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

No, I'm not quaid. I would be talking more about research into those incidences. There will be people out there who live and breathe them!

Will you really not be able to sleep

Google Scholar. Go nuts hey.

Anyone connected with a research institute will have one.

Nope. You're broadly generalising from a research institute you used to be associated with, it seems. Overreaching maybe.

I do however have a wealth of research resources available to me. Tell me what to search for and I'll go look. Because I tried 'social services stealing babies' and turned up a news article about China from 2006.

Conniver social workers do not all spend their time doing research and reading academic articles. That is not their job. That is the job of policy makers.

Trying to corral small children and respond.

The idea that research is unnecessary or that it's impossible to collect such data on this is ridiculous and, without any offence intended at all, shows how little you know about it.

spero You have repeatedly on this thread spoken authoritatively to say that corruption or inappropriate adoptions are incredibly rare (or non-existent, that wasn't quite clear) and you know this because you have the facts. In an issue of such importance, I would expect that to be backed up with research. The fact that you provide a link and some sarky comments, as if this is hide and seek, speaks volumes. If I made claims about what happened generally or rarely, I would expect to back that up myself and wouldn't expect anyone else to go looking. At the very least, I would know a key piece of research that made a strong case for this and be able to quote it. I'm not denying your experience at all, but it's valuable and anecdotal because you haven't gone everywhere and have at the end of the day, only one perspective and come to the party at a certain point but not before. Questions that researchers would also ask is who is paying you and what your relationship is to the people you are making assertions about - not that I'm suggesting you are corrupt but it is very important that the people making these statements are objective, absolutely thorough (so there isn't a little hell hole of corruption in Scotland where nobody important likes to venture that gets forgotten about) and seen to be objective. That's why I can't take your word for it. Not because you're not terribly important and committed because you have made it very clear that you are and don't like to be questioned!

For someone who asked, collecting data is very difficult in all sorts of situations and half the fun for academics is using ingenuity to work out how to get results that are unbiased by anything. Usually they acknowledge the extent to which this has been successful or not and try and try and try again. There are a million ways this research could be carried out (building rapport, using language analysing software, comparing areas with similar social circumstances against adoption rates, conducting lengthy interviews with SS and analysing language, ditto judge's remarks) and I have no doubt that it is being carried out. It is certainly not my job to prove it or work out how to do it. But I would want to see a literature review of that type of work. Yes, it will exist. No, it is probably not on Google scholar - an abstract is useless.

No Adala I wouldn't be biased against results of any kind. Though like anyone I would expect to see more studies along the same lines and nothing is ever set in stone. I agree with you that it wouldn't convince some but the knowledge is essential. Not sure why you think I want you to tell me how many researchers you've worked with. I don't care TBH.

I have posted links to the research I have 'at my fingertips'

I don't bluster.

But I do get pissed off with snidey time wasters who don't offer anything of value to the very important and necessary debate.

Here is an interesting article which finds the Transparency Project research quite interesting www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/12/08/awful-tell-parent-dont-believe-can-care-child-safely/

And yup - don't need your Athens password.

I wrote a long response but I'm not engaging anymore. Night spero, thank you to you and your colleagues for the work you do

I honestly don't even know what the point your making is to be honest. I'm sure you have one, but I think you're pitching it to the wrong people.

I AM a policy maker, and I use research evidence every day. If I were John Hemming, I would be looking for various kinds of evidence: numbers of court judgements that get overturned, opinion polls of associated professionals showing their concerns, paper trails showing bonus payments to social workers for snatching children. None of that evidence has come to light.

What evidence do we need that miscarriages of justice are uncommon? Well, I would say that if they were out there in significant numbers, they would be popping up in law reports, in the Daily Mail, being picked up by journalists. We would certainly hear from charities that support vulnerable women, such as Women's Aid. Of course, we have to bear in mind that birth parents who have lost their children, who have been ground down by the system, often lack the social capital, the resources and the spirit to keep fighting. But right now, most of the lawyers and social workers I know, as well as policymakers working in the area, seem in agreement that the system is a bit rubbish, that both parents and children are often ill-served, but there is no conspiracy and little malice.

I believe in evidence-based policymaking, but you do have to understand what research can tell you and what it can't, and what evidence is likely to be available.

I'm fashioning you a really stupendous foil hat as your Xmas present hey.

As you clearly have some kind of academic background, here's an idea. Why don't you do the research to prove your allegations?

Oh no, silly me. You're absolutely certain you're correct without even a scintilla of the evidence you're demanding that Spero provides. But we're all supposed to believe you because ...

Oh, wait. I forgot my foil

One major difficulty with the demands for research evidence is that you are asking people to prove a negative, i.e. that child snatching does not happen. You are also asking for that research in a field where of necessity children's interests come first and therefore there has to be confidentiality.

