To wonder how other countries manage adoption

[Justinetimefort]

I keep reading the uk is the only country with forced adoption, so how do other Western European countries manage cases where children can’t live with their birth family?

I would assume the children go into long term care either with foster families or children’s homes or probably a mixture of both.

In Ireland children are rarely taken off their parents. Our constitution up till recently protected the right to the natural family so even if your mum was a junkie living on the streets chances are you would be living with her. If kids are eventually removed they will spend their life in long term foster care. We have very few domestic adoptions and there was a case a few years ago where parents adopted a child and around three years later the natural parents wanted the child back and because of our constitution which protects the rights of the natural family the birth parents were given the baby back. It was awful. They have made steps to amend our laws in the last few years but I don’t know a single person who has ever adopted an Irish child.

Long term foster care or children's homes.

In Australia they try to keep the families together. The child protection system is incredibly overworked and underfunded so unless a child is about to die in 24 hours then it can take months for a assessment to take place and even then they are rarely permanantly removed from the parent/s. Children are usually placed in foster care until they can return to their parents. Rarely are children adopted and if they are it is long term foster parents adopting their foster children. Most children in foster care have behavioural, physical or mental health concerns too.
Another reason there is no forced adoption is that there is the history of the stolen generation of forced adoption of indigenous children, the British children sent over here and told their families were dead when they weren't and the forced adoption of the children of unwed mothers.
Basically no one can adopt in Australia. There are no children to adopt.

Everything the previous PPs have said

(Although please refer to biological parents as that or ‘birth’ parents... not ‘natural’ parents. It implies Adoptive parents are ‘unnatural)

The alternative to ‘Forced adotion’ is awful and causes untold damage to children, simply to protect their birth parents rights. It’s completely arse about face.

So Australia, Ireland, France ... they all have it wrong?

Here’s an article comparing the actual law - but not talking so much about the practice.
childprotectionresource.online/we-are-not-alone-every-european-country-permits-adoption-without-parental-consent/

I think you are making false comparisons.

Yes, other countries have different legal underpinnings, but the actions are essentially the same. Children are removed from their families and placed permanently with another (whether institutional, or by fostering or by adoption - the latter two of which can mean slightly different things in other jurisdictions).

No I’m not

I’m asking what happens

I think in many cases a long-term foster care in a stable environment is better than adoption, in terms of support from the state and contact with birth siblings and wider family. Especially when talking about older kids.

I have a friend who adopted a little boy. He was a forced adoption. I can’t Write on here his circumstances as my friend is a MNetter and they are very unique. But trust me, had that little boy been left with his mother his life would be destined to be a disaster and his childhood very very miserable.

As it is he lives with loving supportive parents who are working with professional help to deal with the issues he has, in a lovely area with good schools, nice friends and loving, giving siblings.

I would like to think it was best for him. I am sorry for his mother who didn’t want to give him up, but trust me before it was forced on her she had ample opportunity (five years) to make lifestyle changes, and she chose not to (not drink or drug abuse BTW).

In France the children go to long-term fostering, which is sadly not always perfect. The lovely woman next door is a stellar foster carer. But I used to know a family of farmers who basically saw fostering as a source of income + unpaid workers on the farm

Birth parents are still given the equivalent of child benefit. I wonder how many of them would relinquish their parental rights if there was no money.

The idea of forced adoptions makes my stomach turn. At least with long-term fostering the circumstances are regularly reassessed.

I feel the same royal

"The idea of forced adoptions makes my stomach turn. At least with long-term fostering the circumstances are regularly reassessed.

It also means a child who may have been abused in the most horrendous manner imaginable will have to spend their entire childhood in limbo, unable to properly bond with another family, and never knowing if they may not be returned to their torturer. It means attachment disorder becomes very difficult to treat as there is no assurance of stability.

The idea of forced adoptions makes my stomach turn. At least with long-term fostering the circumstances are regularly reassessed.

And what happeneds when you don’t get to stay long term? What then? Five, six families where you’ll never have security. Why is that preferable?

Some people are unfit to be parents and keeping a child in long term uncertainty shouldn’t be the solution to pacifying them.

Some countries still have orphanages - even if they have been rebranded as children's homes. If a parent is unable to care for their kids and shows no willingness to sort out their problems then forever homes elsewhere is good for kids usually, especially younger ones.

The needs of the child are far more important than the wants of any adult who is failing to care for their dc adequately. SS do not remove children from their families lightly and sometimes the reluctance to do so has enabled children to be murdered and abused in their own homes. Baby P would most likely still be alive had he been a ‘victim’ of forced adoption, no?

I completely agree that dc should have the opportunity to grow up within a loving stable family. That doesn’t necessarily have to be the biological family. It would be wrong to leave dc in limbo for years to protect the rights of biological parents who don’t care enough to put them first.

The balancing act is between that of the rights of the birth parent (to retain contact with their child) and the rights of the child (to have a secure, supportive family life regardless of the circumstances of their birth).
Ideally both are met, often through interventions by social services etc. But where the parent has demonstrated they are still incapable of providing the needs of the child, then the rights of the child must be protected even if that means forced adoption.

How is it conceivably fair or right (as an example) for the fourth child of chronic drug addicts who needs to be removed for safety from their birth parent's care atbirth, after 3 earlier siblings have all been removed, to then have to spend 18 years in limbo moving between foster homes, changing schools, leaving friends behind, and being let down again and again when their parents don't make changes?
Imagine how it would feel to know for your whole childhood that at any moment the adults caring for you could say "actually we don't want to look after her any more she needs to go somewhere else". Don't get me wrong some foster carers do a phenomenal job - but they aren't family.

That child has a right to a family, to stability and love, to a normal private life without state intervention - fostering does not offer this to such young children!

I wonder how much experience the OP or royal have had of dealing with a child suffering trauma from early childhood
family collapse. How much work has to go into subtly, through everyday gestures, reassuring the child that it's all right now, you belong here, we will always be there for you. And if that child then found out you were lying...

I think 'forced adoption' is a very loaded term.

Adoption only comes after the state has decided there is no realistic chance of the birth parents being able to parent within a time frame beneficial for the child.

Adoption, as opposed to children's homes or foster care, gives children the chance of a family unit for life, not just until they are an adult. It gives them permanence and stability in their childhood.

The 'perfect' outcome for any child is to have 2 birth parents able to care for their child. Anything else is second best whether fostering or adoption. But sadly for many children their birth parents are incapable of raising them safely. The state has to step in.

Very loaded term and faux-innocent question. And I agree with Jebus on Ireland. Yes, Ireland has got things wrong in adoption terms. I don’t know what, if anything, is being done to change legislation, but, despite knowing maybe ten Irish people who have adopted, I do not know a single one who has adopted an Irish child.

The idea of forced adoptions makes my stomach turn. At least with long-term fostering the circumstances are regularly reassessed

I'm guessing you haven't been in care? I would have given anything to be adopted, and tried everything to get them to take my younger sisters at least. Instead; we did a stupid dance around returning to my parents, being taken to short term care, then back again, sometimes making it to long term care. It never got any better.

I wish to god they hadn't tried to do constant reassessments. They were pointless and even social services knew that.

It's not always as clear as it may appear, but there will be extraordinarily few parents who have their children taken into forced adoption and didn't severely fuck up beyond belief.