I want my baby back - Panorama

[Hels20]

I hesitate to put this on the board but would be interested in the views of anyone who watches this - it's tonight on BBC 1 at 9pm.

I hope it gives a balanced account. Then there is the Channel 4 programme on Wednesday T 10pm on Finding a Mum and Dad.

I echo Devora

I am sorry for your loss, but that doesn't make it okay to use babies name. It could lead to identification which could cause huge trauma and hurt to her. Photos also are not a good idea and yes I feel terrible for the adoptive parents, because most parents are able to choose whether their children pictures are used in this way, and yet they aren't.

Also, respectfully, you have no idea what the adoptive parents think or why they chose to adopt etc. To presume that they did x because of y isn't a good idea. We dont adopt because we want children with certain eye and hair colour, and I would be almost certain that the colour of eyes your daughter has has absolutely nothing to do with how they feel in the slightest. This isnt about having a possession, it's about being parents. Adoptive parents also get a huge amount of information before agreeing to an adoption, including all the reasons the child is being placed for adoption. Big long reports, and meetings with a lot of people etc. To go ahead and say yes you'd like to adopt this particular child is not a decision taken lightly, or without a huge amount of soul searching and questions.

I was not aware of the rule about giving full names. My instinct is not to do so as it might be seen as advertising or touting. In fact the Newsnight link shows me being interviewed and with my name is given, which is David Jockelson.

I am not giving advice on law or the cases shown. I simply writing about legal aid. Yes it continues for care cases. However it is being heavily cut.

There is also pressure for parents not to be able to have their own independent experts to examine the evidence. New rules forced on the courts say we have to persuade the judge that it is strictly Necessary to have an expert. The courts are starting to rely more on the hospital doctors who first diagnosed / alleged deliberate harm. If an expert is allowed s/he will usually be instructed by all parties together and paid for jointly. Her/his judgment then becomes very hard to challenge.

Fees we can pay the experts are being cut severely and many experts will not work at that rate. They usually have NHS clinical work to do and may well prioritise that.

The government has also forced the courts to push through care cases more quickly - which is often a good thing and avoids delay but can also work against parents. The court budgets have also been cut severely and there are fewer 'judge hours' available so there is great pressure on time.

Nobody is ever sorry for layers! .... but the fact is that rates that solicitor firms can charge has been reduced and will be reduced again to those rates chargeable in 1990s. They are already less than a quarter of what private charging solicitors charge. Who else is working at the same rates as 14 years ago? This is not just a moan - it is forcing many firms to close or stop doing legal aid.

People may have a great desire to sensationalise cases and to simplify or generalise about social workers or doctors or courts. It is very hard to hold onto the fact that it is not possible to generalise; each case is different - what remains the same is that these cases are the most important cases that come before the courts. To get it wrong either way is a hideous tragedy. We need the best possible resources to deal with them in the best possible way. That is under terrible pressure.

One point that is less obvious is that the same government that promises improvements in care cases is not only removing resources but has a clear pro-adoption agenda. Driven by personal and dogmatic views of ministers and civil servants there are many changes underway to speed up adoption which is right in some cases but not in many.

David

Forgive the typo: "layers" for "lawyers".

The perils of Dragon Dictate.

Ironic in the circumstances!

David

Can remember these old days , rickets , TB , Whooping cough , We used too be paid extra for nursing TB patients, has a very long healing prossess for mum's, open air hospitals were the way , Mental health problems were and are an issue, but will get better in time , Have experience of children taken in too care and lately adopted, Same would apply today as there is no understanding of situations as too these historic problems amongst the social and health professional's, showing my age.

There isn't a rule about it, you can of course post anonymously. But in highly sensitive areas like this if you come on to mumsnet purely to put one side of one debate on one issue, and then claim to be a professional, I think it is good manners to state who you are.

And thank you for doing so.

The pro adoption agenda you talk of is aimed at children who have already been released for adoption. Not for children who are not in the care system.

it's the child's real name

Last night's programme only scratched the surface. Many more children are wrongly taken due to the 'risk of emotional future harm' label. What are parents to do. Facebook is littered with these cases (pictures/details) and it's pretty obvious that children being wrongly taken is not 'rare' It may not be commonplace but it's not rare - no doubt there have been thousands of cases where this has occurred.

