Adoption with parental consent

[FakeUsername]

I hope to phrase this respectfully, and would be grateful for anyone with more insight and opposing views- I am not an expert. I am asking questions. To be clear, I certainly do not disagree with the idea of adoption in the case of relinquished children, or those with no one to care for them. Also I think adopters themselves are usually resilient people who do amazing jobs (often managing a lot of fall out from a poorly run system, for example adoption following inadequate support of a child over a long period). I’m also not into the weird stuff online about financial incentives for adoptions etc and don’t wish to echo individuals who say this.

I’m concerned that the process is sometimes flawed. That a secret court can split families without evidence that would be taken to a criminal court. That particularly emotional abuse cases have potential to be unsound. Or new evidence comes to light in an irreversible process. Is the risk acceptable, that children are removed without warrant for the sake of others. There could be a clause for maybe categories of physical abuse and criminal convictions of neglect or assault and therefore losing parental rights (eg a criminal conviction of abuse)- but most cases I believe don’t reach this. I’m not sure we are placing enough value in family structure and identity. Or maybe working with families to either adequately support them, or work towards a point of accepting the best route forward is adoption. Does the system have enough checks, and when does it become too secretive to be held to account.

Many families may either react poorly to professionals or have difficulty acting in court in a way that reflects parenting. The current system has few checks or recourse for when it goes wrong for families. Some families can present themselves in a way to the system that shields parents, others get lost in it. For example some women may speak culturally of events in a way seen as ‘minimising’ events, whereas another culturally speaks very openly to professionals. Both carry out the same actions.

I’d also question the links of poverty, budget cuts and adoption from families below the poverty line. If society is either directed towards a bias or families are facing additional struggles that break up units. That underfunded care systems can lead to more unsafe conclusions, strings of locum SW turning over in some departments creating holes in chronology and inconsistencies. We need to be very very very robust if we are to separate a family. Not a bitty system that can be unpredictable and act differently for the same issues.

Do we do enough to support care leavers, is it a cycle that can be broken?

Do we have higher numbers/ different practices from other countries and do we need to learn? Do we need to look at ourselves, track children better, listen to more stories? Are we too often placing children but not talking about disruptions or outcomes?

To me it seems a huge huge deal to separate a family forever (or childhood) and bar contact. A closed adoption, without contact, for every single case seems very difficultly. Disruption, where an adoption ends, is also an issue. If we have a fixed adoption that then breaks down due to a faulty system placing the family in an impossible situation the impact on children is HUGE.

Is there some element of a perception of punishing parents for actions? Do we ever lose focus on the child’s rights and future in the case ion how a mother may present and judgements made?

I won’t write an essay, but I’m happy to expand. As I said these are not views of an expert, if I cause offence I apologise, I hope for respectful dialogue (or being ignored which is also fine!). For transparency I have not had a child in care, these views mainly come from talking to a close friend who had a disrupted adoption/ lots of care places and returned to a (rather dysfunctional) mother and siblings as an adult for a relationship that is messy but carried on. Also from working with children in many stages in care. Are there many cases where contact with family and care would be appropriate?.

Lastly- if you are an adoptee or adopter I hope you do not take questioning a system personally . I do not question an adoptive family as less valid in anyway, I am asking about the UK process.

(I was unsure if the phrase ‘forced adoption’ was correct to use)

I don't have personal experience of this, but I do have a good friend who worked as an advocate for women whose children were at risk/about to be taken away. Certainly, they found the local authority weren't providing all of the resources they should be in order to help the women keep their babies, which they tried to fight, but it was very much a David and Goliath battle. Though unfortunately the women often had multiple issues that made them vulnerable to violent and exploitative men, and meant they could usually not prove they might adequately protect their children, even when there was love and a bond there. It was very sad work, and eventually my friend had a breakdown and had to find a different career.

Hmmm certainly think underfunded children’s services can lead to mistakes - probably more likely that children remain in “at risk” environments and are not removed.
Internet stories of children being removed when they shouldn’t have been are often very one sided and not factual. Costs a fortune to remove kids, it’s never done lightheartedly - there was a myth a couple of years back of SW getting bonuses for snatching kids into care, absolute bollocks!

I am an adopter. Due to current difficulties with my daughter I am also working in the same process which could see her taken into care again.

I'm not aware of any secret court that decides to remove children from birth parents. The process to have children removed is long with many professionals involved, in my daughter's case she was left with a neglectful birth family with documented drug use for far, far too long while they were given many chances to change.

Support for care leavers seems non existent in this area, I know foster carers who have kept adult foster children living with them until they are on their feet but this is off the foster carers own back.

