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.

@zweifler1 darkriver is a regular poster on the adoption board. I wouldnt normally suggest I'm speaking on behalf of others, but I'm quite sure that all the adopters have great admiration for her honesty about her story, the decisions she made about her children and how she is attempting to re build her life. She has always maintained that adoption was the best thing for her children. I have not come across many birth parents with her insight. She is a very brave woman.

She is entitled to say whatever she chooses to disclose about her own experiences, quite rightly she is protecting the confidentiality of her children as they are not in a position to agree to any disclosures

I wish I could have the same information I guess about care, discuss models. It’s all though ‘I think’, ‘I’ve seen’, ‘I know’, ‘my friend’ or pretty much RAH YOU LIVE RAPISTS DONT YOU! And abusers! I CARE FOR CHILDREN. You only care for... and shouty tactics or ‘duh’ (what I meant by not following is to say I consider the anology and leaps of logic bizarre and irrelevant as a reply).*

Is that honestly the response you get from social workers though? Because me and my colleagues and my friends in the field are all quite open and honest about what we feel are misgivings in the current system, as well as assertions of what models we feel would benefit the children who come j t local authority care?

Ive never met a child through my work who shouldn’t have been brought into care. I’m sure there are a few where mistakes are made, but you don’t get on social services radar for no reason.

And you’re complaining about wanting more information, well I suggested multiple resources you could try a few pages back. Here are some links to get you started, so you can understand some of the insight of current child safeguarding.

www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/03/09/policy-changed-forced-adoption-criticism/

www.rip.org.uk/resources/publications/frontline-resources/adoption-and-permanence-for-children-who-cannot-live-safely-with-birth-parents-or-relatives

www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/05/26/adoption-reform-government-said-government/

Sorry @Gomyownway I ignored you and forced on one response. The bit you quoted me was a reaction to a single poster and getting a bit annoyed- sorry. I certainly don’t lump all SW in that

I have actually been reading some bits tonight, thank you for more clicky links. I’m genuinely interested, and not out to goad.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0002z45

OP you might find this R4 Law in Action interesting.

I found www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/03/09/policy-changed-forced-adoption-criticism/ interesting, I had heard huge statistics about breakdown for example- but this quotes 3%, also the number leaving care to adoption was lower than I thought. The argument also about adopters being unique in the resilience to long term parent children who have been failed is something I hadn’t thought of. Removing those most likely to be jumping around FC placements I guess by means of adoption is more than just finding FC, it’s finding people looking for a different relationship. Really balanced and made me think a lot about some of the assumptions I started the thread with, also open- citing the number of UK adoptions being high and history. Balanced- thank you.

@Luzina- thank you, I’ll watch that in the morning.

Thatpairofcats yes, inbox me by all means

My friend cannot get the support which social say her child needs. The child's issues don't stem from my friend and she's bent over backwards to fight for her child to get what is needed. She has nearly had her child removed because behaviour (can't go into this, it's outing) doesn't change for the better and her family's safety and well-being. She has repeatedly tried to get funding herself to get the treatment and therapy her child needs but she's living on a shoe string. It's really sad. The system completely lets down some families. She's set up to fail.

Where as I have also been told personal accounts of people's messed up childhoods where the abuse they were experiencing was known of but social didn't do anything to help, I've heard people say they begged to be taken into care as children.

I've also been unable to get the support my children have needed, until recently. It's taken years. I hope it's not too late for one of mine who has trauma based conditions.

Tbh I think we place too much emphasis on trying to keep kids wit their obviously inadequate birth parents. By leaving kids with parents that don’t fulfil their needs we end up with kistgat have so many issues it makes adoption v difficult. I certainly couldn’t do it. All this must keep in contact with birth parents etc.

I know people of the old generation inc mil and cousins who were adopted as babies, don’t know who birth family are. They are all fine.

Removing those most likely to be jumping around FC placements I guess by means of adoption is more than just finding FC, it’s finding people looking for a different relationship.

Adoption is a completely different relationship to foster care, you become the child’s parents in every sense of the word. Not carers, not caretakers, not paid to be there - you become their parents, for better or worse, permanently. Legally, morally, emotionally, psychologically you are their parents.