What do you do when this is proven to be wrong after adoption? Adoption has to adapt and be reversible? How else are parents to get justice. Why can't Jill McCartan get her baby back - she should be able to!!

social workers are complaining that parents on panoramas documentary last night showed photos of their stolen kids yet SS are advertising OUR kids in sick magazines like these all the time ...also what id like to see is a documentary on OUR kid/s that are forcibly adopted for the reason of risk of emotional harm, this is only a probability based on the social workers opinion not an actual FACT

www.bemyparent.org.uk/public-profiles.html

photobucket.com/images/children%20for%20adoption/?page=1

www.adoptivefamiliescircle.com/photos/albums/

researchingreform.net/2014/01/12/finding-mum-and-dad-the-world-of-adoption-investigated-by-channel-4/

Oh not this again

There is no national conspiracy to steal babies for no reason

Those middle two links you gave are American, I can't believe you wouldn't realise that. It has absolutely nothing to do with adoption in the UK at all. If proud American parents sending photos of their child recently adopted from a Russian orphanage has massive relevence to UK adoption today, I'd love to hear why

Funnily enough, I'm of the opinion that none of the children in Be My Parent should be visible to the public and I dislike the public area intensely, but I do very much agree with the concept of a magazine. It should be as private as CWW, should definitely be there. My DD2 was in BMP. She loves her little segment, I have it cut out and framed for her

Privacy should be paramount. It's still an awful idea to plaster a childs image and name on TV. Not a decision which is in any way good for the child.

Jill McCartan had every right to do it - she's been wronged and it's her child

oh yes this again...and regardless of which country, this is happening in many countries,far too many ,there are ample catalogues in the uk like those i posted ,when a child is taken for adoption and the parent/s have not harmed the chil/dren they have every right to show their child/s pictures and they should also be returned to their family just as a child would be if abducted by a stranger ,like it or not the truth is coming out and change will happen and also a government apology will follow

Lilka but Alyssa is also someone else precious child too. Of birth parents who didn't do anything wrong. Yes Alyssa's privacy should be protected but my sympathies are with the birth parents not the adoptive parents.

hear hear - and Alyssa will almost certainly find out the truth and draw the same conclusion (hopefully)

Wizard, soontobe6 and Paula.

What's the answer?

How do we, as a society, go about protecting children from abuse and neglect, while avoiding miscarriages of justice; getting it right 100% of the time?

Answer me that specific question.

It's not about which set of parents you have most sympathy with; it's about what the child needs.

@MrsBW - you cant which is why you make adoptions reversible and pay compensation when you screw up

@devora - not it isn't because the real parents (when they have done nothing wrong) should have an inalienable human right to their child.

yes i have to agree with wizardpc..

But what about the child's inalienable human rights? I know it's really hard, but should the child automatically be taken away from parents she knows and loves and given to two people who are strangers to her?

oh I dont know eh? Lottery amount compensation, that'll do it eh? After all, the parents will get over it, wont they.

Of course you forget, until it's proven that they were wronged all future children they have will be snatched. So you have a joker to play on that compensation because you're now too old for any more kids. Grandparents have now died - shit more compensation!! £10 million per child?

paulataylor - that photobucket link has as many pictures of adopted mice as it does of children and there's no evidence that those (american) children were not voluntarily relinquished as would be common in private adoptions in teh USA. I'm not sure it helps your argument.

If you believe in your claims you don't need to resort to hastily googled random images which make no sense.

On the privacy issue I agree with Devora - its not about who you have most sympathy with, its about the right of the child to not be dragged through the press when they are not old enough to consent to it.

Why would you want to make your child life miserable? I understand its to try to make the adopters life as difficult as possible hoping that their friends and neighbours will recognise the child and give them a hard time over it. But you have to realise that it will make life worse for your child.

Assuming an adopted child will hate their adoptive parents if they discover that their birth mother wanted to keep them is naive. People tend to feel very loyal to the parents that brought them up provided they are good kind caring people, their adoptive parents may well even have had a conversation with them when they are older about the circumstances around their adoption and given them all the information that exists. I wouldn't assume for a second that will mean they hate their adoptive parents.

Not reversing an adoption once granted is I assume back once again to the needs of the child being paramount and that stability is everything. However heartbreaking that is for either set of parents.

My DS's birth mother may well now 7 years later be totally competent to parent him (she may well have been at the time for all I know but she relinquished so it wasn't relevant) but he would be devastated, completely devastated to be removed from me now however fair it was to his birth mother. I would say looking back that this would have been the case once he had bonded to me within say 3 months.

I am sorry for the tragedies people have suffered, truly I am but I think the focus should be on improving the system going forward and continuing the ethos that all the happens should be in the best interests of the child even if that represents a miscarriage of justice to either sets of parents.

oh I dont know eh? Lottery amount compensation, that'll do it eh? After all, the parents will get over it, wont they.

Aha I've come across this overblown rhetoric before when no-one else except (understandably) birth parents are using it, the light has just dawned.

My mistake for trying to engage in an honest conversation.

I have every sympathy for the families involved with the documentary and was in tears and angry and heartbroken for all of them.

But if adoption were reversible I would not have become an adoptive parent. If my two were taken back by their birth parents now the heartache would kill me and my suffering ( and that of my DCs ) would be just as unbearable as it is for the families who have had their children wrongly (in my opinion) taken away.

I know that my two were taken into care for good reason - there is no grey area where my DCs are concerned. Their lives would have been in danger if they had stayed with their birth mothers.

If people are put off adoption because it becomes reversible more and more children will be left in the care system.

I have no issue to grind. I have lost no children.

What should happen to parents whose children are wrongfully taken? A quick cuddle and a rich tea?

Honest question and I think many parents want an answer.