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)?

[duchesse]

Our friends who recently adopted a sibling group have been finding out more and more about their children's life before adoption as the children casually reveal details. It's quite shocking. And these were kids who were removed for neglect.

[Devora]

Many adopted children can speak for themselves, and do, about what life was like for them in their first homes.

Many adopted children have indisputable evidence of harm e.g. injuries, neonatal drug withdrawal, fetal alcohol syndrome.

Many adopters meet the biological parents these days, and many will also know how older siblings in the family are doing.

I'm sure there are unjust cases, but all the evidence I have seen points to the conclusion that neglected and abused children are removed from their families too little, rather than too often.

When injustice does occur, it needs to be exposed. But that isn't helped by suggesting conspiracy theories, that hard-pressed, under-resourced social workers are hellbent on invading happy families and concocting a web of fantasies about what goes on there.

[duchesse]

I don't want to say too much but I know of a young woman who is living a dangerous game with social services with her four young children. She is a good mum but her partner is a violent drug addict with a history of violence towards her and who has been violent to their toddler son. She KEEPS going back to him, even after having been put in a safe house by her SW a long way away from him after a botched (by the CPA) court case against him.

She objects vehemently to what she sees as SS intrusion but refuses to see that she is putting her children in danger merely by allowing their father back into her life all the time. It is like watching a car crash in slow motion.

[Kewcumber]

I don't doubt that there are injustices on both sides of this debate and have been on both sides (supporting a friend who was accused of abuse and investigated as well as an adoptive parent).

If social workers remit is to remove babies to get them adopted as seems to be the public perception then they are doing a really shit job of it as they predominantly remove children who are hard to place. By far and away the smallest proportion of children taken into care are preschool children who go on to be adopted.

I don't know another adopter who doesn't have physical proof of their childs injuries/neglect where the child was removed eg cigarette burns, video evidence taken by neighbours or the child being old enough to explain what life was like. That doesn't mean that I don't accept that cases like yours, Fred, don't exist and I'm not sure why you feel that adopters have such a rosy view of the system when we have all been through it and are intimately acquainted with its failings.

Tbh as an adopter I get a bit tired of having to justify time and time again why the majority of children are removed and placed for adoption fairly and in some cases too late.

I said this about a year ago earlier on in the thread:

"I'm not naive, I have come across social workers who have an agenda and I'm sure there are miscarriages of justice occasionally and for those families it is heartbreaking. BUt as adopters on here have told you, that isn't our experience. Not one of us have either children who where forcibly removed without a serious degree of neglect or know anyone in the same boat (unless relinquishment is voluntary)"

[Devora]

Absolutely, Kew. It feels really uncomfortable when these threads get polarised as though birth parents and adoptive parents are mutual enemies whose interests must always be pitted against each other. BECAUSE I love my dd I wish that she hadn't had to be taken from her birth family, with all that entailed and will continue to entail. BECAUSE I love my dd, I feel desperately sorry for her birth parents who didn't want her to go and who are missing out on a very special little girl. BUT part of the experience of adoption is coming to terms with the reasons our dc got taken into care, and then helping our dc to come to terms with it. I have real evidence of the harm caused to my daughter by her birth mother - including in utero - plenty enough to convince me that my dd is where she needs to be.

I don't doubt that injustice happens. I've met brilliant social workers and also ones so crap that I can't imagine the harm they could cause in a child protection context. I imagine the other adopters here would all agree with me when I say that we have no reason to doubt you, we certainly don't doubt the possibility of what you say happened to you, but that doesn't mean that the entire system of adoption is corrupt and that we are keeping our children from responsible, loving parents. It's just such a pointless debate to keep having, and it would be good to move on from.

[himynameisfred]

Insanity
I'm sure you're experiences of what you've seen and heard are completely different to mine.
But there's no need to say 'come off it' and get sarcastic.
I didn't say abuse doesn't happen.
I'm saying that despite whether or not there was neglect/abuse, there WILL be either documented, if there wasn't a forced adoption wouldn't have happened, so it's simple logic.
However, accounts of neglect or how the parent probably would have neglected aren't always accurate.
There are some inaccuracies on my son's file.

