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

our sworn evidence as professionals is considered sufficient.

It shouldn't be.

So actually, your assertion that the foster parents weren't approved because they were bathing other small children was a very, very small part of the story. They weren't approved foster parents. They'd taken the baby away or been given it from its birth parents (why??) without telling the authorities. And you don't understand why social services might have a problem with that?

It's this sort of disingenuous bias that is behind every single miscarriage of justice I've read I'm afraid. Call me cynical.

FWIW, one of my friends adopted her grandchild. Social services weren't convinced she'd be able to do it adequately because of contact with birth parents She went through the proper channels, got a good lawyer and is the adoptive parent.

You/your friend/relative not being chosen to be adoptive parents to the baby had nothing to do with them being a bit chaotic when social services visited and nothing to do with them having a better family lined up.

FWIW my friend is not a very conventional granny and social services weren't entirely convinced. But the family court was.

Ideally, the SW would have had time to get to know them all properly. Ideally, they wouldn't have had to go through the fucking dire stress that they did. It was horrendous and massively stressful.

But that is because there is chronic underfunding and social workers are terrified of getting it wrong. Ultimately however, it's evidence of the system working as it should.

our sworn evidence as professionals is considered sufficient.

This highlights a fundamental flaw.

Social services often push their agenda as if this were a court case happening in different circumstances. That is not their role and this is highlighted by the fact that they don't have to provide evidence of everything; it is assumed that the role they are playing is impartial, objective and helpful to the judge in providing reliable information. When social workers play on this assumption in order to create a narrative that will further their own agenda and is designed to encourage the judge to make the decision they believe he 'should', they are acting a corrupt manner.

Saying that it's fine because the family's lawyer will counteract this is a misunderstanding of the difference between this kind of court case and cases between two private parties. If it really were this kind of case, we would have to acknowledge that the odds are stacked against the parents in the most unfair way because they have to prove what they're saying, while the social workers are simply believed because of course they're telling the truth. If social workers were to cook the evidence a little, they are in an ideal position to do it and parents are left incredibly vulnerable in a way that the best lawyer in the world cannot challenge because it's not an even playing field.

This should not be a problem if social workers don't over-reach. But sometimes they seem to have remarkably little faith that the judge will reach the right decision without their 'help'.

I think it would be naive to think that they compile case histories without sometimes deciding what the recommendations will be a long time before the evidence gathering is complete. That's the opposite of objective information gathering.

No jiggly you have made a great deal of assumptions! They hadn't put a foot wrong, actually.

And how dare you suggest that BTW. There was absolutely no wrongdoing of any kind.

You seem to know an incredible amount about something on very little information.

You haven't said whey they were fostering the child. And why the parents weren't capable parents. And what risks the parents posed to the child.

Those are all pertinent to SS decisions. But you decided to leave those out.

jiggly

Are you really suggesting I should go into every detail on a public forum? It would be wrong.

And it's actually not relevant. SS had every right to make any recommendation they felt was appropriate. What they did not have the right to do was to slant their report to make their desired outcome more likely.

If there hadn't been a problem with it, the judge wouldn't have had a problem.

I think you're looking for a fight but you're not going to get one. I have nothing to hide but have said all it's wise to say about this.

poldarks
To be perfectly fair about the situation that's what the note she passed me said in order to get me to check without causing a drama.

What I'm meaning is her idea of the most dreadful horrific shocking bathroom she had ever seen was just an loo thst has not been flushed (fairly obviously not a long term thing) in an otherwise reasonably passable bathroom.

one of my own bathrooms at this very second has a bath covered in blue glitter and soap crayon marks and I would be surprised if cat hair was not on the floor and toothpaste in the sink because I was not the last person to use it I cannot guarentee the condition of the loo bowl.

So a report from my own bathroom could say

Bath heavily covered in blue green and black marks with a very obvious tide mark, sink heavily covered in toothpaste, animal hair on floor and possibly urine in the toilet bowl.

The difference being is mine will be back to normal later and I am unlikely to have anŷbody in my house who would even raise an eyebrow at a bathroom that had blaitently obviously just done a bath and teeth for 3 under 5's and had yet to be cleaned.

So actually, your assertion that the foster parents weren't approved because they were bathing other small children was a very, very small part of the story. They weren't approved foster parents. They'd taken the baby away or been given it from its birth parents (why??) without telling the authorities. And you don't understand why social services might have a problem with that?

It is perfectly acceptable for a parent to allow a close family member to informally foster a child, it is legal

And not a notifiable situation unless other issues exist (sorry hit post to soon)

And whilst all these false reports/ lies/ exaggerations whatever you want to call it is going on, the focus is not on what it should be --the children

I'm old - actually very old. I can remember worries about official involvement in the life of families going way back. And not just me. But we parents already had experience of overbearing and authoritative officialdom from first contact in first pregnancy - we were just to do as we were told and it was up to the experts to make decisions.

Things on the pre-natal front, at least, seem to have changed a great deal since then for most people. But memories don't fade so quickly, and there are bound to be families and communities who still anticipate having very little voice in any communication with officials. For those people, and I'd guess there's a very significant number, it will take a lot of time to gain some trust in doctors/midwives/teachers/social workers.

Some of the initiatives already mentioned here will go a long way to opening up the channels of communication. Certainly there should be emphasis by social workers on the rights of parents to get access to legal representation, and that's a minimum.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to get across to individuals and communities what social workers can do to make things better for parents and families who are struggling. I've just had a quick browse through my local county council's website and just about the only relevant stuff is explaining the referral systems, and mostly, it seems, reassuring members of the public who made a referral. There appears to be nothing about what support is available to families.

