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.

Social workers took newborn baby from mother by obtaining her consent while she was dosed up with morphine
Mother, 26, wanted to keep baby before taking opiate
Social workers violated right to family life, court rules
By RICK DEWSBURY
PUBLISHED: 09:57, 16 August 2012 | UPDATED: 12:29, 16 August 2012
Comments (121)
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Social workers took a newborn baby girl into care within hours of her birth while the mother was still dosed up on morphine.
The mother, 26, had been given the powerful opiate to recover from life-saving surgery after a difficult labour.
Coventry City Council social workers, who hours earlier been told by the mother she wanted to keep the baby girl, then asked her to consent to have the child taken away while she was still under the influence of the drug.

'Violation of right to a family life': A mother gave up her baby for adoption after social workers asked her the question while she was dosed up on morphine, because of a difficult birth (file picture posed by models)
A judge at London's High Court has now ruled that the state officials violated the human right of the mother and baby, which is now seven months old.

Judgement: The High Court in London heard how social workers at Coventry City Council took a newborn baby into care while the mother was dosed up on Morphine
The judge said the council had conceded that social workers should not have sought the mum's agreement when they did and that the baby's removal from the post-natal ward 'was not a proportionate response' to any risk to the child's welfare.
He added that the council - which has started an internal investigation into what happened - accepted that it breached the mother and baby's rights to respect for family life, enshrined in Article 8 of the Human Rights Convention.

Mr Justice Hedley has 'serious doubts' over whether the mother legally capable of giving her consent at the time.
Coventry had agreed to pay damages to the mother, as 'just satisfaction' for the breach of her rights, and she has asked that the undisclosed sum be spent on giving her therapy.
The judge said the mother had endured a harrowing childhood and adolescence which left her not only vulnerable but 'devoid of parenting instinct or intuition'.
She has three other children, who have also been taken into care and placed for adoption. The court heard that she had 'previous unhappy relationships with men'.
She is seeing another man at the minute, which she 'believes promises better things'. However, he is a drug addict.
The judge ruled there was an 'overwhelming' case that the welfare of the baby girl also demanded that she be placed with an adoptive family.
But that social workers need to be more careful when asking parents to have their child removed.
Giving guidance for the future, Mr Justice Hedley said local authorities 'may want to approach with great care' the obtaining of consent from mothers in the aftermath of giving birth, especially where there is no immediate danger to the child.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2189125/Social-workers-took-newborn-baby-mother-obtaining-consent-dosed-morphine.html#ixzz2DeYDDOMn
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IS THIS STORY ALLOWED THEN ??????????????????????

WERE THE SW RIGHT IN DOING THIS ???????????????????????

This is just spam

HAVE YOU ACTUALLY READ IT ???? COPY THE LINK AT THE BOTTOM ITS NOT SPAM ITS REAL VERY REAL

You cannot relinquish a child for adoption voluntarily until the child is 6 weeks old so no, that story is all untrue.

This is complete and utter bollocks.

I've never heard of quite so much happening in the space of a month. And suing a barrister for what they presented to a family court? I would laugh myself sick if I wasn't quite so angry at just how dangerous this sort of misinformation is.

What you are missing is that although there will always be stories in the media where things have not been done properly by SW there is never any balance by reporting stories where support has been given and families have done very well. Trust me there are far more of those than the traumatic media reported stories.

Please stop writing in capitals
I assume from that piss poor piece of journalism that the woman gave consent to accommodation under section 20 of the children act while in hospital and the local authority later applied for a care order. They would have had to have a lot of evidence to get the order and the mother's consent would have been irrelevant.

Do you need a sick bag Kungfupanda?

I really am going now. I am furious with this muck raking which is dangerous and grossly misleading.

WHEN THE BARRISTER LIES IN COURT THEN YES SHE CAN BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE.

BABIE SCAN BE TAKEN FROM THE PARENT WITHIN HOURS OF BIRTH EITHER ON A EPO, PPO OR BY GETTING THE MOTHER (AS UNTILL THE CHILD HAS HAD ITS BIRTH REGISTERED THE FATHER HAS NO LEGAL RIGHTS) TO SIGN A S20 (IE VOLANTRY CARE AGREEMENT. SO YES THE ABOVE CAN BE DONE.

Me too, littlewhitebag. There's just no point even trying.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2124995/Social-worker-45-jailed-years-subjecting-stepchildren-decade-horror.html

'The judge ruled there was an 'overwhelming' case that the welfare of the baby girl also demanded that she be placed with an adoptive family.'

If I understand this cut and paste job, social services should not have asked for her consent to the baby being taken into care when she was under the influence of morphine.

Nevertheless, the baby would have been taken into care regardless of whether the mother was drug free when she was asked. Or even, regardless of when the mother was asked, and/or what her answer was, ultimately, because this judge ruled there was an overwhelming case that she be placed with an adoptive family. Or is that part not true?

Anyone can copy and paste.

I'm off to bed myself, I don't want to start copying and pasting shocking cases of parental neglect and social workers' failure to act. Because that would be unreasoned and unhelpful. I am ashamed of myself for saying this much.

We could take any profession and rake up stories about mispractise. Teachers, doctors, nurses we can all search the daily mail to find stories that scare us. But should we not send our kids to school because a teacher runs away with his pupil? Should we not go to hospital because a tired nurse gave a baby an overdose of medicine?

Did anyone here read the thread in Adoptions from about a month ago where the mother posted claiming that SS had taken her children due to a single binge drinking incident? And then another poster recognised the details from an anonymised report in a family law magazine, and it turned out that the OP had a longstanding issue with alcoholism and DV, but failed to acknowledge either, or indeed her failure to bond with her children (nor the fact that she hadn't taken up opportunities to see them in months and months).

That's why I don't believe SW or the family courts get it wrong 99% of the time.

For some idea of how the courts work, this is a link that was posted (I think by Spero) on another thread:

www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=fo6.

On that website are some of the formal judgements that have been made. I've read quite a number of them, and they are often extremely detailed, and it's quite clear (to me, at least) that judges don't simply rubber-stamp whatever the social workers say.

I am almost beyond words at this post.

the op doesn't seem to want to listen to reason (there has been tonnes on here so wont reiterate it all).

what do you want you tell us

What shall we do shall we sack all the sw teams and the teams that go in to help with parenting,home conditions, budgeting, play etc

Shall we all put our head in the sand and pretend that thousands of children are suffering abuse of some sort on a daily basis. shall we give them no hope that anyone is going to come and rescue them (and i do mean rescue).

or shall we carry on doing our best, being thankful for every single child that has been rescued.

REALLY OP AND CO YOU TELL US WHAT SHOULD WE DO.

are not suffering

YY, Alcibiades, that's the reporting I was referring to - thank you.

Contrary to popular belief, family law decisions are reported - just anonymised, to protect the children.

Social services have been great for both myself and my children. Will come back tomorrow if I can get out of bed and tell you exactly why. They offer help and support, not just child snatchers.

And I have to say that in a number of those cases, it seems to me that some parents, despite all the support given to them, just don't seem to be able to understand the needs of the child, sometimes because they get locked into their own emotional needs. That's understandable to some extent, when a parent feels they're battling against the odds, and that must be emotionally painful. But it is the welfare of the child that's in the balance.

alcibliades - thanks for posting the family law website link. I really worry that most people just don't know that this information is out there - they think that there can never be any reporting ever from family courts. There is in fact an enormous amount of reporting and it is available to anyone who cares to be fully informed.