@jellycatspyjamas ok, let’s create a system of long term permanent placements separate to short term. A third way. Removing the 12 month review for some. I know a number of adults who grew up with the same FC, genuine question- could this be formalised and if not why not? It’s a genuine question.

I guess what you’re suggesting is a half way house between foster care and adoption? Long term fostering is a formalised process, but children can still be moved on for example if the foster carer becomes seriously ill or their life changes in some way. As a parent, adoptive or otherwise, you have to find a way to accommodate changes in life circumstances, in fostering the parental rights remain with the local authority as corporate parent, and they will move children if it’s thought the foster carers are no longer able to care (or should, I’ve seen some very poor examples of practice in foster care). The very thing that would give flexibility is the thing that also undermines the child’s security.

There aren’t any easy answers and I don’t know anywhere that gets it right. I do think the Scottish children’s hearing system is better than the family court system and certainly more child centred.

as jellycats says long term fostering already exists.

I can only speak for my own experience. My son was older at adoption. He did not really settle down and believe it was permanent until he had his day in court and was handed his bit of paper by the judge. He needed the permanence, the knowledge that I was mum and couldn't wriggle out of it.
There are many excellent foster carers out there who do a great job, my son had fabulous carers for four years but ultimately it is their job and children can be moved on for many reasons.

This thread reminds me of the one in classics posted by the sadly no longer with us, EartMotherImNot (EMIN).

She started a thread that diarised her experience of fostering a drug addicted newborn.

One of her posts always stood out for me.

As the time came nearer for the baby (whom EMIN had diligently nursed through the withdrawal process) to leave and be with her new adopted family, EMIN said that whilst it was always a sad time for her, she was always comforted by the knowledge the baby was being adopted. It was the children that she had to hand back to their birth families she always worried about.

I'll see if I can find the thread - warning it can be quite upsetting but equally very heartwarming.

drug dependant baby, advice needed www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/922821-drug-dependant-baby-advice-needed

Many years ago I taught a child whose drug addicted parents killed themselves with overdoses of bad heroin. All the children in the family were then adopted . Not one single item was taken from the flat apart from the children themselves because every single item was either broken, verminous, covered in urine/faeces or potentially contaminated with drug residue. The family had been known to SS for years, had had numerous interventions, additional support etc. But to no avail. The child I taught had horrendous,irreversible physical problems due to years of neglect, as well as emotional needs following the death of the parents. In my opinion the children should have been removed from the family many years before the events occurred that precipitated their removal.

There are some families OP , that cannot be helped, and to leave children in those families hoping for a transformational miracle while a social worker already juggling a huge caseload tries to support the parents to parent properly is not only negligent but cruel.

It is already hard to recruit and retain good social workers, to expect them to supervise longterm, drawn out ( and incidentally hugely expensive) parental support programmes which experience tells them are all too likely to fail is putting additional burdens on a system that is already at breaking point.

In addition, the families who do need 'light touch" support, could and probably would find themselves at the end of the queue for time and resources .

No child is permanently removed from birth parents unless they pose a significant risk- as decided by social workers, pediatricians, IRO's and ultimately a judge.

Children are not pawns in a game to see if birth parents CAN parent well if there is such a risk. It is not a risk worth taking.

My son's birth mother has never spent more than 2 hours at a time with him, up until he was 10 months old when contact ceased. She undoubtedly loves him, and wasnt given a chance to parent him, which has been so good for him. Because it was not a risk anyone was willing to take. Her history and her actions whilst pregnant were enough to demonstrate that she would not ever have been able to parent a small child well enough. She may have eventually been good enough with an awful lot of support, but this would not have met his timeframes. Why should he have missed out on an opportunity for a happy childhood because he was being used as a test dummy to see if she could eventually become a good enough parent?

I guess what you’re suggesting is a half way house between foster care and adoption? Long term fostering is a formalised process, but children can still be moved on for example if the foster carer becomes seriously ill or their life changes in some way.

We do have this. It’s called special guardianship orders.

I've currently just finished proceedings in family court. Of course I still have my DD, but there is alot I'd like to say about the local authority.

