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 guess this thread explains a lot about why the British view of adoption is so full of assumptions about the birth parents being dangerous. I didn't realise that forced adoption was such a key feature of British system. It's always a bewildering topic to me on MN.

I'm American. I have relatives who gave up babies for adoption, gave up for long term fostering & who have adopted. No one was forced in any of these stories. The experiences are all spoken of very positively by those who gave up & the gal who adopted, and one who was herself given up for adoption and was introduced to our family as an adult.

I suppose I can think of 2 near adoptions of kids who were almost adopted by families but then not, after all. So not all successful. I'm not aware of any compulsion to relinquish placed on the birth parents in those stories, though.

There is alot of stories about adoption on internet in Vietnam. There are some really sad stories, but this has a good ending www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/haven_shepherd
It seems that contraception is not easily available there, if you read other stories.

So how many years do you wait for birth parents to sort themselves out?

My DCs' parents were known to SS for 6 years trying to help them, trying to get the violence sorted, helping the birth mum to a refuge but she went back etc. The impact on my DC, now a young adult, going forwards is considerable.

That 6 years was probably 5 years too long as far as the DC is concerned.

The birth mum could barely look after herself, (and had no family support) let alone a child. Would long term foster care really have been preferable to us adopting?

(And don't get me started on the US where it seems to me that in vast swathes of the country abortion isn't accepted, but neither are young single mums supported to parent, so they end up relinquishing through lack of other options. Sounds like UK in the 60s & 70s. Or commercial surrogacy which is a whole other issue.)

The sad thing is that many children being adopted have had older siblings removed into foster care, and the parents don't give themselves a chance in between children to sort themselves out - there should be more money put into schemes like the Family Drug and alcohol courts to help themselves to access the help they need and allow them to be effective parents going forwards.

@lljkk, the UK & US adoption systems are totally different. In the US, as I understand it, prospective adopters pay up to USD 40K to private adoption agencies, which handle the relinquishing of babies/children by biological parents/families unable or unwilling to bring up the said child/children. In the UK, there are no private adoption agencies, and the laws here enshrine the rights of children to be brought up in their birth families, so adoption is considered pretty much the last resort by the courts and professionals, and the rights to parent are removed from birth parents only in the most extreme circumstances, and usually following extensive rehabilitation work and lengthy legal proceedings.

The adoptions you describe in the US are more like what we call historic adoptions here, so, for example, back in the 1950s, when it was considered shameful for women to give birth out of wedlock and unmarried girls/women were forced by societal pressures to relinquish their babies, who were subsequently adopted and (usually) given new identities.

Contemporary adoptions in the UK are generally as a result of babies and children being removed to safety from birth parents who are incapacitated through drug and alcohol addictions or who harm and abuse their children sexually, physically and/or emotionally, or generally neglect them in such a way ie by failing to feed them appropriately so that harm could result.

The ‘forced’ bit that people speak of is that, generally speaking, the birth parents who inflict these abuses or harmful or neglectful parenting on their babies or children will often oppose their removal - and subsequent permanent placing - in s home of safety. Because it is their right - enshrined in the laws of our land - to do so.

I hate it being called "forced adoption" the parents haven't been forced to give them up. They will have had lots of chances and time and work spent on them before the choice was made.... Unless you believe the "social workers stalking maternity wards and selling children" brigade

To me the term 'forced adoption' is very loaded and emotive.

It conjures up a picture of a crying 3 year old being torn from the arms of a loving but poor mother to be given to the middle class but unloving couple sat in a car round the corner.

The reality is that any separation of child from birth parent would have happened months before any placement with adoptive parents. The removal is only allowed when sanctioned by a judge and there must be real evidence of harm or expectation of harm (eg when previous children already removed). The adopters have to go through extensive checks to try to ensure they will be able to be the parents the child needs and deserves. The whole process is child centred.

All the adoptive parents I know go the extra mile for their children. Most of whom have some level of additional physical, mental or emotional needs. They commit 100%.

@ delilabell, I agree. In the case of one of my two adopted children, birth mother and father were found to have caused non-accidental injuries to a 10-week-old sibling, resulting in the baby’s death. Busy/chaotic/dysfunctional extended birth family household and so the police ruled there wasn’t enough evidence to identify and secure convictions on the ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ premise. That 10-week-old baby’s non-accidental death was never punished or accounted for through the courts.

