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.

The worst thing about these threads is that there may be people reading them who believe every word said about the evil child snatching social services and who don't seek help ( either for their children or for themselves) because they are worried bait the consequences. When in fact, in the vast majority of cases, there will be no further referral or investigation of the mother who says that she's finding it hard work at home, or the child who is always falling over and bruising themselves.

And I think it is almost wicked to scare parents who need help away from seeking that because of a myth that social services are looking out for children to take to put for adoption.

but when the la meet there adoption targets they get a big fat cash bonus which helps them take more children.

mysecretworld - I would have thought you would have some good things to say about the court system. It is only a month ago that you posted a long thread about having a court hearing coming up in relation to your grandchild, and your solicitor planning to demand that the court handed him back.

So presumably the court did exactly what your solicitor wanted them to do? Although you mention having several court hearings. Presumably those weren't all in the space of a month? Had you been at earlier court hearings that you didn't mention on your previous thread?

Your posts could be extremely frightening for anyone going through this process and putting their trust in the court system, so you really should be clear about what happened. Particularly when making claims about things like the contact centre and being the only family to have your child returned to you. I remember from your other thread that you were having extremelly limited contact (once a week I think?) so how could you possibly know such private information about every other family in there every other day of the week?

These mistakes or myths as some of you sat in your comfort zones would like to think are carried out in closed courts which therein lies the problem, not evil SW's or corrupt Dr's.

mysecretworld - the targets for adoption were introduced in relation to children already in care, so that they didn't languish in the system without any clear plan. Not as a financial incentive to snatch children from perfectly good homes.

In any case, have you any idea how much the care proceedings from initially considering a plan for a child through to final adoption actually costs a local authority? Far, far more than any additional payment received by LAs. The economic argument just doesn't stack up

Believe me, I'm not sat in any "comfort zone"

in some caes there are court hearing that go on for days and also sometimes you got to court on the monday and then again on the friday.

i have copied something that i think you all should read.

Record numbers of young children are being removed from their parents and adopted unjustly because of government targets and the "secrecy" of the family courts, according to the BBC.
Campaigners told BBC Radio 4's Face The Facts programme that there are now more than 100 cases of possible miscarriages of justice where children have been forcibly adopted.

The programme claims the number of parents in England who have lost their children despite insufficient evidence they were causing them harm has now hit record levels. It says 1,300 babies under a month old are now being adopted every year, compared with 500 when the present Government came into power.

Social workers also told the programme that they were being put under pressure to meet the Government adoption targets set in 2000. And parents are not being given a proper chance to challenge adoptions because of the time limit on appeals and the secrecy within the family courts, according to lawyers.

Family law solicitor Sarah Harman said: "Secrecy breeds bad practice, it breeds suspicion. It feeds parents' sense of injustice when they have their children removed that they're not able to talk about it. They're not able to air their grievances. Children have been removed from their families unjustly. There's no two ways about that."

A social work manager with 25 years' experience in child protection said parents had little chance of getting a hearing and overthrowing a decision made by the authorities. The manager told the BBC: "People will find that their children have been removed and freed for adoption without them having had a proper chance to defend themselves and their families and their children."
MPs have also spoken out against the unfair adoption system and are currently campaigning for a public inquiry. John Hemming, Lib Dem MP for Birmingham Yardley, who is also chairman of the Justice for Families group, said: "We're seeing perhaps three to four new cases being referred to us every day."

The programme hears from one mother who claims she was actually giving birth when the authorities arrived to remove her baby, and a father who had his two sons unjustly adopted. He later received a written apology from the local authority but because his children had already been adopted, he will never get them back.

The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) denied there was a target relating to taking children from their birth parents in order to meet overall adoption targets.

A spokesman said Government policy had always been that children should live with their parents wherever possible and given extra support to stay together if necessary. He said there had been a national target to increase the number of "looked after children" adopted and place children for adoption more quickly

Read more: www.metro.co.uk/news/63176-targets-claim-over-forced-adoptions#ixzz2DeGFEJaN

Good for you famillies

So you only had one court hearing? And the court returned your grandson to his mother?

