I'm loathe to stop the humour cus I enjoy it so much, but I must take issue with you Spero about your post today 07:48 (approx.) This thread has had many twists and turns and one of them has been the problems with photographing children, showing adopted children (albeit inadvertently) and then putting them on FB where there is the potential for them to be recognised by birthparents, and find out which school they are at by the uniform and as you point out Spero this is a problem, especially when adopted children are teenagers and want to use social media. WereJamming has explained the issue very clearly.
But this is the 2nd time on the thread Spero that you have sought to discredit social workers. I know that you're frustrated about social work assessments and having read the law reform link that you provided where the Judge returned the child to the birth father, I can well understand this, although I was astonished at some of the comments made in the Judgement. I'll PM you about that as I don't think many people will want to debate that issue. It was my intention to do this anyway but since you've chosen to make these adverse comments on this thread, I honestly feel that I have to attempt to defend the social work profession in some small way.
As you know I have been retired from LA social work for 11 years and finished working as an independent social worker in 2009, so I am rusty, but I know that the situation in Children's Services is at an all time low, (as with all public services) and I place the majority of the blame at the feet of this coalition. They have ruthlessly slashed the budgets of all public services (by demanding huge savings, year on year) and then have the temerity to expect, indeed demand improved services. There is a national shortage of experienced social workers and massive problems with recruitment and retention, and this has been the case certainly since 2009. Many LAs have to rely on Agency staff, hence there is no continuity in practice, sickness rates are high as are vacancy rates. But the workload increases and most social workers are carrying excessive caseloads, hence newly qualified social workers (as in the case I referred to above) are taking on complex work in care proceedings when they are simply too inexperienced for such a task, and in some cases, managers are either too overwhelmed with work or incompetent (or both) and are failing to properly coach and supervise newly qualified workers.
I note the Judge in the case I referred to above called SW1 "hapless" and indeed she was, as was the Team Manager and the Child's Guardian, but what of the lawyer for the LA (or the Lawyer to whom the work was out sourced) - are they not to carry some of the blame? As you always point out, social workers can't expect to be lawyers and vice versa, but surely lawyers acting on behalf of the LA in proceedings, should be competent enough to know whether the assessments actually do provide evidence of significant harm or likely significant harm I don't think the Judge made derogatory comments about the lawyer in the case.
You say in your post words to the effect that "social workers continually fail to provide evidence based reports, and this causes resentment and confusion to birth parents. Can I ask what you mean by continually - is that every case with which you are involved, 1 in 3, 1 in 6, - this would give a better idea of the scale of the problem.
Adoption has been mentioned several times and you have commented up thread that you "can't understand why LAs place children for adoption so close to birth parents" and in your post today you call for an "end to placing children for adoption in a bus ride from their birthparents." Again can you say how often in your experience this has occurred, as I can only recall one particular case that this occurred in the LA for whom I worked.
Given that I worked for the same LA for some 25 years I only have experience of how we worked in terms of adoption but I think most LAs will have similar policies and procedures. The County I worked in was very large and there were 7 geographical areas and so we would always place children for adoption out of the area where the bps lived - and this could be anything from 10 - 30 miles from the home of the bps. And yes this was the cheapest option, as no inter-agency adoption fees were incurred. We also formed an Adoption Consortium with neighbouring authorities (again ensuring that children were placed outside of their home area) for obvious reasons. This was the 2nd cheapest option as we agreed on reduced inter-agency fees. SO where is the evidence that LAs do in fact consistently place children in their home area? I'm not being snippy by the way, I really want to know if this is happening, and if so what are the reasons.
Children who couldn't be placed (as described above) would be featured in the BAAF publication "Be My Parent" and "Adoption UK" and I honestly don't know if this is still the practice. You asked Spero why there wasn't a national database of adopters to enable more effective matching. There is - it's called The National Adoption Register and the policy is that any child awaiting adoption for longer than 3 months should be referred to the NAR. You mentioned that a year can go by and still no adoptive home is found, and this is quite true and I'll try to explain the reasons. Most adopters want to adopt a child as young as possible and there is a strong preference for girls. Whilst some babies and children under 5 are placed, the need for most LAs is for older children, sibling groups and children with disabilities. It's sad but true that once a child is 5, his/her chances of being found an adoptive family diminish by the day and this is especially true if they are boys. Most adopters will accept a sibling group of 2 and will take a "middle years" aged sib if there is an under 4 sib and they "come as a pair" so to speak. I'm in danger of generalising here, when that isn't really possible.
The whole issue of adoption matching is fraught with difficulties I'm afraid, because if an approved adopter expresses an interest in a child/ren on the NAR, that is far from a match.........the usual procedure is for the sw or homefinder for the child to have a series of telephone discussions with the adoption social worker of the couple/single person expressing their interest. Very often one or other side pulls out at this stage, so it's back to the drawing board. Let's take a situation where the phone discussions have gone well and both sides are still interested in the match - the next step is for the sw for the child (and the homefinder) to meet with the approved adopters and their adoption social worker. BUT if the child is in Birmingham and the interested adopters are in Carlisle (say) there is a problem......the social worker wonders where she is going to get the time to make this trip (she has a heavy caseload and maybe 3 or more cases in proceedings and children on the At Risk Register etc etc and families she is supporting) OK so the trip is made and if both sides are satisfied, the next stage is introductions - and here is a much bigger problem. If the adopter(s) are childless it may be possible for them to spend a week in Birmingham, visiting the child in the foster home on a daily basis and having discussions with the social workers etc. I don't have any stats on this, but obviously there are successful matches made in this way, but it is also the case that the adopters pull out and then it's back to the drawing board, and several weeks/months/even years can go by without any further interest being shown and the child/ren get older and maybe have to move foster homes several times and become more difficult and there is no chance of an adoptive family.
Blair displayed incredible naivety in his concern about children awaiting adoption and thought that there were people queuing up to adopt 9 year old boys living in foster homes and sometimes children's homes. Sorry not the case. Sad but true.
Phew I must stop.........so what's the answer - this coalition is hell bent on privatising all public services and is well on the way.....and I suspect the Labour party will have a similar agenda. Public service workers, be they doctors, nurses, teachers, social workers, firefighters, police officers, etc are not valued by this coalition - 70% of the Probation Service is already privatised.
Anyway back to social workers, Spero you call for "better education and training for social workers" - there is now a 3 year degree course, but what do we know of the calibre of the lecturers, especially the social work and law lecturers. I trained in the late 70s and our law lecturer used to say he was teaching law for "Noddy and Big Ears" - I hope things have changed but who knows? In any event we don't learn to be effective social workers in colleges, we learn on the job, we make mistakes and if we are fortunate (as I was) we are taken under the wing of competent, experienced workers with professional wisdom to pass on to newly qualified workers. I don't believe this happens any more - I really don't.
I'm sorry this post is so lengthy........and I've probably rambled a fair bit (hope I've refrained from ranting) and it's probably not something people will want to debate on this thread. I might start another thread, and maybe social workers will be able to give their experiences, but I'm not sure they will have much time for MN!
Finally I don't think the adversarial process is the right way to deal with care proceedings - I think Scotland have a different system?