And it still took two years (2 years!) for the judge involved to grant a placement order freeing my child (a baby born while the police and children’s social care we’re investigating the death of the earlier baby) for adoption. Oh, and when the sh*t hit the fan, and the 10-week-old baby died in hospital of numerous fractures, other older children were instantly removed to foster care and were also discovered to be suffering injuries caused by historic bone fractures.

It isn't forced adoption.
It is forced removal followed by an assessment of whether the child can safely be returned (always the preferred option at the outset), and if not, whether LTFC or Adoption are the best way forward.

Childrens homes like we used to have. One by mine had around 100 bedrooms. And around 95 very unhappy children.

Forced adoption is the best outcome for most who it applies to.

It's absurd to say long term foster care is the solution for any child. There is no stability, no permanence. Bring bounced around between homes during childhood is hugely damaging. It should not be done lightly but parents rights absolutely should be terminated if it's determined that they will never be able to give their child a safe loving home. My father was "long term fostered" and it he was seriously damaged man. Bollocks to it being "forced" or any other emotive word you can find. Every child deserves a family and foster isn't remotely the same thing.

@lljkk

In America evidently you have the worst of all worlds. You have women who could, with support, parent well forced by lack of resources to give up children they love and you have children remaining with neglectful parents with chaotic lives.

When we talk about forced adoption we're not talking about 16 year olds who want a chance to parent with a bit of support. We're talking about parents, often with learning disabilities, who are not able to live independently themselves who are living with abusive partner and won't leave them. We're talking about people who are drug addicts without stable housing who won't engage in rehab, home lives with repeated domestic violence who won't engage with outside help, cases where children have been sexually abused by parents (or the parents have knowingly allowed them to be abused by others). Parents who can't even show up reliably to meet their child when contact is arranged.

It seems incredibly heartless to deny these children the chance of a stable family life.

@Fiveredbricks, sorry to be so pedantic, but can we stop calling it ‘forced’ adoption, because the ‘forced’ has such negative connotations? In my mind, It’s a bit like Jewish mothers in Nazi Germany being ‘forced’ at gunpoint to load their children onto trains to concentration camps and a near-certain death. I really, genuinely hope I don’t cause any offence to families of holocaust survivors with that analogy.

The difference is that birth parents have their children removed from them today - in the UK (as I appreciate there are significant human rights abuses and violations elsewhere in the world) - because of what many people would consider (especially if they were Daily Mail readers) to be lifestyle choices ie drug and alchohol addictions or choosing to move convicted paedophiles into their homes as their children’s new father.

Forced adoption is a term used by child abusers who think it's massively unfair that they weren't allowed to keep abusing their kids.

They are posting a lot on SM, calling themselves 'Family rights activists'. Search the OP's posting history.

The UK puts the rights of the child at the heart of the child protection system. No birth parents have their parental rights involuntarily terminated unless they have failed horrendously and ignored many opportunities to engage with SS.

I work with kids who are terribly neglected but nowhere near the level where they can be removed, let alone adopted. My DD still falls over several times a day because of the brain damage inflicted by her 'mother'. She will never see properly. My kids have escaped their 'parents' with much less harm than many adopted children.

What should 'turn your stomach OP' is that SS don't have more resources to intervene more effectively. YABVVU.

lljkk Fri 08-Mar-19 21:18:42
I guess this thread explains a lot about why the British view of adoption is so full of assumptions about the birth parents being dangerous. I didn't realise that forced adoption was such a key feature of British system

It is not a key feature: it is an absolute last resource. The British view of adoption is full of assumptions of birth parents being dangerous because if birth parents do not form a danger to their children it is quite unlikely to happen. There is support to be had for parents who are willing to take it, there is virtually no stigma in being an unmarried woman, fostering is the course if there is any perceived chance that the parents will be able to care for their baby in the future.

Adoption is far more regulated in UK than in US.

Otoh from time to time children die because SS are too afraid to interfere with parents' rights, or simply don't have the resources. And children end up like Moominmama's dd, with permanent brain damage.

