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)?

[Kewcumber]

OK Beetlejuice of the same agenda but many forms... what would you like us adoptive parents to say? That the system is full of cases where childrne have been removed for no discernable reason and that we all know of at least one. Would that make you go away?

I'd really like to know becasue frankly at this point I'll say whatever you like as I'm rapidly losing the will to live.

[RipVanLilka]

[johnhemming]

RP doesn't have learning difficulties. Perhaps the most evil aspect of this is that the courts have accepted that she has when she hasn't.

[hester]

You know, I can easily accept that there are cases where the social workers get it wrong. Where the social workers are inept, unprofessional, malicious, careless. All parents, surely, can understand how completely terrible it must be to have your child taken from you. I'll happily stand on the barricades to protest miscarriages of justice.

But accepting that there will be those cases does not mean that, overall, social services are too quick to take children into care. I would bet any amount of money that it is the opposite; you really have to go some to have your children taken off you. Many, many children are raised in grossly inadequate families, and SS do nothing because they simpliy don't have the resources to take effective action where there is not real evidence of significant harm.

THIS is the crux of it, surely? Mr Hemmings can quote individual cases (which are hard for any of us to judge because we don't have the full information) and we can quote individual cases back at him (ditto) but that doesn't get us very far. We know that the system is under-resourced, creaking under the strain, bureaucratic and inflexible. But is it biased - in ideology, system, process or resource - against the interests of loving families? Can you give us evidence for that, Mr Hemmings? What proportion of cases do you think SS get wrong?

[johnhemming]

But is it biased - in ideology, system, process or resource
Yes in system, process and resource. There is an ideological issue as well which means that the system will remove children because of an assertion of possible emotional harm in the future.

Prior to the adoption targets perhaps 40% of 5 year olds who left care were adopted. After them more like 60% were adopted. The rest of the children (pretty well) returned to their parents.

More importantly the adoption targets were followed by a material increase in the numbers of children taken into care under 5 (and particularly at birth).

[Kewcumber]

Like like like Hester post too Lilka, perhaps we could petition for that.

JH there isn't one parent on here who has yet experienced the "possible emotional harm" scenario so we're just not going to get behind you on that one. You are entirely within your rights to crusade for a cases where you beleive that this has happened as it is obviously very personal to you. Personally I will be continuing to advocate for the rights of a child to live without neglect or physaical or sexual abuse or even emotional abuse, because that very personal to me and in my very humble opinion way more common.

I'm not sure that the rise in numbers being taken in care after adoption targets is relevant - you interpret that as a bad thing but I could equally be horrified by the fact that so many of those children who should previously have been removed from their parents were not. My personal experience is that child are far more commonly not removed from their parents soon enough when they should be than those who were removed without cause.

And I'm no starry eyed innocent. I have been personally involved in two cases where friends have had accusations of abuse/neglect and social workers have been crusading in their attempts to prove it to be the case. In both cases despite repeated efforts to prove some kind of a case, they failed and the childrne were never removed, because there was NO PROOF. So I am prepared to accept that there may be miscarriages where somehow despite no proof a removal happens but I also know that despite (in one case) a sw seemingly desperate to find reason to remove a child, they couldn't.

I see the case for reform, for having an independent fast track appeal system, to separate out the function of supporting struggling paretns from teh legal ability to remove a child so that social worker have more focus on a specific role. But I still beleive and will not be convinced otherwise by the small evidence I have ever seen that this is a widespread problem.

And certianly one I do not wish to engage with myself so I ask again... what exactly would you like me to say? What would convince you that we are not the audience you need?

[johnhemming]

The difficulty of the debate is that of having access to the truth of the process. Without people having more information as to what actually goes on it is difficult to conclude what is wrong.

The proposal for an ombudsman to look at things independently of the courts I think is a positive proposal.

I am trying to ensure that parents are protected when they complain to their MP. That will also assist.

It is, however, generally the poorer less articulate parents who find themselves targeted. It is much harder for them to cope.

