Leiland James - birth mother's perspective

[WinstonOreo]

I've just read this ArticleArticle and what a tragedy for everyone involved. Many children are removed from households because of domestic violence for good reasons though it makes you wonder about the help that the victim of dv has been given considering what we know about the help we get from our LAs.

Having read the article, the fact that the DV service were were supporting the mother , and the "social" worker had the sensitivity of a emotionally challenged hyena to draft a eulogy and try and to force the grieving mother to read out , after they'd forcibly snatched the son and placed him with a murderous piece of shit, "I'm sorry I wasn't able to be the parent you needed" ; makes me doubt their humanity or ability to make any sort of decision or assessment frankly. The behaviour over the funeral was disgusting.

If you were to read your child’s birth mothers account of what happened to their child and the circumstances they were removed under, I suspect you’d have deep sympathy for the mother and question your child’s removal. In my case there are four children, two of whom were adopted by me, who all live with significant additional support needs as a direct result of her care of them. Two won’t be able to live independently due to the neurological damage following trauma and drug and alcohol use.

She would describe herself as someone who loved her children but social work didn’t give her a chance or offer her support, despite over a decade of support being in place.

I feel for this mum, it is absolutely heartbreaking and I have no doubt the safeguarding review will be very illuminating in terms of the practice by all services involved. I know though that the truth will sit somewhere between the mums account and the professionals account.

Parents should absolutely know what the plans are for their children - it’s not unusual to need to talk through those plans repeatedly because of the parents cognitive capacity, trauma, shock or subconscious denial of the situation they find themselves in. Workers across all agencies need to be clear about repeatedly communicating plans and ensuring understanding and following that in writing.

It remains incredibly difficult to remove a child into care and to secure an agreement to permanence planning in court, and birth parents are part of that process through law. The court couldn’t make a decision on that without the birth parents involvement and their legal representation.

It may be hard to believe but social workers are people too, and they too are profoundly impacted by the death of a child on their watch - it’s literally life and career changing. I can’t comment on what happened in this case re the funeral, but I’ve been involved in cases where the family just weren’t able to make arrangements for their child, to know where to begin writing a eulogy or how to move forward. It’s not an every day situation for anyone, thank goodness, and it’s very easy to get it wrong despite coming with the best of intentions.

This poor woman has had a terrible life by any measure, with at least one extremely violent relationship and significant mental health issues, three children removed and one murdered child. I suspect things have always been difficult for her and she deserves compassion and sympathy. Had her older children been injured by her violent partner, I doubt anyone here would be anything but damning of her and her “choice” to put her abusive partner ahead of her children.

These situations are complex, the human relationships involved are complex and child protection professionals need to constantly work with that complexity. It’s easy to assume professionals just don’t give a damn, and that a grieving mother was a perfectly safe, good enough parent. The truth is usually much more nuanced than that.

@Jellycatspyjamas , given the BBC have seen a copy of the draft "eulogy" SS suggested; do you think it was appropriate to suggest the mother read out "sorry I couldn't be the mother you needed" or appropriate to push for a cremation when the mother wanted a burial ?

Does the fact that the professional DV workers involved in the case are prepared to openly say to the BBC how disgusting SS behaved not suggest to you this is not just the birth mother kicking off for no reason ?

I am struggling to see what nuance could explain SS's behaviour over the funeral.

Clearly SS got it wrong in assessing Laura castle as fit to be anywhere near a child ( or a hamster frankly), so why would it be that surprising the same department got it very wrong in their assessment and treatment of the birth mother as well ?

Whilst she may have been receiving support from domestic violence services we do not know whether this was the only reason her child was placed for adoption and in all likelihood it was not the only reason, we also do not know whether she was still in a cycle of abuse and attempting to get out of that cycle- I notice the father is not mentioned in this at all. Unfortunately she may not have been able to be the parent her child needed.

I also do feel that the thresholds for help are currently so high due to more and more funding cuts that by the time you can access help the situation is often very bad for the children involved.

I do believe the funeral should have had the mums input and the child should have been buried if that is what the mother wished and I do wonder whether cremation was pushed for as it was cheaper. I also don’t think that a social worker was best placed to write the eulogy and the mum should have been offered support via the funeral director or a counsellor or specialist grief counsellor to write this if she felt able to. It definitely should not have been written for her and definitely not in the way it was.

I hope that the serious case review that comes of this provides new insights and helps to prevent this from happening again and that the social worker who wrote the eulogy will be given appropriate training for these kinds of awful situations.

my heart does go out to her, and I hope she is given the support that she needs to process this and counselling- and yes this should be funded by the local authority.

It's a devastating case. I think many removal of children from birth families could be avoided if only society would invest in social work, and support services. My children would not have needed adoption if birth parents had had better input themselves earlier, and more support. But babies can't wait for parents to get things together with the time that current support takes. The system is broken, but adopters, nor social workers, nor birth parents, are to blame for that. Laura Castle is to blame for a baby's murder. Everyone is to blame for society's priorities.

I also think the funeral should have had all decisions made by Laura Corkhill. And it should have been fully funded by taxpayers via the LA. Honestly, it's the least we could do for the poor woman.