AIBU to want to carry on this interesting discussion about the Child Protection System?

[Spero]

Following on from this www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2792849-AIBU-to-be-horrified-by-the-Stolen-Children-of-England?

I thought it was interesting. Some people didn't agree with me and said they would tell me why. I would like to hear their views.

spero it would be interesting to see whether long-term non-family care in the rest of Europe also has such poor outcomes for the children.

Perhaps they invest more in the quality of care and therapeutic support. Or it may be that the outcomes are just as bad, but it is accepted as something that can't be helped, or that adoption won't alter.

Allington - you identify precisely the issue of concern. Just what IS happening in other jurisdictions? Is their long term foster care actually quite similar to our notion of adoption? I.e. Relationships severed with birth families?

No one is doing this research - Claire Fenton Glynn looked at it briefly but has since moved on to other things.

What we get instead is Hemming time wasting by getting Euro MPs to come on 'fact finding mission' to London even thought the European Court has affirmed that the Children Axt is compatible with the ECHR.

Yes, if we're going to presume that it's our approach that's wrong rather than the rest of Europe's, I'd like to see some explanation. For example, I'm no expert on the Italian system, but recall reading posts on here from people with experience of it saying that children are basically left in foster placements for whole childhoods because biological parents are given chance after chance to change and don't. If this is better than adoption against the wishes of parents, if it produces better outcomes, let's hear how and why. It's really not good enough to advocate for long term fostering over adoption because you like the idea more.

If a child is adopted young enough then their adoptive parents often grows to love them. Their parents often look after them because in a sucessful adoption the children become family. With foster parents looking after the children is a paid job. It's easy for foster parents to pass on parental responsibility when the going gets tough.

I don't understand why forced adoption of children from a family with a history of abuse is deemed so terrible. It gives better outcomes for children born to such parents to be adopted at birth.

I am not any kind of expert in this field. I do however value the input of everyone and think all of us benefit from having our views challenged particularly when we are considering the all important impact on children of early experiences which affect them for life. I don't think we should be concerned about open-ness and scrutiny as it is often when people are shown how things are done rather than have them done in secret that they realise often things are done pretty well.

I'm not a fan of long term fostering. There aren't enough decent carers and it subjects the child to a whole childhood of statutory monitoring, 6 weekly sw visits and biannual education meetings and lac reviews. Permanently matched placements still break down because the children are so poorly supported and have complex issues. Every year there is less funding for therapeutic support and Camhs is the over stretched catch all.

Though removals at birth are rare, I think babies born to parents who have failed repeatedly deserve to be adopted as early as possible to have the best chance of forming an attachment and a normal life.

Most LA's have a cut off age after which they won't look for an adoptive placement. My last LA was 8 which is very high. The chance of adoption reduces dramatically once the child is 3. The numbers of nt babies available for adoption is low. Lots of babies on placement orders have additional needs already like foetal alcohol syndrome or foetal abstinence syndrome (withdrawal from substances they were exposed to in the womb).
Adoptions break down too and children return to the care system.

I am learning so much from these threads. Thank you

Hmmm. You are making me think.

I am not an academic but I wonder if I can collaborate with one and get some funding and carry out some proper research into child protection systems and outcomes in other countries.
we would need some funding and language could be an issue.
Also I know Louise Tickle got turned down for funding to do some similar investigation.

But this surely has to be the key. Many seem so wedded to their own particular line - adoption is great! Parents rights triumph! etc, etc and we are arguing this in a vacuum.

what ARE the long term outcomes for children? Adoption is certainly not always a 'fix'. I am in contact with the POTATO group - Parents of Traumatised Adopted Teens. they have about 300 members. Many of them face considerable violence from their children once they hit puberty and a lot of them go BACK into the care system under section 20 and the adopted parents then get 'blamed' for what has gone wrong.

It's not always a great system for anyone. And 'loving families' cannot cure everything.

I think it's great so many people are engaging in this discussion without it descending back into 'social workers are evil child snatchers'. And it's interesting as a person in the field to hear public perceptions beyond daily mail rhetoric.