Oh, but there is a link to Surestart centres. Except that most of them been closed down as a cost-cutting exercise.

I think I can have some, if not quite a bit, understanding of all the viewpoints on this thread. I can imagine that: the fear means that barriers automatically go up; just one example of poor behaviour by anyone in "authority" spreads like wildfire; overworked and stressed social workers don't have the time and energy to engage with families in the way they should (and for most them, the way they'd like to).

A long time ago, Spero posted a link to www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=fo6 (which I think has already been posted above). I read judgements there on occasions. I have got the impression that attitudes within the Family Court have changed. Certainly, the mantra these days is that adoption is granted only "when nothing else will do". The judge will have had the opportunity to see and hear the parents in court, and they don't get to be Family Court judges until they have had a lot of years under their belt. They are very used to very stressed and anxious "civilians" finding themselves surrounded by "experts" in a legal setting and, from the judgements I've read, do their best to enable those voices to be heard. They also, when necessary, have criticised professionals for not doing their job properly.

Things were bad in the past. They are now gradually getting better. But it will take a long time for that to filter down enough for vulnerable parents to trust anyone.

[As for the local Surestart that got closed. Well, obviously that wasn't needed in our "white, middle-class, Cathedral" town. Any mum who needs support just needs to get into her car, drive down the motorway, probably with a screaming baby, and find her way through an unfamiliar town, to the nearest available. Any shortfall in the less privileged areas locally thankfully gets taken up by the local churches. Support/prevention/advice is, of course, unquantifiable. But it's what pays dividends.]

I am not sure I would be very keen to use the words lies or false reports but I would be very aware that many things are subjective and a huge amount of things can be presented in ways that appear to be diabolical when the reality is they are not.

Social workers are and always will be human beings that bring their own perceptions and values into their everyday life and that is something we do need to be aware of

Apologies - I spent so long writing my response that I hadn't seen more recent posts.

Will go back and read now.

Great post icy

It can become a "them and us" situation and then it only takes a complacent solicitor and magistrates, no proper Guardian work accomplished and all child focus is lost. They are the ones who suffer.

And then when you try to explain this to people it sounds like a conspiracy.

Icy, I'm 61 and I don't seem to see things at all as you do. I feel things are terrible at the moment. I feel child focus has almost gone. I can remember 20/ 25 years ago when I needed help due to illnesses, the SW was like a friend. She had a cup of tea with us, there was no fear of false reports. Reports were factual and positive. To me it was a different world away to what it is now.

icy

It is not just about adoptions even if they are the things that always kick start these threads.

It's about so many other things.

One that especially gives me concerns is the volume of pressured voluntry placements and how parents can be coerced into thinking they have no choice and no other option when the reality is the situation would not meet threshold

Yes, that's a great post from Icy.

hey - no, of course you shouldn't go into all the details. But you chose to feature one aspect which was probably only a tiny detail of why you/your relatives/friends were deemed unsuitable (but ultimately overturned by the judge). Like I said, this is what my friend went through. The social workers made a bad call. The judge told them.

That's an example of the system working, surely? What spero was saying earlier (if she'll forgive me for paraphrasing her) is that these kind of fuck ups are more likely to happen because of massive workloads and huge pressure. It's not because social workers are evil bastards who see a pretty baby and choose a family to go with it which is pretty much what you said, but that they are so bloody scared of getting it wrong that they sometimes choose the least dangerous outcome - which could be removing them from the birth family altogether. It's the lack of support which is the big issue, not the individuals.

Sock - I know that. It's the fact that SS was worried about contact with the birth family combined with that which is the issue.

What do you mean by 'pressured voluntary placements'? Why would SWs do that?

I've had SWs visit when my house has been a tip, I'd apologise for the mess but they'd say not to worry, they weren't there to look at mess (and nothing was written about it in the files)

Was this recent Natsku?

jiggly

It's clear that you don't have personal experience of this in any sphere and are by your own admission sceptical.

The devil is in the detail in this kind of thing and no, I can't give you all the details so you can't and don't know if it's like your friend's case. Clearly you don't want to see the underlying dangers in leaving everything to the judge which is fine with me.

When needsasock pulled you up for accusing this family of wrongdoing in looking after their relative's baby and accusing them of keeping this information from SS (completely spuriously), you wriggled out of it by making a different point that I have in fact responded to and pretending 'that was the issue'. That suggests to me that you're very interested in engaging but just want to debate. I don't have time for that.

Yes, SS have an obligation to make their recommendation and absolutely to consider the circumstances of an adoptive family. One would hope for it. Yes, they can feel concerned about anything they want to feel concerned about and that was never in question. No, they can't make up incompetence or wrongdoing to give weight to their concerns and neither can you. No, they cannot try to influence a judge without his knowledge by going after a narrative that fits their agenda and cherrypicking 'evidence' to that end.

I also don't appreciate your saying I accused SS of picking a 'pretty' baby and a family to go with it. IMO their policies have nothing to do with aesthetics and everything to do with applying scraps of current thinking hastily and dogmatically. In a decade they'll be doing it differently again and I'm not convinced there's much positive change over time.

The only thing I agree with you about is the workload.

It really isn't necessarily the case that a social worker's sworn evidence is accepted without challenge. I can remember a case where an SW was alleging Munchhausen's by Proxy because the mother was daring to appeal against LA decisions to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, and said that the mother had arranged around thirty different assessments. She hadn't, but was in the difficult position of having to prove a negative. However, it was a relatively simple matter to require the SW to provide full details of all these assessments, whereupon the allegation suddenly disappeared.