to think there aren't Government targets for forced adoption that social worker have to reach?

[orlantina]

At a bus stop last night. Someone had put a handmade poster up about forced adoptions. Children being taken off parents by social services and put up for fostering and then adoption to meet targets. It was pretty hard hitting - pictures of children who had been 'taken'. The social workers and lawyers involved were named. Talk about Facebook groups. Talk about parents not being allowed to talk about it because of legal action and threat of prison.

I struggle to believe that social workers would not take a child from their parents unless there were real concerns. I also struggle to believe that children can be put up for adoption by the State to meet targets. I want to believe that any child put up for adoption has been removed from their parents because it is ultimately in the best interests of the child and that their parents pose a real danger to the child.

But this was a hard hitting poster.

It's a load of rubbish. Utter rubbish. Of course it is. And courts remove children. Social workers have no power to do this.

Quite the opposite.

I've seen two cases of child neglect and the NSPCC/SS did very little to help them.

There was a dispatches type thingy on a while back where someone worked with SS undercover and it was all pretty 'meh'.

What exactly do you mean by hard hitting? Was there any strong evidence that this had actually happened to those children and any strong evidence it was linked to targets?

Remember parents who neglect children, or allow children to be abused because they won't give up on their relationship with the abuser, often refuse to accept the seriousness of what they've been doing. It would hurt them too much to say "I let this happen to my child because I wanted sex with my boyfriend" or "my drug habit meant I couldn't even give my child a tenth of what they needed", let alone "I was given lots of chances to change, but I didn't do it".

They think the fact that they feel like a loving parent means they hve been acting like a loving parent.

Of course social workers are going to get it wrong on occasion: just like doctors get their diagnoses wrong and patients die from the wrong treatment. That is inevitable. But very, very different from mistreating patients on purpose.

The social services are as financially stretched as all other public services right now and they will do everything in their power to keep a family together. They will do this not just because finances are tight, obviously.

What you saw OP was blatantly wrong.

What exactly do you mean by hard hitting

Naming the staff involved. I have no doubt that the staff have to be very careful as being named publicly this way must lead to a lot of online and offline abuse.

No actual evidence though

I feel like I worded that really badly. I mean, their services are being stretched as never before and they would have neither the time nor the resources to do what that poster suggests.

Above this, it would never be policy, on an ideological level.

I see what you mean, OP. Sounds like a shit thing to do.

There are targets for the speed things should happen once a child is 'looked after'. Some spin this to 'ssh take children that will be easy to adopt' and manage to be racist as well.

It is nonsense.

Having said that - I am starting to believe that the country should have to prove what they are offering for the child is significantly better than staying. Being in care is damaging. It's not a case of the birth family are damaging and care isn't, ever.

I think they definitely have targets for babies. Have heard of babies/toddlers get forceably adopted locally when the older kids of the same family get to stay. There is coincidentally also a shortage of children under 3 for adoption.

But Genghi, why would they have that? Who would think it's a good idea to set a target?

anna they do have to prove that. Its why you have to go to court with evidence to remove a child. I've seen judges dismiss care order applications because the evidence against the family was not strong enough.

I was going to say what Genghi was. It isn't linked to targets as such but to the fact under 3s are easier to adopt. It does show it isn't an entirely 'fair' system, though.

No, of course there aren't! Can't believe anyone thinks there are.

bullshit Genghi - sorry but there are no targets - well there are - targets for REDUCING the number of LAC - certainly not for increasing them and targets for reducing the time a child is LA but again NOT for taking kids into care

Babies have very different needs to older children - which may explain why one is taken in to care whilst the other isn't.

Some families have their older children removed from their care then get pregnant and are allowed to keep the baby.

There are targets for reducing the number of kids in care - there are no targets to forcibly remove babies who are blonde haired and blue eyed for the purpose of adoption.

I'm sure there will be a number of posters who come along soon saying they know this happened because of an anecdotal story where it has happened to a friend and they know their friend would never hurt their child.

That's how it always goes with these threads.

I think if I had seen that poster I would have been have put it in the bin. I agree with what Cory wrote about people having no/or refusing to accept insight into what they did wrong.

Honey the evidence against the family is one thing. How much time is spent in court scrutinising exactlyou what is going to be offered instead and how stable it will be?

It has happened so many times in the past though - at least here in Australia, Ireland and Spain. I'd be very surprised if they are still doing it though.

Another who would have binned the poster. It is a massive risk to the children.

The younger a child is when removed from neglect/abuse, the less likelihood of bad memories; mental or physical health issues as they grow up. More likely to have a successful transition to adoption too. So where there is a history of neglect or abuse, targets for early intervention make sense. I agree with the OP, LAs don't have targets for removal of children per se.

I would have taken the poster, and forwarded a copy to the local ss safeguarding department. It's a risk to the children and the social workers who have been named.

There are no targets. In my experience social services are too slow to act.

I don't believe there are targets for adoption but do sometimes think that younger children that are more likely to be adopted easily are taken into care more quickly than older children that would more than likely remain in foster care long term than be adopted. I also believe children are sometimes taken into care (especially younger children) rather than more expensive support being offered to parents.

Sadly some children are also left far too long with abusive or neglectful parents as it can be difficult to get a court order to take children living at home and there rightfully needs to be a lot of evidence. However on the other hand I think that where parents willingly sign there children over believing it to be temporary so something can be investigated, that these children are rarely returned to the parents and the reasons are often a bit along the lines of we can't prove you did anything wrong but you can't prove you didn't so there may be a risk of potential harm in future. Not sure I agree with this and a couple of friends who are social workers have said these are the most difficult cases as they are often not really in agreement that not returning the children is best but it's a huge risk to them and their career of something happens in the future, they've also said even though it shouldn't be that it's easier to get a permanent care order or plan for adoption through the court of a family have already signed the children temporarily.
I think at the moment the system isn't great and needs more transparency but also think social workers are in an impossible situation and damned if they do and damned if they don't. I teach and find myself these days reporting things that are so minor it wouldn't have crossed my mind to do so in the past but there is a real culture of fear of missing something.

What can be provided to the child in care, has to be better than remaining with their family. An older child can be almost impossible to find adoptive parents for. So an older child who is being neglected may be better remaining at home, than living in a variety of foster homes.
A baby being neglected is at serious risk of dying, Older children can feed and wash themselves, A neglected baby can die. Plus a baby can be adopted into a loving family.

This is not about targets, but simply that a baby left with a neglectful family can be at a much higher risk than older children, and the alternatives that SS can offer can be much better.