To think that forced adoption is the best thing for many children

[ReallyTired]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31089412

Clearly taking a child into care or complusory adoption should be a last restort. However I don't think that there is a fundermental right to be a parent. There is a fundermental right for a child to have a decent childhood. Parents should not be numerous chances to get parenting right. Baby P is a prime example of a baby who should have been taken into care at birth.

I feel the secrecy of the family courts is an issue. In many cases there are strong reasons why someone should never be allowed to have care of a child. We need a way that there can be an appeals proceedure that puts the right of the child first.

I should add my son is alive but very badly damaged by what he endured with his birth family. Scars mental and physical that will never heal.

How do you know someone has had SS involvement only the parents can tell you that, you proberly do let your children unknowingly be with them/their parents.

It's not just "chavs" who end up with SS at their door a newspaper article last year showed a very normal looking middle class family having involvement

Some families are un fixable. Baby P's sister was raped, yet the children were not taken into care. I feel that Tracey Conelly, the boyfriend and lodger should never be allowed parental responsibility again.

Abusing children should have life long consequences.

Chatty if that question is for me, I know because I know the mother well and have made one of several reports myself. Sometimes it's necessary (although obviously awful).

One of britain's youngest rape victims to testify

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/fury-as-baby-p-stepfather-is-guilty-of-raping-girl-aged-two-1677641.html

I feel that her mother should never be allowed to have children again.

Not Aimed at you so much just saying those with SS involvement don't tend to tell the world.

I've seen where SS have got it wrong by removing a child and also by leaving the child. The system needs change.

Yabvvu sometimes ss make mistakes when removing a child, have read of incidences where babies and children have been removed wrongly, later to be reunited with their parents, when evidence has found they have not harmed a chikd, there was a valid reason for their injuries (illness, accidental injury).

The bbc produced a brilliant programme - Protecting our Children - which dealt with this topic.

It isn't an easy one certainly but it is something of a myth, I feel, that all parents need is 'more support.'

To parent a child, all you need are sexual organs and sadly that does not guarantee maturity or stability. Nor do those sexual organs override a child's right to be safe and cared for.

One of the problems is that the outcomes for children in care are so poor that as a knee jerk reaction the instinct is to keep children out of care, but this largely misses the point. A child ends up in care because he or she has had trouble and turmoil - care isn't the problem but what preceded care was. It is a little like those statistics stating that students who are permanently excluded from school are more likely to go to prison and people conclude permanent exclusion is the issue, not the fact that a person accustomed to defying authority will be more likely to end up in prison anyway.

Larry...I was making the point that it is a slippery slope.

I think it is far more complicated than the common idea that forced adoption would have prevented X and gives all kids happy childhoods.

For starters, it ignores that adopted children and even more so children in care which many of the older children would go long term get abused, go missing, and are murdered. There have been several large international cases from Western countries in the last few months alone. This is on top of the recognized institutional biases across Western countries where children from certain groups are far more likely to be taken into care, often placed outside of their communities, for far less than those from privileged backgrounds. To properly protect all children, the entire system needs going over.

Unless there is appropriate support for the children and whoever is caring for them, these things will happen. And it isn't happening now in the UK with swamped social workers and support for vulnerable families being pushed more and more from councils onto charities with undertrained volunteers (not for the charities lack of trying but its difficult to train volunteers to needed levels).

As a disabled parent who was pushed to get the further support that my children have a legal right to, I found a system that was far more concerned with appearances and not upsetting donators rather than listening to anyone needs. I literally had someone on my doorstep on New Years Eve 2013 telling me off that donators would be upset if they didn't give every child Xmas presents that we'd spent the last month saying we did not want and that NYE was very important family time to us, our kids had plenty while the social help we'd been asking about was repeatedly ignored, Xmas presents and redecorating our rented house was seen as a higher priority that the limits our disabilities cause. We thankfully were able to get out from under that support.

toohasty no I don't think just because someone has a womb and carries a child for 9 months that that gives them "rights" really. I'm a Psychiatric Nurse working in psychotherapy and the emotional damage that is inflicted on children has life long consequences, both as a direct result from emotional abuse and as a consequence of sexual and physical abuse and neglect. With the majority of my patients it's been the parents.

Add message | Report | Message poster MagratsHair Tue 03-Feb-15 12:49:29
It is a controversial practice and one that is facing criticism not just in the UK, but from politicians in Europe where forced adoption is rare.

