To wonder about all the press on Social Services taking children away?

[goldbracelet]

From good families and parents for no good reason. It is media hype or is there truth in it?

Talking with friends recently, some say they are careful about what they say to the GP for fear of what goes down on record. For example, they would think twice before saying something along the lines of, "I'm finding it hard to cope with my young children while sick with flu (or whatever illness)".

Amy social workers out there who could comment? Is it true that 95% of children are never returned to their parents once removed?

Scary. I can't believe this could happen.

Yes to the OP SS do get it wrong and these cases are true. My sisters children have all got care orders on them because in a closed court 1 out of 3 bite experts decided that my sisters teeth had caused a bite mark that nursery had spotted on one of her childrens cheeks. That was all it took. Her baby was taken of her a week old last weekend because the judge in the closed court would not let her barrister get a word in edgeways and just excepted the SS side. My sister won't admit to biting her child so SS are refusing to let her have any of her children back. The expert that decided my sister had bitten her child is now in prison for submitting false evidence in another case. My sisters case has cost the SS's council around a million pounds. That is all the detail I can tell you now but yes the SS do screw up.

i am not scaremongering i am telling the case regarding my grandson. if i could i would put up the statements from all parties on here for all to read but since the family courts is a closed court i am legally not allowed to copy the statements and post them for the public to read as i will be in trouble with the law.

Yes

he has been making false report for the ss for years. professer jane ireland did a report on the so called experts the ss used and named alot that were unfit to do the jobs they were doing in regards to the reports for ss dr hibbert was one of the people she named

Don't think names are allowed on the forum message me if you'd like?

i have done wasuup3000

people should read this .............

Around 20 per cent of psychologists acting as expert witnesses for the family courts are not qualified, according to a Channel 4 News investigation broadcast tonight, writes producer Phil Carter.

The findings are based on research published on Wednesday for the Family Justice Council (FJC). It was led by Professor Jane Ireland, a forensic psychologist at the University of Central Lancashire.

Prof Ireland and her team were given unprecedented access to psychologists' expert witness reports from three undisclosed courts across England by the FJC, an arm's length body of the Ministry of Justice.

Experts play a critical role in family court cases: research suggests that at least one expert is used in 90 per cent of public law children's proceedings and many cases involve three or more experts.

I think the results from the research are enough to suggest that we do need an urgent review across the range of expert witnesses that the courts are employing.
Prof Jane Ireland, University of Central Lancashire
The majority of these experts are psychiatrists and psychologists, employed to provide expert opinion on a range of matters in these cases, typically including questions as to whether parents have the ability to care for their children, display personality disorders or other psychological issues and whether any such diagnoses are treatable within a timescale suitable for the children involved.

Channel 4 News spoke to families across the country involved in court proceedings and heard time and again concerns about the experts used by the courts to determine whether children are at risk and should be removed from their birth parents.

Secrecy

But because of the secrecy of the family courts - designed to protect the identity of the children at the heart of proceedings - the experts used have largely been beyond scrutiny.

This research is the first time these concerns have been to some degree independently substantiated. The research found serious concerns across a range of issues beyond the startling finding that around a fifth of so-called psychologist expert witnesses are not qualified.

The assessments of the expert reports found that some 20 per cent of the psychologists were working beyond their area of knowledge; around a third had no experience of mental health assessments; and some 90 per cent of experts were not in current practice.

The net result was that the research concluded that around 65 per cent of expert reports in the study were of either 'poor' or 'very poor' quality.

Professor Ireland told Channel 4 News: "I think we were very concerned and perturbed by some of the reports that we read, not just in terms of qualification but also the quality of the reports that we read ..."

'Draconian'

Nigel Priestley, a lawyer closely involved in family proceedings, told Channel 4 News of the gravity of the research's findings. "After the death penalty the most draconian act that the state can do is remove a family's child," he said. "What is at stake for many carers is the loss of their children and on the basis of a report which might or indeed might not be questionable."

After the death penalty the most draconian act that the state can do is remove a family's child.
Nigel Priestly, lawyer
He regularly deals with cases where parents feel the expert evidence is flawed. But it is the scale of the problem revealed by the new research which has surprised him.

He said: "If the statistics are that 20 per cent are unqualified that is not just a mess, that is staggering, wrong ... this is not just about making money, this is about removing children very often or, more importantly, protecting children ..."

Disturbing

One of the more surprising findings of the research was that some psychologists were recorded as assessing parents without ever meeting or seeing them.

