Woman awarded six figure payout for failed adoption

[inadequatepillow]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623we048yzo

AIBU to feel a bit uncomfortable by the tone of this article?

I agree that the council should’ve been clearer about the child’s needs. But, if she’d birthed this child, he could’ve still had the same difficulties. It’s likely she’d have had no support with this if the child was hers biologically. The waits for paeds are shocking.

It says in the article he threw a heavy paperweight at her. How did he get hold of this? Why is she blaming the child?

I feel as though she’s wanted to adopt for selfish reasons and she was disappointed that she didn’t have a perfect, meek, easy kid.

When you give birth to a child, it’s luck of the draw. My son has SEND similar to the child in the article. On days when it gets a bit much for me am I supposed to just give him up for adoption? No, because I am his mother and my job is to raise him regardless of how hard it is.

I don’t think when adopting you should be able to be so picky. The child needed a home, she wanted a kid. It’s not like going to the RSPCA and ignoring all the three legged cats…

@Smallsalt

I think the support for foster carers varies greatly depending on a lot of factors- the local authority, the age of the child, the plan for the child, the quality of the social workers.
The turnover of SWs is appalling, they don't get to know the children. My fosterling had 3 SWs in less than a year. It's the foster carers who know the kids best but you don't get listened to.
One example- I was asked to take him to meet his brother ( also in care) at a particular place. I refused on the grounds that there were safe guarding issues. I said I would be happy to meet in McDs or similar where I could supervise properly. SW would not listen and arranged for another SW to take him. It did not end well. A week after he left my care, she did the same, he ended up in A&E as a result of the brothers actions.
That is one small example, there is much worse but I can't go into that in a public forum.
I begged for this boy to have assessments, I got something approved, then he got a new SW who didn't agree and blocked it. Or there were arguments about who should pay - health or social care. So no one paid.
In desperation I said I would apply for DLA for him and use that to pay for therapy myself. I wasn't allowed to - ultimately he was not my child and I couldn't make those decisions.
I was desperate to make this work but it got to a point where I was living in my bedroom with the cat because it was the safest place to be while he screamed abuse at me for an hour at a time and started to lose his voice. We got nothing that was effective.
Since he left I have been asked to make instant decisions about 2 children. As in I was called at 10 in the morning and asked to.collect the child the same day - not for emergency care or respite, but as permanent placements. How can you make life changing decisions like that in an instant. I was also asked to take a girl in his class and another of his brothers who had also recently disrupted.
I think it's easier on one level for FCs with babies or toddlers, the plan for them is most likely adoption so any problems get passed on to adopters.

I foster over 10s, the one who just left was 13. I just get the feeling that these older kids are already written off, no one cares enough to invest in therapy, they are just in a sausage machine.
A few weeks ago I had a holiday on the Isle of Wight. We took this child there last year- same place, same flat. Before I left this year I picked up the visitors book. It happened to fall open at the page he had written in last year. He loved that holiday, he should have been with me this year. That he wasn't is really down to a catalogue of disastrous decisions made by SWs who didn't know him.

@DeerHead

I did say for most parents,

This is still a fundamental difference for adoptive parents.

But the point I was making is I’m not sure it actually does happen for most parents, the lack of rush of love is more common than you think. And for the adoptive parents I know, which is a fair few, some have felt that strong feeling before even adopting the child, others haven’t felt it for some time after the adoption has happened. Feelings towards children differs from parent to parent in all capacities

No WAY is adopting a human akin to adopting an animal for goodness sakes!

My friend adopted a child and the local authorities or whoever oversaw it drastically downplayed the child’s severe traumas.

Attachment disorder and other problems
She battled on and had a boarding school place not been found, that adoption could have broken down, too.

Many adopted children are severely traumatised.

It's not about the adult, it's about the child!
What a terrible attitude.
'You've made your bed, now you have to lie in it'. Doesn't matter how much this child is suffering in the wrong home, with an adult unable to meet their needs - tough luck, the council has washed their hands of them now.

@Ted27 Thank you for sharing your actual experiences rather than the often romanticised notion that people may have when they really don’t know what they are talking about.

Almost anyone can become a parent. But not many have what it takes to become a parent through fostering or adoption.

I have two biological children like this and I think you're being grossly unfair to this woman, and the child actually.

