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.

AngelsWithSilverWings I am not saying that there are not many cases of perfectly legitimate adoption. My question is simple. How do you adequately compensate the parents where it is wrong?

After all, it's a litigious society we now live in.

You have an "issue to grind" and yes I believe you have lost no children because I beleive I know who you are and I suspect most people who frequent these boards know who you are too.

I choose not to engage with you because I've tried before and regretted it.

Look, I don't want to scrap with you - what on earth is the point? There are, I am sure beyond doubt, birth parents who have had children wrongly taken from them and I can only imagine the depth of their anger, pain and grief. There are also birth parents whose children have been rightly taken from them, but who protest they were wrongly taken, and we have no idea whether they are telling the truth or not. And then, finally, there are birth parents whose children were absolutely rightly taken from them and those of us who have adopted those children understandably feel twitchy about how birth parents can use traditional and social media in ways that distress the child and undermine their feelings of security and permanence.

i"m sure we can agree that work and money is needed to make the current system work better for all of us, but particularly for our children.

you have no idea who I am - I am not involved personally and have only joined these boards today.

You are not going to stop social media - I help parents with that (for nothing) where I believe it is right.

No-one has an answer as to how you say sorry to parents wronged it appears - guess a rich tea is as good anything then.

@kewcumber regardless of what links ive posted it doesnt change the fact that SS are too often getting it wrong ,what about supporting families more instead of spending most of their time doing reports and spending time in court taking kids away ? also maybe make the kids homes safer as there are too many abusers working in them and i dont need to google that i know it for a fact

I don't know, wizardpc, what would you propose?

In the arena of medical accidents, the most important distinction is between mistakes/outcomes that are inherently part of an imperfect world and could happen to even the most skilled and caring healthcare professional, and outcomes that are due to negligence, carelessness or malice.

Presumably that distinction is important here too. Some see the system as creaky, underfunded, and staffed by slice of the normal human population ranging from the saintly to the mean and stupid. Others see it as a malevolent system that is institutionally corrupt and staffed by people on a mission to snatch cute babies from innocent loving families. I guess your concept of appropriate compensation would depend on which viewpoint you take.

What about campaigning actively for adequate funding for social services so that they have time both to support families and to deal with legal proceedings when they have to? This is what is so infuriating about JHMP: he has the power to do that and instead chooses to devote his publicly funded time and resources to scaremongering.

Ah, you help parents for nothing. Are you Ian Josephs?

I don't disagree about improving the system, supporting families more, reducing red tape, reducing workloads Paula. I am just pointing out that if the case you want to put forward has merit then such links undermines it.

Devora I was very carefully not saying that.

@devora - do you believe that parents should have a recourse to something?

The main problem is the current system of forced adoption - much more should be done to keep children in a family network - as in Europe. Adoption should be a last resort in a few cases only where appropriate.

I completely agree with putting more resources into supporting families, so that adoption becomes less necessary. I'm prepared to pay higher taxes for it.

But I don't think that children should be kept in bad family situations, or in foster care, for prolonged periods while parents are given chance after chance to get it right. Children don't have the luxury of time. When looking at children's details, before we got matched, I often found myself wondering if intensive intervention and support would have made a difference. I think often it would have. But ten, twenty, even thirty years before the child was born, not a few parenting courses lobbed in after.

As a matter of law, adoption is the last resort.

Whoops, sorry

ha ha, No Im not Ian Josephs. I honestly have nothing to do with MPs, legal systems, MPs or the papers. A lot of the parents know me online and know my real name. I have absolutely nothing to hide. And unlike some on here - I dont get upset when real identities are revealed.

What you have to realise is that the current system is broken - it is making too many mistakes and is removing too many children. Your average man on the clapham omnibus could see that. This pressure has been brought (indirectly) by the work done through social media exposing the system because parents wronged will not lie down - and who can blame them. Do you blame them? How would you feel?

Social media is ripping family courts open because there is nothing as desperate as a parent threatened with the removal of their children - they will post and post and post. No court in the land will stop that. Adopted children wont need birth records and social workers to find their real families - it takes about 15 minutes online. A young lad found his sister same day last week (dont worry he's and adult and has every right to). The groups share photos that go viral in minutes across hundreds of thousands of accounts.

So the system has to be open up and make less mistakes and be very very accountable re people's jobs and with compensation. What other industry isn't?

@devora - totally agree with that

No doubt Italy and Ireland with virtually no domestic adoptions are about to be held up as a shining beacon of child safeguarding and growing up in the bosom of a warm and cuddly family.

So sorry to have mistaken you for IJ. Your posting style is identical. Absolutely identical.

@? Are you who whowasthatguy with a new account? Or yes, are you Mr "don't report child sexual molesters to the police"?

I'm not engaging in any debate which involves people trying to say that adoptive parents are less real, or less important to a child, or anything of the like

Adoption IS the last resort. Sadly, there are more than a few families that are totally incapable of parenting their children. And yes, I agree that where possible children should be kept within the wider family - as you know, this is considered best practice. Sometimes, though, an entire extended family is enmeshed in generations of systemic dysfunction, and this is not possible. It may also be that loving grandparents would not be able or willing to keep their grandchildren apart from their children, or to refuse access to their grandchildren's parents should that be necessary. So it's not always the answer.

I'm interested that you keep pushing for my view on appropriate compensation for birth parents. I'm not sure that my opinion counts for much: I'm an adoptive parent, not a high court judge or a government minister or even a social worker. But I suppose I would assume that people have the right to take court action against someone who has been negligent or malicious. Which is not easy to do, for reasons we all understand.

What do YOU think? (Sorry, Kew.)

Oops x-post

No offence taken. You'd really have to go a long way to offend me, honestly. The system has just got to change. I believe (could be wrong here) that it is only the UK and Portugal that has forced adoptions - we may want to ask ourselves why we are sout of kilter with the rest of modern society

it concerns me that you think the answer is to compensate parents whose children are mistakenly removed with lots of money.

It concerns me that you have decided that very few adoptions need to happen. So apparently 3-4000 adoptions a year are "mistaken".

I'm very "fortunate" that the adoptions I have witnessed would have been approved by any right-minded person with the childrens best interest in mind. Lumping all the many many cases where adoption is truly the safest option for a child with cases which are less clear cut does a massive dis-service to the latter cases.

I did not say thousands per year - I said thousands over the last 24 years or so. I dont think that's unreasonable to believe.

Compensation was an idea. I didn't say it was right.

What do you think should happen?

actually if you ask parents in Italy or Ireland they would be questionning why their countries don't have systems which can waive birth parent consent to an adoption. Its makes for a grim life for thousands of children.

But thats OK because birth parents rights are protected at all costs.