Prof Ireland told Channel 4 News: "You should never be in a position where you diagnose somebody, or make judgements on them, if you haven't seen them. It goes completely against code of conduct and ethics and it is impossible. You can?t do a paper assessment on a human being, you have to meet that person, understand their interactions, build a rapport and then take your judgement on the basis of that."

But Channel 4 News has learnt that this is not just a problem confined to psychologists. One mother who spoke on condition of anonymity recently left England after a private law family court case over custody of her children.

This case involved some eight expert witnesses. One, a psychiatrist, provided the court with an assessment of a potential change of residence for the children without meeting the mother or the children. The mother described the family court system and the repeated use of experts as barbaric.

The day after the psychiatrist completed the report on the mother he was suspended by the GMC for a separate offence. Yet, despite the concerns over assessing people without ever actually seeing them, it seems that courts are willing to accept such reports.

The research is the first of its kind and clearly has limitations, which the report itself acknowledges. The sample size was relatively small at 126 reports and the methodology to objectively quantify quality is likely to need further refinement.

Concern

But the range and scale of the problems identified suggest that this is unlikely to be explained solely by methodological shortcomings.

Intriguingly, the research also suggests that the problems may extend well beyond psychologists. Indeed, in the course of the investigation, Channel 4 News uncovered serious areas of concern with both psychiatrists and paediatricians as well as play therapists and others providing expert services to the family courts.

"I think the results from the research are enough to suggest that we do need an urgent review across the range of expert witnesses that the courts are employing," said Professor Ireland.

No onw will listen unless it happens to them Mysecret.

A long overdue scandal hit the headlines last week when a semi-official report exposed one of the murkiest corners of our child protection system ? the way that supposed professional ?experts? help social workers to remove children from their parents.

A study by Professor Jane Ireland, a forensic psychologist, for the Family Justice Council examined 126 psychological reports trawled at random from family court documents. It found that two thirds of them were ?poor? or ?very poor? in quality; that 20 per cent of their authors had no proper qualifications; and that no fewer than 90 per cent of the authors were not practising psychologists but appeared to earn their livings, wholly or partly, from writing reports for social workers. Already one psychologist, whose company has made nearly half a million pounds a year from such reports, is under investigation by the General Medical Council.

The picture Prof Ireland conveys is one with which I am only too familiar. I have seen how families can be torn apart largely on the basis of highly dubious psychological evidence designed, as John Hemming MP puts it, to ?suit the demands of local authorities?. One mother lost her children, for instance, on the basis of a 235-page report, costing £14,000, which found that she was ?likely to have a borderline personality disorder? ? without the author ever having met her.

Another woman was found by a psychologist to be ?a competent mother? ? so the social workers went to a second witness, who found the same. They then commissioned a third, who at last came up with what they wanted: that the mother had, again, ?a borderline personality disorder?. On that basis, her three children were sent for adoption.

A married couple lost their daughter because the father, who had had four ?psychological assessments?, saw no reason to submit himself to a fifth. The Court of Appeal found that he seemed to be putting his ?emotional needs before those of his child?, and ordered that the child be adopted.

Damning as Prof Ireland?s report is, her remit was only to look at psychological assessments. An equally disturbing picture might emerge from examining other groups of medical ?experts? who earn thousands of pounds from evidence which parents may not be allowed to challenge or even read.

One contentious area, for instance, is where parents are accused of having injured infants who are found to have small fractures to their bones. A fashionable theory, pioneered by a Dr Kleinman in the US, holds that such fractures are a sure indicator of ?non-accidental injury?, ie the child must have been abused. In one case (which I was able to report last year because the judge, unusually, published his judgment) it was clear that all the four medical witnesses had supported this ?Kleinman theory?, unquestioningly accepted by the judge.

But other experts strongly disagree, citing studies which suggest that such fractures may quite often arise naturally from a deficiency of vitamin D (as tests had shown was the case with this particular mother). When I showed the judgment to a doctor expert in this field, he immediately recognised three of the witnesses as doctors who ?go round from one court to another to support the Kleinman theory?. Since no one was in court to challenge them, the heartbroken mother ? like many before her ? lost her son.