My DD was old enough to remember her birth surname, parents names and home town. This has enabled her to contact birth family on social media. They still have the same issues as before and very normalised drug use. DD is in contact every day and there is nothing I can do to stop it. At the moment she is open about it but if I remove social media access etc this drives it all underground, it is better to be open in my opinion. The damage this contact is causing is huge, the relationship between DD and I has suffered, she sees taking drugs, not going to school, violence and anti social behavior as normal. Knowing this I'm all for closed adoptions, I would even go as far as to say in this age of social media adoptees should not parents details until they are much older.

Had these people not been birth parents of DD the stuff they say and do would result in a child protection investigation. CP here were not interested and passed it to a post adoption social worker to deal with who has no clout with the birth family so the contact continues. It's a bloody mess and honestly driving us towards a disruption.

I’m so so sorry that @ThatPairOfCats - I wish nothing but success to any adoptive family.

You say yourself though your daughter remembered the details, a closed adoption can’t change that? Maybe for some teens even the act of rebellion of finding and acting out is part of it, coupled with social media. Would in some cases this be managed with a mot eyes open approach. Obviously not every case, but some teens will always seek to rebel.

By secret courts I mean the fact family court proceedings cannot be reported and are very closed. I’m not the person to re-write it all, but the current system seems to have not enough tracking of outcomes and a lot of layers preventing recourse or learning. I’ve struggled to find much on outcomes

@Bridget1983 I agree there’s a huge amount of bollocks. I’m talking more about cases for example where a mother and baby assessment unit place couldn’t be found and assessment was below the standard actually set out for example. Where there was probabilities and no previous children for example, or mixed messages from different social workers. Eg a pregnant woman told not to move out of are during the assessment process then going on to have som contact with a DV perpetrator that may of otherwise not happened- these shades of grey cases.

I’m an adopter and in my view, birth families are given too many chances to improve.
My dds were only taken into care aged six and three after numerous interventions, and then only with the consent of birth father. Add 18 months or so in foster care and the oldest was almost too old to be adopted. They were very damaged, very challenging.
On the flip side, dd1’s baby was taken into care at one day old because of dd’s risky behaviour during pregnancy, her volatile relationship with me and her sister etc.
That was an awful experience for all of us and I do feel she should have been given a chance to show she could care for the baby, either at home or in a mum and baby unit. Baby is now nine weeks old and hopefully she’s going to get that chance to go in a mum and baby unit soon.
Family courts are not open to the press or public to protect children, and I don’t have an issue with that.

@Papergirl1968 I hope your DD gets the placement they need.

I understand about media, but is there anything that should be in lieu? A totally different appeals process? An independent body to monitor? Could anything be done, to protect the whole family unit

@fakeusername No a closed adoption can't help us but DD was quite unusual in being older when adopted. A closed adoption may help others not get into the same situation. Also life story work needs to be reconsidered in the light of social media. A child learning "you haven't always lived here you were born to someone called (insert possibly unusual first name) in (town)" which was the best practise for life story work not that long ago and maybe still is is enough for the same child to trace their family when they are older.

For DD it was not about rebellion, it was about finding the missing piece and a feeling of belonging. As we've always been open about adoption and supported contact when she is older there was nothing to rebel against.

I’d also agree SOME families have many chances, alongside often inadequate support. But others have not enough. I just wonder if the system is robust enough for the consequences

Ok, I was I accept speculating with your daughter. Sorry.

I wouldn’t say though she is unusual in being old enough. I’ve met a number of children adopted at primary school age, I presume all would remember. From my experience it would be a number worth considering.

My next door neighbour fostered, she had a child returned by the police when she hit high-school age anything from 1-4 times a week, from her family home. Very hard all round

As a PP said birth families are usually given too many opportunities to improve, and this applies even more so when the kids aren’t white. I’m not white and our local authority prefers to out kids with parents of the same race / background but often the kids who are available are the ones who have been mentally and physically (and often sexually too) abused because the authorities took too long to get them out, and we are not equipped to raise them properly.

My DD was put into the 'too old to be adopted' category. She also didn't have younger siblings to 'sweeten the deal' - these were not my words!

@FakeUsername which family unit would you like to see protected? Although biased in my view the birth family have all the protection, the adoptive family have no protection at all against the birth family. Yes my daughter made contact first but surely there should be some legal protection against the birth family continuing the contact. I'm now basically reduced to an unpaid carer of someone else's child and there is nothing I can do about it.

I am just at the start of the adoption process but in my opinion there are too many chances given to birth families to change. All too often to the detriment of the child. The focus should always be on what is best for the child, not keeping unfit birth parents in charge.

The case studies I have been given to read, a tiny snapshot, have been harrowing and the majority of children are well over 1 and in some cases 2-3. That is the most important part of their development spent in an abusive situation.

YABU.

We’ve had tracing birth family on bloody Facebook and running off to meet them too...