[hester]

Your statistics don't evidence your assertions. If you understand statistics, you'll know that yourself.

You keep saying that there is an ideology of removing children because of possible future emotional harm, but there is no evidence of that. I could counter you by asserting there is an ideology that children are best kept with their birth families wherever possible. In one way, both statements are true: I'm sure social workers, and most of us, would agree with both. But what happens in practice? How does an 'ideology' (which I think you are using to mean a principle or an opinion) get expressed in daily practice? How does the ideal get compromised by resource and process issues? Are the cases where sw get it wrong down to poor implementation of sound policy, or an inevitable product of a system that is not fit for purpose?

You say, "Without people having more information as to what actually goes on it is difficult to conclude what is wrong" and on that we can agree. So why are you so dogmatic about your diagnosis - from what I can see, you are no better informed that the rest of us on these threads. Why don't you devote your resources to supporting research, analysis and policy development, rather than elaborating wild conspiracy theories? Forgive me for saying this, but it does sound a bit like MP-itis (that condition in which you meet a few ranting constituents and conclude you are now an expert on this issue and have heard the authentic voice of The People).

[johnhemming]

I see large numbers of cases. The documentation for these cases is legally privileged which means that I cannot provide copies without going through parliamentary proceedings.

[MollyMurphy]

I have to emphasize again - social workers do not take children away - COURTS and JUDGES do. The social workers job is to bring to the courts attention all of their information so that the judge can make the decision as to whether their is sufficient cause for the actions taken. The children's parents get to have lawyers to contest applications to the enth degree so this is not an informal process where someone gets to be malicious and spiteful - there is a full court hearing, witnesses called, professionals subpoenaed. It is damn hard to have your kids taken away and many kids have to stay in terrible situations because it is so hard to get judges to grant permanent guardianship.

[MollyMurphy]

johnhemming "It is, however, generally the poorer less articulate parents who find themselves targeted. It is much harder for them to cope."

They aren't "targetted" but yes, those are the families - those of low socioeconomic status, poor education, low income, historical familial issues that have the most problems. What can be done about that is better early intervention, more community programming so that SS doesn't have to become involved and better funding into the whole system. That is not within a social workers power to fix - those are larger societal issues.

[wasthatthatguy]

MollyMurphy What judges in courts can and can't do re forced adoption, ie adoption without the consent of the parent(s), depends on which country one is referring to. I don't know what the situation is in Canada, which is where you indicate you live in your comment above of Thu 24-Mar-11 18:40:42. In Ireland, married parents can't consent to the adoption of their child even if they want to! Whereas a single mother can consent to the adoption of her child in Ireland. Also, a judge in a court of the Irish State cannot forcibly adopt a child if the parent(s) do not consent to adoption. In the USA a judge can order that a child be forcibly adopted against the wishes of his or her parent(s). In France, and I think most other European countries, a judge can't order a forced adoption. Here in England, although a judge can order a forced adoption, it is medics and social workers who decide that a forced adoption should be applied for. In practice, here in England, all a judge can do is either issue the requested orders or refuse to do so. If the judge refuses to issue the orders, he or she can't tell the Local Authority what to do re the care of the child. The relevant law in England is largely based on a DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security) report of the mid 1980s. It appears that medics and social workers, or civil servants representing them, effectively wrote the law they wanted to use. One could say that judges here in England are more or less obliged to agree with whatever the relevant medics and social workers decide is the "correct" care plan for a particular child. Any significant resistance by the judge is futile!

