AIBU to be horrified by the Stolen Children of England

[LivingOnTheDancefloor]

I just watched a French documentary called "England's stolen children" and can't believe this is happening in England. Horrifying, scary, unbelievable, it is like a horror movie...

Basically, social services are taking babies from their parents based on suspicion that abuse might happen in the future, except that the decision is made based on ridiculous things.
A lady had her three children taken from her, including a breastfed baby because she went to the ER for a child's broken ankle and they judged that he must have been beaten by his parents (only based on the ankle). X years later the parents manage to prove the fracture was due to scorbut. And they found out the initial report from the ER says "no sign of fracture".
The judge admitted they shouldn't have taken the children and the parents were innocents. But the children were given to adoption so the parents will never see them again.
That is just one of the stories.
Some women are told while pregnant that their newborn will be taken as soon as he arrives (and thzney do it).
The documentary says it is due to the facts that counties have to reach a number of children given to adoption so they target poor/uneducated parents and find any reason to take their children.
And as fostering costs money to the state they prefer adoption.

AIBU to ask if you heard about it here in the UK? And if yes, what do you think? Could it be true or are they exagerating?

I am really shaken.

www.google.fr/amp/s/researchingreform.net/2016/11/14/englands-stolen-children-controversial-new-documentary-on-forced-adoption/amp/?client=safari

Sorry, no idea how to post links, and I am on my phone

Rhiwrites, why don't you take it up with Spero? He said it.

Thats quite rude haystack.

That's off the scale rude and patronising haystack

Which one Leanback?

As an aside, why do people bother prefacing epic twattery with 'with respect'?

Which one!?

I thought Spero is a(n awesome) woman?

Do you assume all lawyers are men?

Without doubt those in the system support it and those outside are more sceptical which is not surprising. Those within the system though do realise sometimes mistakes are paid but probably not as much as they should. That is why we need lots of checks and balances and as parents to try to keep away from authority, social workers, police as much as possible as sometimes miscarriages of justice occur or someone just takes a different view on what someone else thinks is fine.

as parents to try to keep away from authority, social workers, police as much as possible

Well, that a red flag I'd I ever saw one

It doesn't happen.

People need to understand that saying this to a worried person may increase rather than decrease anxiety.

What they will take from it is not that "it doesn't happen", but that if "it" does, they will not be believed, and that any facts they present won't even be looked at, because the listener already "knows" no possible set of facts can prove an impossible thing has happened.

For me, Spero's recent post saying things could go wrong calmed anxiety, and her earlier posts where it seemed she believed the opposite provoked anxiety.

There's nothing wrong with saying the probability of "it" happening is as small as you like, but when you round that down to zero it triggers a sudden shit in interpretation in the mind of the listener, from "it's extremely unlikely to happen" to "if it does, no-one will believe/help me."

theoretically MN could just delete all the comments here if some conspiracy was started against you

What? I have never been more baffled. Don't even know what the deleted post said.

As for telling me I'm not 'making the point that I think I am' and obnoxious comments about AS...are you usually so awful or just on the internet?!

Strange. Very strange.

I think what spero's contradiction highlights is what we all know already - her/his knowledge about the frequency of these occurrences is anecdotal and subjective - she/he is over reaching in trying to pretend otherwise. Even a decade in the field doesn't give an overview of this issue in all parts of the country.

Yeah you're quoting out of context. Which is a bit silly given that we can all read.

She said 'I can't possibly deny that these things happen - sadly they do, the evidence is all around us. But I do think they are NOT commonplace' and she's been arguing that through the whole thread - along with pointing out that the checks and balances built into the system make it extremely unlikely that these kinds of mistakes and abuses will triumph over common sense.

I personally think the bar is set way too high. Parents are allowed to fuck their kids up a whole lot without those children having much protection at all if it doesn't meet this extremely high standard of abuse. I think that's wrong. But I can also see how our system works to protect the very most vulnerable far better than most.

Sorry if I haven't been clear and have confused or made people more anxious.

I will try and be clear now.

I have been doing this job for 17 years and have thus had direct exposure to many thousands of cases. It is my firm belief that deliberate corruption, lies and coverups are rare - or I would have seen more of them. I have seen very few examples of such corruption.

I have however seen very many examples of incompetence or professionals overwhelmed by stress, huge case loads. I have seen professionals be insensitive to parents, I have seen parents be aggressive to professionals. I think that the system is not fit for purpose and when it doesn't work well it can be an incredibly traumatic experience for everyone in it.