That's interesting about primary school age children being adopted, it's very unusual round here. In the adoption support group I'm a member of we are the only one.

thatpairofcats we’ve had to get a child abduction warning notice to prevent birth brother having my dds at his place.

@Papergirl1968 Oh that's awful. We haven't had that yet. We did have one of the BF offer to come and collect DD so she could meet them. Lucky they have no way of getting here. If a stranger had said the same they would have been in trouble with the police but because it's a blood relation no one seems to care. Perhaps forgetting that adoption is legal severing ties to the birth family and they are actually more danger to DD than a stranger would be!

Virtually anyone who has adopted a child in this country, or been close to someone who has, and seen how inadequate a home has to be for SS intervention, and how many chances birth parents have to get their act together and retain their children, will disagree profoundly with you, OP.

How much experience do you have of the adoption process?

You can’t have the same criteria as you would for a criminal trial, as there are children waiting who don’t have five or eight years to wait about in foster care to see whether their parents can get off drugs and offer them an adequate home. Perhaps at the end of it all, to discover they are now too old and classed as ‘difficult to place’ and are looking at spending their entire childhood in care.

It IS a huge deal to separate a family. No one thinks otherwise. I don’t know a single adopter who doesn’t look at the child they love and wish that child had not had to be adopted, but had been able to grow up happy and secure with caring, adequate birth parents.

Would you prefer the UK system was like that of my home country, where a child can only be freed for adoption with parental consent? This means simply that there is virtually no domestic adoption, and children removed from unsafe home are in longterm foster placements.

@Papergirl1968 I'll pm you later once I finish work if that's ok. We sound in a very similar boat x

I used to work with 'looked after' children and part of my role was to supervise parental access for children. Sometimes this took place in a contact centre sometimes in the parents home.

I would pick the child up from the foster carer stay with them during the access and then return the children.

It did seem though that in many cases the SW made their mind up first and then engineered it to happen by (none)use of (in)appropriate support and intervention and only recording evidence that supported their view.

Sometime I could understand why it was deemed inappropriate for the child(ren) to be living with their parents but others less so as many people can behave appropriately for an hour or two, however they were behaving before. Mostly it was very sad as they parents were more incompetent than abusive or deliberately neglectful.

BUT there were definitely some situations where the Social Worker involved had taken a personal dislike to the parent(s). I had workers return my reports saying that they wanted to know what the parent had done wrong not just what they had done right. Use part statements out of context - in meetings that I was present at.
The worse instance was a young mum who had pre natal depression where she stated on a number of occasions that she didn't want her baby. From the moment the baby was born she was smitten. She also had a supportive family living close by and could have stayed with her mum initially. There was nothing she could have done better. She did used to get angry and frustrated with the system understandably but never let this affect how she was with her baby. The social worker was determined this baby was going for adoption, (he was gorgeous and so good natured). They didn't succeed, he went home to his mum.
There was also one SW that was nicknamed 'the baby snatcher' she was a nasty vindictive person - luckily was sacked eventually.

But yes, absolutely, there are incompetent, overworked or actively unpleasant social workers in the system.

I love the idea of concurrent fostering where the foster parent takes the baby from birth with the plan to adopt if parents can’t make the changes needed. The parents are worked with more intensely over six months or so and get support and contact time. If they really want to and are ready to make changes, the baby will be returned to birth family. Obviously very difficult for foster parents if this happens (something like 15% of cases) but it does seem to be what’s best for the child. They are placed in a healthy environment from the off, no to-ing and fro-ing around different foster carers, a chance to bond early with potential adopters but also birth parents given real support to try and make changes in their life.

If you met my family member she'd spin you a yarn of how the kids were taken off her for risk of emotional abuse and because the "beds weren't made". She's hyper focused on that point in particular... Which is one single line in dozens of lever arch files documenting up to a decade of emotional abuse and neglect. She'll also tell you they were taken to fill quotas for adoption (not true, they are with family members). The eldest two are now adults and have actually had the misfortune of well meaning nosy people telling them what a shame it was they were taken off their mum, which they've had to correct them firmly on.

Mistakes are made? Absolutely no one thinks otherwise.

I love the idea of concurrent fostering where the foster parent takes the baby from birth with the plan to adopt if parents can’t make the changes needed.

But that in itself requires the baby to be removed at birth -- I mean, it requires SS to plan this while the baby is still in utero on the grounds of risk of future harm, which for a certain type of 'forced adoption' critic is a babysnatching conspiracy aimed at taking cute, adoptable babies away from parents and placing them for adoption.

And of course, concurrent planning doesn't mitigate against a baby who may have gone straight from the hospital to foster parents who hope to adopt him or her, but who has been already exposed to alcohol or drugs in the womb.