I'd like to start with the fact that if you don't initially get along with your social worker and they take an instant dislike to you (which some do) then it's really hard to get through the proceedings. The LA first got involved when my partner was arrested for a crime (during care proceedings he had his criminal trial, were the victim herself said it wasn't him who committed the crime) During the arrest, there was armed police present and due to this I was "putting my baby at risk of significant harm" and all I could say was that he didn't commit the crime and I knew this because I was nearly nine months pregnant and he was at home with me (we had only just got out of bed). Because I had said that he didn't commit the crime I was then told me "my vision was clouded" and that i was "minimising the situation" (THERE WAS NOTHING TO MINIMISE).

My partner and myself understandably became frustrated with the services because we were being branded liars, and then 2 weeks before I gave birth I was taken away from my partner and placed in a placement to "keep my DD safe" (we previously had two miscarriages so missing the birth was a big deal to us) we adhered to all the written agreements, even did more than what was asked of us. I was threatened multiple times with the LA taking my dd for adoption. The LA didn't follow court orders. When my partner got his not guilty in criminal proceedings, it didn't make a difference at all. They still tried to use the 'crime' in the final evidence for court because they had nothing else to use. They also called me a liar about petty things eg. I didn't tell the midwife while I was pregnant that I had a social worker as a child (I did tell them) and that i wasn't looking for a property of my own (again, I was) I had a family support worker put the wrong information in the final parenting assessment, both me and my partner were spoken to like dirt all through proceedings, we really didn't get on with the family support worker and they have denied us getting a new one because it's an expectation for us to have to work with her, which I have a recording (yes I record my meetings now because im fed up of being called a liar about things) and she says "yes these meetings won't be positive and I hope he's not here for the meetings" (again, apart of the expectations is for both me and my partner to work with her) they haven't stuck to the fact that for the first few weeks I'm suppose to have a social worker visit the home once a week (I've been here nearly 4 weeks and ive had one 3 minute visit).

It was also ordered by the judge that because the LA put me and my dd in a parent and baby foster placement, they had to move me because I should never of been put there in the first place, that was ordered in January and they didn't even put a referral for me to move up until the end of April. They also lied to the court and didn't tell them that I was still in the placement in the last hearing we had. They tried to push for a 12 mont supervision order. Which the judge laughed at and said there was no need because there was no concerns. We had already agreed to a supervision order so that we could continue to prove that we were not the 'scum' that they insist that we are.

The LA continue to abuse their power and abuse the supervision order and carry on the threats of taking us back to court because they are dissatisfied with the outcome. They don't give parents these massive of chances that you think. And I'm fed up to my back teeth of people thinking that they do, I know this because of personal involvement and involvement that family and friends have with them. This was my first child and my daughter will never get the first six months that she missed with her father. I find it disgusting how the LA have people believe every word that they say purely because that have a status. The most of them (I can't say all because there may be some good ones out there) abuse there positions and don't give parents an opportunity to be parent and that's what is not fair on the child. They should focus on getting to know the parents(again that's something they do not wish to do) and basing their judgement on the parents, rather than rumours and false allegations because that is definitely not putting a child's needs first. My DD is the centre of mine and my partners life and I can never get that six months back and it makes me crush to think of the parents who wanted nothing more than to give their child(ren) everyone they could.

The whole system needs to be reformed.

I know it's not exactly adoption related, but adoption starts with the local authority so i guess it kind of is related. Sorry for the rant it just infuriates me that people have such a gleaming opinion of the social services when I know first hand they are not all what meets the eye. I hate the fact that family courts are so secretive because when mistakes are made, there is no one to turn to because everything is bloody secretive.

I was adopted after being taken into care when very young from a neglectful and abusive mother (father not in the picture). Hopefully that gives me the dubious ‘right’ to be blunt here.

“Everything is so bloody secretive”.
As others have explained @SavanahXx , the family courts are not secretive, they're private. Do you not get that the child’s right to privacy is paramount? This “secrecy” also protects parents who have had their children taken into care - there is no public record of birth parents’ incompetency, abuse, neglect or maliciousness. Obviously mistakes are made and they may well have been in your case, but again as others have said the threshold for removing children is usually very high.