[wasthatthatguy]

Here is a case where two children have been removed from a single mother, who became pregnant twice to the same, apparently or allegedly unsuitable, father. However, there is no evidence that either of the children have been harmed in any way. And it appears that the father is not currently involved in the mother's and children's lives in any significant way :- //www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8392887/Another-horrible-case-for-you-Mr-Loughton.html

[KristinaM]

Mr hemming, I am sorry that you have had such an unsympathetic reception here

In my opinion, the work that you do and the experience of a parents here are opposite sides of the same coin

The same deeply flawed system ( poor staff, poorly trained and supervised, lack of accountability etc) leads to some children being left in terrible situations and permanently damaged. While others are unfairly removed from good enough parents

When you have seen mostly one side, it's hard to believe that the other exists

I applaud those who are campaigning for a fairer and more open system

Just as I repect and admire those who cope every day with the effects of neglect and abuse on their children. Sadly , for many children, that abuse has been perpetrated by social workers as well as in their family of origin

[RipVanLilka]

KristinaM - For my children, the damage also came from the court delays, and moves in foster care

I am quite happy to support the courts being more open to public scrutiny. And that they move a lot more quickly in deciding cases, and giving courts more whatever they need to hear cases quicker. Everyone knew DS would not be going home from about 8 months, and his mum wanted him to be adopted by me. But they didn't get a placement order till he was 22 months old! The delay was inexcusable IMO

I am sure there have been cases where children have been adopted when they could have been supported at home. BUT I think there are more cases where the opposite happens. I just get incredibly annoyed when people assert that this makes all 'forced adoption' wrong (as far as I'm concerned, it isn't wrong to adopt someone without consent PLUS nearly all blanket assertions are wrong whatever they are), and when they assert that this means there is some massive conspiracy, with everyone making big money out of it! They claim ridiculous things like adoptive parents are paid!! Ha ha ha. And it gets my back up when people claim foster parents are somehow overpaid and making money out of it all!!

The FC I know personally gets about £120 a week without extra allowances for one child. That is 73 pence per hour!! How is 73 pph a reasonable allowance for anybody in this day and age! And there was me thinking we actually had a minimum wage in this country!

So by all means campaign for open courts, for more scrutiny, but for heavens sake stop with the ridiculous hurtful comments about massive conspiracys that don't exist, especially involving FC's and AP's, who have didly squat say at all

rant over

[confuddledDOTcom]

Mr Hemming will always get an unsympathetic reception on here because of what he does. I've tried very hard to be polite about him because I could identify myself if I say the things I know about him. He isn't a nice and pleasant person, he's a conspiracy nut who uses his position. If he didn't come here spouting nonesense or spout it IRL then just maybe he'd get a better reception.

[NanaNina]

Can I just say that in the past I have attempted to debate with John Hemmings this issue of "forced adoption" and have given up as he is completely incapable of having a rational debate. His contention is that social workers "snatch children from decent parents to get them adopted, to meet adoption targets" - he has used these very words time and time again. He never answers direct questions, he posts odd, random comments and is incapable of understanding research and statistics as Hester says and whilst what you say is Molly Murphy is absolutely right (and others on this thread too) you are really reallywasting your time and energy on trying to debate with John Hemmng.

He actually believes that there is a conspiracy going on between social workers, psychologists, children's guardians, GPs, psychiatrists, independent parenting assessors, and anyone else involved in care proceedings, and the Judge, who merely rubber stamps what all these professionals write in their reports. He has been ordered out of the Birmingham County Courts by a Judge. He was seriously criticised by a High Court Judge Wall LJ a year or two ago (the full text was posted by a barrister in family law and a MNetter.here on MN.
Several social workers, lawyers and others have complained about him to Nick Clegg and until I saw JH on this thread I thought maybe NC had agreed with those of us who were complaining. He actually tried to sue Birmingham City Council for £30,000 and said the social workers should pay out of their own pocket!! This was based on a case that involved him personally and this is the origin of his consistent belief in the conspiracy theory, even though he will deny this.

JH helps parents who are involved with social services who may have initiated care proceedings to "flee" to other countries, which means of course that these children are still at risk of significant harm. He purports to have a team of workers (none of them trained) who assist parents who are involved with social services. I feel that this is actually doing more harm than good to these parents as they believe that because JH is an MP he has the authority to overturn decisions made by all the professionals involved in casesof care proceedings, which of course he doesn't. I once asked him how many cases involving care proceedings where he (or his team) had intervened had been successful in that the children were returned to the parents and his response was "we don't keep figures on that issue" yeah right!

