for them, so they were adopted. It is devastating, because she never did anything wrong, never harmed them, or put her own needs above theirs. But she can't parent them. And i have huge respect for her, as I say, because despite this, she supports the adoption, she shows how much she loves them...in fact DD2 and I will be sitting down this weekend to make her a mothers day card :)

My poit being, the same as what everyone else said. So called 'forced adoption' isn't bad or wrong in the right circumstances - where the children need a new family. The children always come first, even if that harms the parents. It upsets me we even have to have this conversation (mind you, I don't think the troll cares one bit)

Yes, my dd was also not abused or neglected, having been taken into care at birth. But of course there are siblings, who went through hell. One in particular who will NEVER recover - a child who is already damaged for life.

Mr Troll probably sees this as a forced adoption, as a terrible abrogation of the rights of parents who have not - yet - directly abused a child. But can he come up with ANY cases of forced adoption in which the birth parents have not either abused/neglected a child (this one or another one) or being given a chance to develop proper parenting skills e.g. by being placed in a mother and baby foster placement? Because all I'm hearing is a repeated assertion that children are being forcibly adopted where there is only a hypothetical risk that they may be emotionally neglected/abused, but nothing at all in the way of evidence.

Someone has tweeted that I am melvinscomments. I am not. I don't know who the person is.

However, to answer hester. Look at Rachel Pullen's case. She is identified with the agreement of the Court of Appeal. Her case is in the European Court of Human Rights. Her daughter has been put up for adoption because she is stroppy.

No, not because she is stroppy. Because her daughter has medical problems, having been born prematurely, that the court/social workers felt that - given her learning difficulties - she would unable to cope with. I have googled it and nowhere have I seen it written that she is stroppy. Just not able to cope with the demands that may be placed on her by having a child with medical problems.

Children simply aren't removed on a whim by social workers. Not in my experience. Social workers move heaven and earth, quite often to the detriment of the children involved, to keep children within the birth family. Often to the cost of the children's mental health.

Social workers are damned if they do, damned if they don't. There are too many cases when children have been allowed to remain with abusive parents - Peter Connolly springs to mind. I live with what happened to my son every day. She didn't physically abuse him but he witnessed things that no baby should have - and he remember those things. Pre-verbal yes, but the body keeps score.

OK, I think the collective name from now on needs to be "Beetlejuice"