It would be interesting to see the stats around abuse/neglect/death of children in Europe when the children remain with the parents where the UK would have forcibly adopted them.

I think I was hearing on InsideOut last night that uk children are far far less likely to be killed by a parent than in other European countries without forced adoption. Not sure of exacts.....

There is a fundermental right for a child to have a decent childhood. Parents should not be numerous chances to get parenting right.

I agree.

You only get one childhood and its slipping away with every cock up and slip up, and renegade on that trust...

I totally understand the issues I totally do..I have lived some of it, seen lots of it, being frightened and scared as a child is awful, they need help they have no power.

care isn't the problem but what preceded care was .

I think care in this country is a massive problem and a shambolic shameful mess that we are all responsible for!

Yanbu

And I don't think the circumstances in which the parent does not deserve a second (at best) chance are all that rare, either.

I agree. There's far too much emphasis on the rights of the parents and not enough on the right of a child to be safe and loved.

I know my views might be more than a little controversial, but I also believe that a lot of babies who are removed from their mother at birth should be adopted immediately, and not fostered for the first year of life before being adopted. There are children who are left with lifelong attachment disorder and God knows what other problems because of this policy.

Lots of children are adopted. Mostly this is against the birth parents' wishes. So most adoption is 'forced' but I think that's a hugely unhelpful term.

Adoption is never done lightly, the courts hear a lot of evidence before making that decision and parents are allowed many chances to engage with support and make changes. They must be provided with support, it's the law, but sadly no matter what support you offer it is never enough for a parent to change sufficiently.

Nobody has rights to children, even if we birth them ourselves. We only have responsibilities. Most people who post on threads like this have no idea (thankfully for them) just how awful, miserable and shitty some children's lives can be, and how removal from that life is the only safe and sane option.

Fwiw every child I have known who was removed as a result of DV, the mother was given many chances and masses of support to break away, but she can't, or won't. They are often young mums who are placed in mum and baby placements, do amazingly well inside but go back to the abuser as soon or soon after they are placed in the community. What else do you suggest in that case? They know they will lose their babies but they make that choice. I'm not saying it's always a free choice but the baby must be protected, bottom line, and you can't keep babies languishing in foster care for years while their parents decide whether to sort their shit out.

but sadly sometimes no matter what support you offer it is never enough for a parent to change sufficiently

I live in Ireland and it's practically impossible here to terminate parental rights so there are thousands of children living in foster care who will never return to their birth families but who are also being denied adoption and a forever family. So yes I am in favour of forced adoption, although I dislike that term.
It seems to me, especially here in Ireland and under Irish law that the children's best interests are not the priority. It's often all about keeping the family together however bad that family is.
I could tell you a few stories about how crazy the system is.

I grew up in various foster families til I was 10, and was adopted at 11. 23 year later I have two young boys who are your generic gobshite happy kids in a relatively happy 2.4 family. I have little or no sympathy for parents who refuse to meet the needs of their children. I'll back someone who tries, just as society ought to. But the people who put their own needs before the children's, the ones who subject them to emotional, physical or sexual abuse, those parents deserve no support and no rights.

I've met a fair few damaged adults during my lifetime who claim that their childhood was deficient or abusive in some way, so their problems and flaws aren't their own fault. And that's where I draw my line; as an adult and a parent you have a choice. If you deliberately choose the wrong thing, why on earth should your child be subjected to the negative repercussions?

JumpRope, the reason why so-called forced adoption is less common in other countries tends to be because they go for the option of putting children into children's homes and foster care instead. What do you think is better for a child, being moved from foster carer to foster carer, or being adopted as a permanent member of a family?

I am certainly not remotely responsible for the state care in this country is in, Jimmy.

However, many foster families give up time, money, love and dedication to many children. I agree many residential homes for children are a shambolic mess but largely these tend to be children who are unsuitable for longer term fostering and as such problems go with them.

That does not negate some of the points you raise however.

shesparkles I thought the reason babies are adopted from birth was because of how long it takes to ensure the adoptive placement is the right one.

Three to six months is the optimum age for attachment to develop in a baby. But a birth parent is not necessary for this. Babies just need a consistent, primary carer and that person can be a foster carer as well as an adoptive parent.

are not* adopted from birth