Many birth parents who have had to give up their children have had a very chaotic up bringing themselves. Our 2's BM fell out with her mother at the age of 12 and went to live with her drug taking father who had never looked after a child in his life. She was left to her own resources and sexually abused by a relative of her father's. She wasn't a drug taker or mentally ill but she had no idea about a stable life, her main interest being in getting a man. When she had our DS at 17 she would leave him on his own to go to the pub. she lost flat after flat and would sofa surf with him in tow. The neglect was appalling and the lack of any genuine care for him was miserable. His early development was so lacking he never learned to play at all. He can not be touched and will never accept any affection. He can not tolerate music of any kind and can't cope in busy, noisy places. He had absolutely no fear and would continually do extremely risky things. He is now 16 and suffering from an extreme case of post traumatic stress disorder which has been assessed as having been the affect of his early life experiences. He hasn't been to school for 6 months, has stopped all his sports, will hardly leave his room and has stopped seeing any of his friends. That is what neglect and emotional abuse can do to a child.

Here in the US each state has their own guidelines, so I can't speak for everyone. But in my state, reunification is the primary goal when a child is removed from his/her parents. However, if the parent(s) doesn't cooperate in the requirements of the reunification plan, the parental rights are severed.

Possibly making myself vulnerable here...

As a Birth Parent whose DC are about to be adopted I despise the term Forced Adoption and actually don't spend anytime in birth family support groups because i recognise completely the circumstances that led to the point I am at now but, the majority of BPs generally just see SS as the enemy.

In Australia there are less than 200 adoptions per year - in a country of about 27 million. Long term fostering is more common, with the emphasis on the child "possibly" returning to the parents at some stage. Most adoptions which do take place, normally involve either the foster parents or family members.

People wanting to adopt in Australia do sometimes go overseas, but even then there are only about 100 per year.

i'm of the impression that because of social support options very few healthy newborns are given up in canada. when someone chooses to give a child up for adoption they choose the parents (who must take courses and undergo phych evaluations) from scrapbook binders the families put together themselves. some nice couples could never be chosen despite how long they might wait if for say they don't own a home, or show large sums of savings etc.
meanwhile children with disabilities are on canada wide adoption lists and usually placed in medical foster care trained families.
most children that live in chaotic families will be shuffled to other family members for years.

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

Yep, and those assessments mean that every 6 months there’s a meeting of professionals and birth family to assess the child’s needs in the short, medium and long term.

Think about that for a minute. Every 6 months there’s a meeting, that you may not even be invited to, where people discuss the most private aspects of your live and consider whether the place you are living is still ok for you. Every six months there’s actual consideration of whether you might need to leave the place you call home and the people you call family.

Those meetings continue: while you transition from nursery to primary school, while you’re learning to form relationships, while you’re building friendships, while you transition to high school, go through puberty, start your periods (girls obviously), start understanding your sexuality, start expressing your sexuality and on and on and on. And every detail of your life is up for discussion if a profession seems it relevant.

While all that goes on, you have varying degrees of ongoing contact with birth family - who you might really want to be with because at least you belong there - while family members cycle in and out of relationships, chaotic drug use, prison etc etc.

The long term outcomes for looked after children in the U.K. are pretty poor. The level of uncertainty, lack of security and attachment figures leaves these kids incredibly vulnerable to all kinds of exploitation, and so the cycle continues. I can’t see how placement within a permanent family, that you legally belong to is a worse thing than the uncertainty of long term care.

The processes for removing children from birth parents and then assessing them for adoption are two separate things. The assumption is always that kids will return to their birth family and in my local authority 85% do return home permanently. For the other 15% so called “forced” adoption is literally a life saver.

Oh and think about that process in the context of education - so while you study for spelling tests, SATS, 11 plus, Nationals, Highers, A levels, every 6 months there’s a meeting. I’ve seen young people have their LAC review in the middle of exam prep - because it has to happen every 6 months. And kids are expected to turn up, behave well, learn and flourish under the understanding that their lives could change completely every 6 months.

Think about the stress for that child or young person and ask yourself why looked after children as a population have some of the poorest educational outcomes.

I know my following opinion is going to sound harsh, a few years ago I would never have thought like this, but I think we shouldn’t be waiting for a child to be 3 or 4 for them to be taken off their parents when it was evident before birth or in the first few months after birth that they were unable to parent.

They say the first year of a child’s life is one of the most important years in term of the development of the brain. I think it’s sad but understandable why people want to adopt babies and not older children.

Last year there were 2200 adoptions, and 72,600 children in care, so the vast majority are being fostered.

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

How awful for the poor child. What a terrible lack of security. Can you even imagine having your living situation the people you call mum and dad reassessed every 6 months? And the possibility hanging over your head that you might have to return to a parent, you don't have a relationship with and who abused or neglected you. No one in their right mind can think this is a good idea for the kids.