Evidence of such failure and lack of competence IS 'all around us'. Every week, sadly there seems to be a reported cases of yet another ABE interview that was cocked up or a report that wasn't done or a parent that tried to stop another parent seeing a child.

I agree that sometimes complaints against those in authority are not dealt with well. I agree that something is wrong if people are left feeling so hurt and wounded a decade after the initial problem.

What I emphatically reject is that the 'problem' in the system is deliberate, systemic corruption and that SW are driven by targets/bonuses etc. But I do accept the system is not fit for purpose and have organised two multi disciplinary conferences to discuss this in 2015 and 2016.

Perhaps some of you would like to join me in June 2017 at UWE to discuss this further? I will post details of how to get tickets if anyone is interested.

www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/is-the-child-protection-system-fit-for-purpose#.WEgT3jKcY6g

Yes, I am a woman or I was last time I looked.

Manumission, didn't realise mentioning someone's aspergers was epic twattery, patronising and shouldn't be prefaced "with respect". Grow up and stop trying to cause trouble.

Adala, I'm sorry if I offended or upset you. I genuinly didn't intend to.

I think what spero's contradiction highlights is what we all know already - her/his knowledge about the frequency of these occurrences is anecdotal and subjective - she/he is over reaching in trying to pretend otherwise. Even a decade in the field doesn't give an overview of this issue in all parts of the country

And I utterly reject that rather poisonous little comment. I have made serious and sustained efforts to gather information from parents and other professionals in this field from all over the country and over the past two years. I suspect I have a better overview now of the whole system than many others.

I don't 'overreach' and I don't 'pretend'.

Debate with me by all means but don't put words in my mouth. We can all actually read what I posted. You make yourself look foolish.

And if you can't be bothered to click links - and who can blame you - these are the conclusions we reached in 2015:

A common theme ran through the discussions; that we have been drifting ever further away from the guiding principles of the Children Act 1989. Current policies and practice have emerged that cause trauma to families without actually helping children or keeping them safe. Of particular concern was that the approach of ‘muscular authoritarianism’ towards struggling families, coupled with the climate of austerity, which meant that social workers were not encouraged to recognise that children are embedded in the networks of family and community that should be protected and supported. Instead, the system was in danger of becoming just about managing professional anxiety and ticking boxes, with little or no accountability when things went wrong or a willingness to learn from mistakes.

I was always a spero fangirl, but moreso since I now know what she's been doing since she vanished from MN.

Not offended at all hay, I'm deeply aware it's a possibility in every interpretation I make, or I wouldn't have mentioned it (some people might be, can't speak for them of course, just me).

Conserve put it much better than me. I just didn't think Spero had changed her stance in the thread and am glad she's been back to try and verify and answer any questions. It's a deeply sensitive topic obviously.

Rhi

I think threads like this have at least two useful functions they can reassure people who may be frightened and they can make professionals aware of why people are frightened and what actions they can take to work towards preventing it, it can also open their eyes to their colleagues and their own contributory actions.

I can think of at least 12 SW's just off the top of my head who I have had the misfortune to work with who have been reprimanded by judges for the methods they use I can think of several more who need to be.

Denying it happens so not increasing efforts to challenge and change bad practise does more to damage the reputation of the services integrity than almost anything else I can think of.

spero

I would love to join you and would be pleased if you posted the link

Budge over tldr - I've had a t-shirt printed that says:

SPERO (AND A MULTITUDE OF OTHERS WHO POST SELFLESSLY AND TIRELESSLY ON MUMSNET JUST SO THAT PEOPLE CAN BE BETTER INFORMED ABOUT STUFF THEY MIGHT OTHERWISE BE VERY ANXIOUS ABOUT) ROCKS.

And I'm wearing it now.

Manumission, didn't realise mentioning someone's aspergers was epic twattery, patronising and shouldn't be prefaced "with respect". Grow up and stop trying to cause trouble.

You won't.

If you can't see what's wrong with assuming that all autism is the same or with you being the one to suggest it's causing someone an issue with something (rather than them) you're unlikely to suddenly see it.

heythereconniver, re your post at 1.30 - I wasn't talking to you whatsoever, I was talking to hay (who I think understood what I meant even if she disagreed on my interpretation).

I agree that the spectrum is huge and no one should make assumptions. I'm only beginning to come to terms with it myself and I apologise if I've been insulting somehow, it was never meant that way.