I think Melvin is JH or is someone whose thinking is as warped as JH. SO please MNs don't waste your time and energy on Melvin/John because he/they are just not worth it and his/their view will never be changed. Believe me I and others have tried, many many times. We have all given up. I advise you do the same!

[NanaNina]

Walesblackbird have just read your reply to JH who asserts that a child has been put up for adoption because Rachel Pullen (the mother presumably) is stroppy!! Your answer is right on but it won't change him one iota. He once told us on here that a child had been removed from his parents because the mother had called the social worker fat!!

I do actually have a collection of all his nonsensical posts and sent them to Nick Clegg. I think that for an elected MP to be making such ridiculous assertions is seriously irresponsible. However Clegg has clearly done nothing about it. I would have thought that any party leader would be very concerned that an MP was bringing his party into disrepute by making such claims about social workers. Oh yes, forgot to say he thinks the lawyers acting for the LA are involved in the conspiracy too and once posted that they just "roll over" and agree with the social workers because it paid their mortgage!! Needless to say this angered the family law barrister I mentioned before (don't like to post her name) but if she sees this she may come back, and many other lawyers. He should be stopped from posting such rubbish but I decided long ago to ignore him - it's much the easier way.

I don't usually come on the adoption threads, but have been concerned about this melvin bloke because he was posting on the mental health threads with some ppotentially very damaging asertions about mental health and many of us requested that the whole thread be removed and MN agreed and it was removed.

[confuddledDOTcom]

NanaNina, I had to laugh reading your post. I have heard first hand accounts of exactly what you describe, you could be the person I heard them from except I happen to know they was already in bed when you posted them. Whether he is right or wrong, his behaviour is not a good representation of who he claims to work for (no matter who that it, no one would want to be connected to that) and I agree it should be acted upon. I'm surprised that it hasn't been.

[wasthatthatguy]

Returning to the question of reasons why children become available for adoption. If an adopted child asks one of the adopters why he or she was adopted, what can the adopter say? Well, a social worker told us a medic thought it would be a good idea, but the social worker didn't tell us why it would be a good idea. It must have been something significant. Who knows? Not me. What would you like for dinner tonight?

[Kewcumber]

well the adopters who have posted on this thread don't have that issue wttg as we have repeatedly explained. And in my very humble opinion, its a crass thing to ask of parents who have to explain to their children why they were beaten, starved and sexually abused.

Shall i pretend its true in my case?

"Well DS I didn't totally understand the reasons myself so its hard for me to explain them. When you are 18 you will be allowed access to the court records for your case which I am not allowed access to and you can read for yourself. I will do my best to help you make sense of it and of course you can also make clear that you are open to contact from your birth family at that point. I will support you in any way I can and I think before you make any decisions you should talk to someone who has more experience than me in these things and I can help arrange that for you".

Your flippant "Who knows? Not me. What would you like for dinner tonight?" is ridiculous and offensive to just about everyone involved.

[hester]

Trust me, wttg, for us it is more a problem of how to give the child access to truly shocking facts, in a way that is truthful but they can receive without being traumatised further.

If only, if only we were struggling to make a non-issue sound serious enough...

Your post is crass beyond belief.

[walesblackbird]

"Returning to the question of reasons why children become available for adoption. If an adopted child asks one of the adopters why he or she was adopted, what can the adopter say? ".

The truth. We tell our children the truth. Not sugar coated but we tell them how chaotic their bps lives were. We tell them that they were singularly ill-equipped for parenthood. We tell them they were incapable of providing even the most basic level of care. We tell tell them that they didn't look after them. That they neglected them. That they abused them.

I have no idea what you're talking about and frankly I'm not sure you do either. You clearly have no understanding of how adoption works, you clearly have no understanding of what children are witness to.

I think you're completely bonkers quite honestly.