Perhaps a more fruitful source of inquiry is to dig up the threads on MN and elsewhere where Hemming has been repeatedly asked to prove evidence of his assertions and, over long periods, he simply failed to do so. He was being asked to prove a positive assertion, which is obviously much easier to do - but he never managed to. If that evidence existed he and his friends would be shouting it from the rooftops.

I've got a bit confused. Is this still Mumsnet? I thought I was on an Internet 'chat' forum but now it seems we have to provide bibliographies?

If I get my mum to write me a letter will that do it?

conserve

Didn't you know all comments needed proper citations from peer reviewed sources.

I apologise for getting irritated.

But I am glad to see that others are perplexed as to what is going on here.

Not one person has all the answers. One of the big problems in this debate is the silo working - we all stick to our narrow disciplines and don't talk to one another. There is a divide between parents and professionals.

I have made great efforts to come out of my silo. I have got a much better understanding of the wider picture. I am sorry I can't point to my extensive peer reviewed research to prove beyond reasonable doubt that what I say is true - but I think the research I contributed to for the Transparency Project which involved FOI to EVERY SINGLE LA IN ENGLAND AND WALES is a reasonably worthy contribution to the debate. And the picture it paints is complicated but certainly doesn't indicate widespread wholesale corruption.

that point about Hemming is well made. He could have used his considerable financial resources to do the job the TP did in a fraction of the time - we had someone working unpaid for A YEAR to collect all the responses and analyse them. He preferred to spend his time trolling the adoption threads on mumsnet or getting pissed and publishing the names of children involved in care proceedings.

If you don't want to be a genuine part of the discussion or solution, then please don't get in the way.

re research, this is interesting from Andy Bilson
bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/05/19/bjsw.bcw054.long

My view is that there is lots of credible research being conducted. And no-one is coming up with anything to support what this documentary alleges as being even 10% true.

spero

If that last comment in your very helpful post was aimed at me, it's startling and uncalled for.

How very odd.

I often wondered why JH never did do that given he is so convinced about the conspiracy.

To be perfectly honest my interest in the matter is mainly surounding accessibility to the the way the system is intended to work, one that I respect,admire, value and was a part of for a long time but do see the issues within and how they make a large number of the very people they are intended to help freak out at the possible thought of involvement with.

People can find it incredibly hard to utilise the most positive aspects of a service and benefit from the support it can give when they are frightened of it.

I have my own thoughts on the matter I remember what worked back then and what I see contributing towards failure now. The knee jerk reaction is to blame everything on staff turnover and shortage then budgets but it is never as simple as that. Trust and professionals doing their bit to reduce fear can be a game changer it can increase engagent with support and save money.

if I was trying to work out competence of decisions made by say the DWP I would be looking at claiment appeal success rate but with children's services stuff the only thing that would do a vaguely realistic comparasion would be % of unsuccessful LA applications but that leaves out all of the earlier than court action issues.

Yup. Well spotted. Must be your keen analytical researcher's brain.

(Actually it wasn't. It was a more general comment at Hemming et al. But how interesting and revealing that you would like it to be about you)

Good night all. Thanks for a really (mainly) interesting discussion.

If JH had really wanted to get to the bottom of the data on adoption targets, he could have written letters whilst he was an MP (particularly between 2010 and 2015 when there were Lib Dem ministers at the DfE), as he couldn't have been ignored and palmed off. He was in a position to do something about what he saw as terrible corruption and an abuse of power - and did not a lot except scare vulnerable parents.

I'm not sure what the point is in providing our credentials, given that we are on an anonymous forum...

No there have been cases where parents who have had babies taken off them due to panic in light of the huge abuse cases that were failed to be picked up on such as Victoria and baby P, as far as a quota goes it's not so far fetched but probably more to do with panic from SS and hospital staff when children come in with injuries, one woman I heard fled to Spain to have her second child as the first was removed due to a clinical mis diagnosis proved after adoption tragic really so never take anything for granted...look at the children in the shetlands was it? who were removed due to mis interpreted art work ... and remember to add insult to injury many removed children were subsequently abused in the care system, that's without looking at the children who are off grid never registered and used in ritualistic abuse horrific...never assume anything is as it seems

Wimple
The man IMO really is an annoying little turd.

And you should see how his merry band of cheerleaders behave when you annoy them, it really makes me not surprised at all as to the axe he has to grind with children's services and why he is seamingly so concerned about them

Out of intrest does anybody have any ideas why this thread keeps disappearing from my im on section?

Honestly can't imagine his kids turning out all right considering his multiple affairs plus his wife stealing the cat of his mistress that one time.

DarkNanny - RTFT