Sounds like the court is doing its job then.

i tell you what you should all stand outside a family court and watch all the parents who walk through the court doors fighting for there children and then watch as they come out in tears cause they have lost their children . you would be suprised at how many loss their children everyday in one single court.

Budgetwise this just keeps going up as SS bosses have to have a reason for spending so much money so cases can get more and more complex.

no i had 8 total visits to court but it was a hard fight due to all the lies ss put in their reports. i was very lucky hundreds are not so lucky.

i had to sit in court from 9am in the morning sometimes till 4pm all the while the ss went on about the lies in their reports.

i wouldnt wish that on anyone

You are scaremongering. The family court system (and yes, I have worked in it) bears no resemblance to what you are describing, even on a practical level, in relation to how many serious, final hearings take place in a day.

We have been calling ss for the last 2 months to report incidents regard dh's ex and my dsc. The younger dsc live with their mother but regularly come to us dirty and smelly and have obvious signs of living in bad conditions. They have also been ill but not taken to the gp. There have been other things but don't want to say too much on here. Dh's ex has been known to ss in the past for her house being 'dangerous' to live in but for some reason it has taken 2 months and phonecalls about 7 different signs of her neglect for ss to 'consider' doing a home visit, and that is only because the dsc school has also reported their concerns.

In our experience, it takes a hell of a lot for them to even get involved.

in one court building there can be over 25 individual court rooms which each have a judge also there is normally at least 8 floors in each building so you can work out from that how many cases can be seen per day.

i tell you what you should all stand outside a family court and watch all the parents who walk through the court doors fighting for there children and then watch as they come out in tears cause they have lost their children

I would rather see that than see children living with neglect and abuse.

i tell you what you should all stand outside a family court and watch all the parents who walk through the court doors fighting for there children and then watch as they come out in tears cause they have lost their children . you would be suprised at how many loss their children everyday in one single court.

Neglectful, abusive and unfit parents still cry when their child becomes looked after. You'd be suprised at how many children are damaged beyond repair as a result of SS not acting quickly enough.

wasuup, no, it's not "good for me", actually. I wish desperately that all children could be brought up by their birth family, but unfortunately that isn't always possible. I don't disagree at all that the current family courts system could benefit from being subject to greater scrutiny, or that mistakes are made.

But, as I said before, it is wicked to put out scaremongering stories that might prevent parents getting the help that they need for them or their family for fear that their children will be snatched away. And I am not saying that from within a "comfort zone", I'm saying that as someone who has seen the good, bad and ugly of SS within the experience of family and good friends.

Stop scaremongering! I've seen people on here who are afraid to seek help from a disabilities team because they are afraid of their child being taken away. So, they suffer in silence. You're not sharing your story, you are posting biased articles to prove your point. Can't you see? No one here is defending poor practice and crap SWers. Not even those of us in (or entering) the profession ourselves.

they cant find families to adopt damaged children most stay in long term foster care, but with newborns or children under 5 who are not damaged they can find parents pretty quick. thats why they go for them so they can meet there targets.

a friend of my daughters was in care herself and was abussed by her foster carer he was jailed for the abuse but 2 years later when she had a child the child was taken aged 2 weeks and ended up being adopted. the reasons being her being sexually abused in the past and being emotionaly unstable due to her abuse.

she is suing her la for placing her with the said foster carer and she has been told she can sue them with regards to them removing her child and usingtheh said abuse against her in order to have her child adopted.

there was a case not long ago about a young girl aged 18 who had her child taken and adopted by the la in her area and within 24 hours of the final hearing to which the judge granted the adoption order the girl threw herself off a bridge leaving a note saying that she could not live without her child.

yes this is a sad case but it happens when the parents have done nothing wrong and then they are gagged from saying anything about what happened due to the child being placed for adoption.

Mysecretworld how do you know the woman had done nothing wrong?

mysecretworld, the problem with the examples you keep giving is that none of us know all the facts behind the cases to understand why the decision was made to remove / place for adoption.

No-one is denying that removing a child from a parent is traumatic and upsetting for all parties. But grief, sadness, pain... Just because a parent feels these when a child is removed doesn't necessarily mean that the child is best off staying with them

which woman are you talking about the family friend or the girl who killed herself

Oh lordy.