I agree with Spero about looking beyond the one line of thinking. If there's anything I've learnt in my job it is that there is no one size fits all solution. Fostering is a better option for some children than adoption. Some children would have benefitted from earlier intervention. Some parents will go on and have multiple removals each one incredibly traumatic, however it's what's best for the child. Some parents will make real sustainable changes in their lifestyle so keeping future children is possible. That last scenario is incredibly hard on the children who've already been removed I can assure you. But we do not live in an authoritarian state. And I don't like the idea of a person being labelled as hopeless and banned from future children if they do have the capacity for real change.

The long term outcomes of adoption have had some research done - Julie Selwyn's Beyond the Adoption order. Very roughly 1/3 family life ticking over as normal, 1/3 significant problems but making progress, 1/3 significant problems and no sign of things getting any better.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/beyond-the-adoption-order-challenges-intervention-disruption

There must be any number of reports about LAC - here's some stats that took a 10 second Google search
www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264385/SFR50_2013_Text.pdf

Of course, the challenge is comparing like with like.

But research into other countries in Europe would be very interesting.

Please could someone explain to me why if a child is removed from parents the child is at a later date allowed to return home to those parents?

And if the same child was to be removed, would it be permanent the second time, or would they be returned to parents again?

My (very limited) understanding was that removal was a last resource, so I don't fully appreciate in which situations it would be deemed safe for a child to be returned.

I agree that research into how other countries manage challenging children would be interesting. The challenge would be how to measure success as an adult.

In the uk social care policy is decided by politicians. In particular Michael Gove believes that being adopted improved his life chances dramatically.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057850/Michael-Gove-describes-adoption-transformed-life.html

However he has no idea of what his birth mother was like in 1967. She might have been a terrified middle class teen who was told by over bearing parents that the baby had to go. We don't know what the birth family of Michael Gove's profoundly deaf sister was was like. Was the little girl forcibly adopted because the birth parents were deaf themselves? I am not sure that 1960s adoptions can be compared children being taken into care in the 21st century.

It may well be the case that adoptive parents need far more support than in the 1960s. Children may well be subtlety damaged by drugs in utero in ways we don't realise. It may well be that some children need trained carers because of complex needs.

Our local child development centre is faced with closure. Life for children with additional needs is bleak. Life for children in local authority care with Sen is even tougher.

Well they might be removed because someone who is a danger to them is living in their house (a step-parent perhaps or a relative of the parents) and it takes a long time for the parent(s) to get the courage or strength or will power to kick that person out, but once they do then the child isn't technically at risk any more so can return home.

On the flip side of rushed adoptions, my parents started fostering my brothers in the early 80s (sibling group of 3) and didn't get to actually adopt them until 91.

All kinds of reasons, surely, Mountains. Mother is in a relationship with a violent alcoholic deemed a risk to her child - child removed to a foster carer. Mother eventually leaves violent alcoholic, therefore no risk, therefore child comes home. Mother later goes back to her partner, child removed again.

Or parent/parents demonstrate appropriate changes which make home deemed a safe place for their child or children -- working with social services, attending addiction counselling/getting clean, demonstrating they can keep a clean house with enough food and clean bedding and prioritise children's needs.

I think the options for permanent removal of a child whose parents have repeatedly remonstrated an inability/unwillingness to change also comes down in part to whether that child is deemed 'adoptable'. If the child is a baby or young child, a court may decide that a stable permanent home elsewhere via adoption is the best option, as that child can't wait about for years in an impermanent situation in case its parents get their act together. But that's not an option for an older child with a strong attachment to its birth family, however calamitous - where kinship care might be appropriate, if the relatives can protect the child from the risks of the birth parents. Or longterm foster care.

Natsku Thank you for the response to my question.

This I feel means that a child can be in and out of foster care / parental home throughout their whole child - I can't see how this is safe or healthy for the child. How do they form natural attachments and bonds with caregivers when they are changing periodically?

Thank you Hardshoulder This all makes perfect sense, and there were many scenarios I hadn't thought about that could have come into play.

Well those are the $64,000 questions onmountains. Too often, the answer is that they don't.