There's no proof of neglect or abuse to my child at all.
He was adopted because it was said that I could have possibly caused him emotional distress in the future.

[himynameisfred]

duchesse, I'm surprised SS haven't taken her children already.
I was in a refuge and was told by workers that they had seen SS take children when the woman had gone back to an abuser, no ifs, no buts, no second chances.

[himynameisfred]

My own theory, is not that social workers are on a mission to snatch up as many babies as possible, but that, very seasoned social workers who are probably past caring having been in the game too lomng, can make dangerous assumptions, and make it so vulnerable new mothers don't get all the chances they should be given. Perhaps these SWs think there's no point in giving the chances, so they build cases up where they don't tell new mums of their rights and support available, they mislead them, and build up a case to adopt the baby out without letting the mother know.
I believe they did this with me, and I think that's why I wasn;t given an opportunity in a mother and baby unit (as the child gaurdian stood up in court and said why the hell wasn't I already offered that support). I think they did not tell me I should have had my own social worker due to being a young vulnerable person, because they wanted they wanted to get the adoption through quicker and not waste funds messing around.
I think they did not tell me I could have had my child back at any time and that he was just in voluntry care, because they were waiting for me to not collect him back over a period of time, so they could get the intrim care order.
They lied about how I'd be arrested if I tried to take my baby home at a time when I had every legal right to do so.
They lied about how I would have him back soon and theyre just waiting on this and that. And they kept it all from my until last minutes, and told me in the bloody evening that the next morning they'd be getting and intrim court order as they want to put him for adoption, and they lied that I would not need to attend that court hearing and there's no point in doing so.
They knew I was clueless and had no chance of hgetting a soliciter in time to protest the intrim care order. They didn't even tell me I could have protested the order, they said it was just paperwork.

Absolutely everything that happened seemed to prove that they could really be bothered to spend their time supporting us, when they assumed I'd probably fail.
So they built up an entire case, just to try and go through the motions of giving me a fair trial, but there was no fair chances at all.

And if they do this with other people, as I read about, then that should show why I have this conspiracy about SS.

[himynameisfred]

the social worker said I'd need a lawyer for the big hearing, but social services don't lose cases anyway, so he would be adopted.

[fightforjustice]

message to all ............... social services have all got adoption targets set out by the goverment and when each local authority reaches their set target they get a cash bonus from the goverment for reaching the target to have so many children adopted in their area during a certain time period. alot of the children that social services take from their parents are loved and cared for but they are taken anyway. the social services then use professionals who will write up false reports which are them used in court to get the child adopted. this is fact. google forced adoption or look up the social workers that have been found out to have provided false reports to court and used them in court to back up their case against the childs parents. (cafcass workers also do this and some have even been taken to court over the said reports) also a doctor who has been found out to be doing false reports is Dr HIBBERT (google him and have a look for yourselves.

[misspollysdolly]

Can I just say...why, Why, WHY are old and unpleasant threads like this getting dredged up for another churning...?!

Leave it people

[fightforjustice]

misspollysdolly these threads may be old and unpleasant BUT THEY ARE EXPOSING THE TRUTH ABOUT SS.

THE TRUTH MAY HURT BUT IT DOESNT HALF HURT AS MUCH AS IT HAPPENING TO YOUR FAMILY.

WHY SHOULD PEOPLE LEAVE IT ?????????????????

IT THAT SO THE SS CAN GET AWAY WITH RIPPING MORE FAMILIES APART FOR NO GOOD REASON APART FROM TO GET THERE ARGET FIGURES AND BONUSES ??????????

[fightforjustice]

www.facebook.com/groups/217565588358675/

[Devora]

fightforjustice, your facts are wrong.

And this will get you nowhere.

Search the site; you will see that here in the adoption corner we are used to people coming on shouting at us about forced adoption. All of us have engaged in far too many threads like this and I think most of us are tired of it. Whatever your reasons for wanting to spread your message, this is truly not the right way to do so.

[EchoBitch]

Oh good grief.

How horrible.