Several scandals have hit the headlines in recent years involving doctors struck off after making a reputation as witnesses, pushing some theory about ?brittle bones?, ?shaken baby syndrome? or ?Munchausen syndrome by proxy? which was eventually exposed as fallacious. But these causes célèbres have centred on criminal courts, where evidence can be put more rigorously to the test than is required by the much laxer procedures of family courts. As I have observed before, once a court system is allowed to hide itself away behind a wall of secrecy, the chances are high that it will become corrupted. A perfect example is the role played in our family courts by many of these professional ?experts?. The good work Prof Ireland has begun cannot be allowed to stop there

thats soo true. they will only listen when they are in that situation. which is a shame cause they can help the families wrongly torn apart by the ss.

who do get bonuses if they hit their yearly adoption rates.

watsuup3000 private message me i have sent you one but not sure if you got it

My sister kids have too many relatives ready to step in so they are not at risk for adoption, although an orphan herself, something SS maybe didn't figure on.

Doctor 'distorted diagnoses for local authorities'
A consultant psychiatrist is being investigated over claims that he distorted his assessment of patients to suit the demands of local authorities, it was reported last night.

Dr George Hibbert faces being struck off after he allegedly misdiagnosed parents as suffering from personality disorders, it is alleged. In one case, he is claimed to have concluded that a new mother, named only as Miss A, had bipolar disorder because the local social services department wanted her child to be adopted, according to the Daily Mail.

Lawyers acting on behalf of Miss A confirmed that they had been instructed to begin proceedings against Dr Hibbert and the local authority.
Paul Grant, of Bernard Chill & Axtell Solicitors, who represents Miss A, said: "We believe this distressing case may be the tip of a very big iceberg."
John Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, who has raised concerns about Dr Hibbert in Parliament, said he had spoken to "three or four" other families who had had a similar experience. He has written to Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, demanding a full parliamentary inquiry. Referring to Dr Hibbert, Miss A said: "Nothing will ever make up for what he has done to me and my child."

Mr Hemming told Parliament: "He [Dr Hibbert] is someone about whom a number of people have complained. I am told that at least one person has refused to work for him because of what she saw as his unethical provision of reports to suit the demands of local authorities."

He added that experts such as Dr Hibbert, 59, were often little more than "the hired gun of the local authority".

Dr Hibbert charged local authorities £6,000 a week for every family in his care and £210 an hour to read documents such as medical records. His company, Assessment in Care, made a profit of around £460,000 in 2007 from its arrangement with social services.

In a letter to Miss A, a GMC investigations officer said that Dr Hibbert "has now applied for voluntary erasure from the medical register". "He has no intention of returning to clinical practice in the future," the letter added.
A spokesman for the Medical Protection Society, the indemnity organisation for doctors, said professional confidentiality meant that Dr Hibbert was unable to comment on the allegations.

Hope the closed courts are opened up soon, it will widen peoples eyes a little.

thats what alot of people are working on hun even MP John Hemming. he also is backing some people in their fight against ss to win their children back.

I know we have one of JH's people helping my sister.

glad to here it hun

sigh back ErikSnoreman *

So if a doctor is distorting his assessments of patients, mysecretworld, how does that qualify for entry on a thread about evil social workers? Shouldn't that be on a thread about evil doctors? Aren't social workers like the rest of us, forced to rely on the expertise of doctors because we haven't got medical qualifications ourselves?

Making it about social workers rather than doctors seems to me a typical example of going for the softer targets as mentioned by WHistlingwaves.

And no, I am not a SW and don't have any in my family (we do have some doctors though).

My worry is that the experts see their job as backing up whatever social services say, and giving it a medical gloss.

Most of the time, SS can see at a glance that a child is being abused, but because the courts need evidence, they get the expert witnesses to prove their case. On the very rare occasions when SS are mistaken about abuse or neglect the experts will tend to agree with them.

Has there ever been a "controlled test" of these experts, where they are given the details of any old average parent and children, told that there are "some concerns" and asked to pronounce on them? I would hope that the report would come back stating that they can't see any problems.

the experts in my earlier post were payed for there false reports by ss and the said doctor did the reports to match the reports the ss was using against the parents. the ss used the said experts because they would do false reports for them so they worked together in the fight to get the children put on an adoption order. they worked together the ss and the said experts against the parents of hundreds of children.

if your actually read jane irelands report you will see that even she says as a professional herself that the said experts do false reports and are unqualified in there said expert catagory .

jane ireland has looked into many many cases for her findings with regards to the said report.

In my limited experience it has been as BackforGood says, children have been kept with parents who were extremely damaging.

It costs far more to take a child into care than to support a family to cope.