But I will say, there are genuinely sometimes cases where they're removed because of some particular incident such as an unexplained injury, it's found that a partner or perhaps extended family member was responsible, parent cuts off contact entirely and then there's no reason for the children not to go back. With appropriate monitoring of course.

Hi mountains the majority of kids who go in and out of care more than once do so on a section 20 (though not all) that technically means the parents have consented to this removal and often still control parental responsibility. Some of these children are in and out or care because they have complex needs which the parents cannot cope with. Some as pps have mentioned may com from homes where the circumstances are changing regularly.

I agree this is not a child centred way of working. I have seen (in no means often but it does happen) parents use the care system almost like a babysitting service for their kids. For example I've had parents for say in reviews that 'she can come home when she learns the word no'. I can't imagine how awful that must feel for the child because often more than anything they want to be back home with their parents. I've seen move homes be planned and carried out only for the parents to insist the child is taken back into care again two weeks later because they've got into an argument.

There are also kids who may be in and out of care because their own parents are not well and so respite is needed. So really to answer your question there are a variety of reasons some legitimate and some which are deplorable.

Spero I don't know your background - let me know if you would like some help on putting together a proposal for funding or doing grant applications after Christmas. I am an academic, though not in this area.

Adopted children return to the care system under sec 31 too, because they have been abused/neglected/other by their adoptive parents.

Thanks onMountains - I would like to try and get some funding and see if I could collaborate with an academic.
I can talk with other members of the TP about what options are out there - but I think Louise Tickle got turned down by the Nuffield, which was a shock as I thought her proposals were exactly in line with their aims.
but if you have time after Christmas to give me some pointers about what is out there and how to apply that would be great.
The TP got £50K from the Legal Education Foundation, which was transformative and does indicate there is some money out there for worthwhile projects.

Adopted children return to the care system under sec 31 too, because they have been abused/neglected/other by their adoptive parents.

I am sure this is true but I would hope it is not common, given the exhaustive training and vetting adoptive parents have to go through.

However, what a lot of the adoptive parents are telling me is that LA want to apply for care orders and want to 'blame' them for their children's behaviour, even though it is clear that these children were exposed to highly toxic home environments in utero and for possibly years afterwards, together with frequent placement moves.

So often the children who are adopted are very traumatised and the support I am told is variable.

This is what is really missing from Gove's narrative. He just doesn't seem to understand the vastly changing face of adoption. In the 1970s there were about 25,000 adoptions and I am sure the majority of the mothers were scared teenage girls who had 'got into trouble'.

now its about 5,000 a year and the vast majority of those will have already been exposed to pretty significant trauma before they move in with their adoptive parents.

Academic wise Spero if try getting in contact with Karen Broadhurst whose currently a lecturer at Lancaster University. I know she's involved with Nuffield. She was one of my lecturers during social work training her expertise is family justice and law. Even if she can't help she may know somebody who can and she's active on Twitter.

Adopted children return to the care system under sec 31 too, because they have been abused/neglected/other by their adoptive parents

Usually the other way round - the child is abusing the parents and/or siblings.

From the 'Beyond the Adoption Order' report, the children who have already left home (by going back into care, or choosing to leave after the age of 16) or very close to the family breaking down:

Anger and aggression during adolescence was a major challenge for adoptive families. Child to parent violence was shown by 41 young people (57%) and was statistically associated with children having left home. Knives were used by 19 children to threaten, intimidate, or control others. Boys were statistically more likely than girls to show child to parent violence.

Parents also described difficulties in coping with teenage children who were oppositional and who showed inappropriate sexualised and attention seeking behaviour. Eleven children (16%) had engaged in serious criminal activity - all but one had left home.

Forty children (57%) had run away or gone missing from home. The police had often been involved in locating the children. Some went to stay with adults whose motivation for befriending the child was questionable and parents feared that children were at risk of exploitation.

Twenty-six children (37%) had made an allegation of abuse against an adult whilst living in the adoptive home. Adoptive parents were most commonly accused, but so too were other family members. The majority of allegations were concluded after a brief investigation by social workers or the police and with no further action.

Because people who adopt can't abuse?
The vetting isn't exhaustive and often lacks giving prospective adopters a realistic picture of what they are taking on