Yes birth parents should be helped - but the problems are that some will be too difficult to help, some aren't ready for the help at that point in time and some don't want or think help. I don't think I'm going out on a limb here to say that a lot of birth parents who had their children removed have a great level of self-delusion/lack of self-awareness. Which brings me on to...

As a birth mother whose child was placed for adoption I can honestly say- yes if I had of been given the help when I was begging for it the outcome would most likely have been different but the reality was I couldn’t protect myself or my son and my son was best placed with a loving protective family and I was then able to access the support I needed to protect myself.

@OurChristmasMiracle I was on dating threads with you at the time your son was removed. With respect, IMO it was blatantly clear that in practice your son wasn't your highest priority or interest at that time, to put it mildly. It's also clear from your your posts then and now that you do harbour a bit of resentment for the social workers and even the adoptive parents. Even in 2012/2013 you were wanting to complain about the Social Workers. All your 'complaints', by the way, seem to centre what you want, rather than what is best for your son. Tbh, I suspect that is relevant to why your child was removed and why your letterbox contact with him has been decreased.

There's no denying adoption by its nature is a less than ideal concept, and is flawed, hell I'll be the first to say that. But there's also no denying that in most cases, it's absolutely what is best for the child, and that no amount of pre-adoption help will turn many birth parents into halfway decent carers. The will to change has to come from within, and if deep down you don't think you need to change or don't want to, then it's not going to happen.

@MtotheG if it's not secretive, why does it say on every piece of paper that you can't disclose anything that is in the paperwork at all without permission from the courts? If things are done wrong, you should be able to use all the paperwork as proof to get justice for your family. The LA mess up too often and if the help was there in the first place, maybe things would be different, if someone chooses to put there child up for adoption, that is their choice, but I don't believe in forced adoption. Who's to say that someone won't change in a year's time? 6 months to sort yourself out is ridiculous. What if you have a MH problem? The government should not be able to decide who can and cannot be a parent, people change. But even if you change and your child gets adopted. You are not getting that child back. I believe a child should be with their birth family (if the birth family want to keep the baby) even if it's only a grandparent, cousin, aunty, the parents. I believe family should stay together.

MtotheG

Thank god someone is willing to challenge the mumsnet anti SS status quo. Most parents on mumsnet just name change. You recognize their lies later on.

Who's to say that someone won't change in a year's time? 6 months to sort yourself out is ridiculous.

Because - I know this is shocking - children's early years are fundamental to their later functioning. You can literally spend as long as you like fixing mental health issues or dealing with addiction or housing or in an abusive relationship. But children have a limited window in which to not be horrifically damaged by inadequate parenting and - shockingly again - the court is trying to help them (not you). The fact you claim not to understand that even after having gone through the family court system makes your story even more implausible.

@zweifler1 how is a child not knowing where they come from not damaging enough? Maybe they should go to extended family members till their parents sort their shit out instead of being made to be apart of a random family. Me and my daughter was placed in a mother baby foster placement and it was the stupidest place ever, the foster carer was nothing to do with my child and I didn't appreciate her acting like she was all because she was legally her foster carer. The LA lie alot so all these things you hear about the parents? Yeah alot of it is lies, I know first hand and have my own proof that they lie, s don't be too quick to judge the parents.

And btw im not saying that every single parent needs the benefit of the doubt because alot are white. But why does that mean a child should be taken away from the rest of the family. If a woman says no to having a family member having the child, then the child goes elsewhere. No one takes into account the extended family. My daughter didn't meet her extended family till she was six month old, that was really confusing for her. She went from seeing a foster carer who was quite old all day everyday, to then meeting her grandma who it took a while for her to get use to, it's silly.

The courts always look at placing the child within the extended family in every case and I know several situations where this has happened.
Only if non of the extended family want to or are unsuitable to care for the child is a placement order issued and an adoptive family sought.
Adoption is always consider the last resort by the courts.
And yes it is about the child . Parents cannot be given years and years to sort themselves out and attempt to provide adequate parenting whilst children are neglected or worse.