I listened to her interview on Woman’s Hour and felt real compassion for her. It was clearly a complex adoption and she felt underprepared and under supported. What a heartbreaking and traumatic decision. The only element of her story that I felt a bit negatively about was the compensation money. She said ‘it was never about the money’ but for awareness and answers. However, she explained that to litigate this she needed to make a claim for compensation. That to not claim compensation would be looked at poorly by the court as ‘wasting time’. And she’s ’not touched the money in over a year’ ~ ‘it’s just sitting there’

My instinct on it was if she felt this way about the compensation then you would donate to a relevant charity.

Yabu.
It's very clear fr.the article that the social workers totally fucked up here. The child had multiple complex needs and should have been placed with a highly experienced specialist foster carer with a raft of support measures. Adoption was the wrong path for this little boy - adopters are given relatively low levels of support once a child is placed anyway, and a single parent adopter without the capacity or expertise to manage this situation never had a chance.

I doubt the case will help lessons to be learned though. This happened in 2013! The boy will be a teenager now and the trauma of this failed adoption will have set him on miserable path. He's the real victim here but the pathways for holding the system accountable are not set up to bring cases like this on behalf of a child who has been totally let down by the state. It's a good thing that this woman has used the available routes to force the courts to agree that the system failed.

She still might. It’s up to her if she takes her time in deciding what to do with it. Personally I imagine she had significant costs associated with the failed adoption so don’t blame her if she choses to use the compensation for her own personal use.

The adoption authority was not truthful.

If this case had not resulted in compensation, think of the harm that would be done in future as any adoption authority could conceal known facts during the placement process.

The payout sounds valid, there seem to have been dishonesty which has harmed both a child and the adopter.

Try being an adopter and come back and say what you said from a more informed position! It's not about being "picky" it's about being aware of what you are able to cope with he needs you can meet and the adoption agency being clear and honest about he child they are looking to match you with.

I'm not sure why she's the one being blamed for not considering the child when it's the council that seems to have described adopting him as 'like winning a watch'.

She - and the child - seem to have been totally stitched up here and both deserve some compensation.

If she were to post on here asking WWYD with the money I would say that she should certainly use it first as reimbursement for all her costs including lost income - she's been fighting this for 10 years so that's going to be significant. If there's anything left over then she could share that with the little boy (now must be around 13yo) - depending on his current situation it might be better to keep it in trust for when he's an adult, or there may be something he could benefit from now. If he's grown up in care he'll have multiple disadvantages piled up on top of his already significant issues.

Read Ashley John-Baptiste's book "Looked After" for more about life as a child in care.

It isn't that common and sounds ridiculous, it is like saying I homaged or I credenced something. It may be used but god it is irritating and pretentious.

Well, I find your absence of commas in this post mildly irritating, too, but I would have refrained from commenting on it.

I think you are being VERY unreasonable. Yes it’s luck of the draw when you have your own but it’s purposefully not when you adopt. In an ideal (completely impossible) world, every parent would be vetted for their ability and willingness to take care of a child, especially a child with high needs. The perk of adoption is that you can do this and therefore place a child in a family that is optimum for them. This woman was clear that she could not take on a child with significant needs – and they have done both her and the child a horrible disservice by both disregarding that and not giving them any support.

I don’t think I’m embarrassing myself 😐I’ve read your post. My point was that it’s incredibly sad and a shame she wasn’t able to keep the child regardless as often there will be needs more than what you expect. I agree that the council were wrong because they did know. And it was a shame she still wasn’t able to keep the child. We don’t all know what we’re able to cope with until it happens.

I don’t think the council are good. They have been very, very wrong.
I can still find it very sad that she wasn’t able to cope with the child once he/she was hers.

The only thing needed to be said about this thread is that those posters with actual knowledge of adoption think the OP s comment is unreasonable, and are empathetic to what this woman went through and the impact on her poor son -both of whom should never have been put into this terrible situation by the LA @Ted27 ted27 I am an adopter who has benefited greatly from your kindness and experience on the adoption boards - thank you for all your support for other fosterers and adopters and so sorry to hear of the situation you have had that has ended in disruption. I’m sure it was very emotional seeing that visitors book.

This poor woman was essentially gaslighted by the local authorities. They failed both the adopted and adoptee with their incompetence and wilful lack of care. Op may I suggest you listen to this woman’s account (Woman’s Hour) of the hell she went through.

Comparing her story with parents of biological parents is plain silly and missing the bloody point. This child’s complex needs would have been apparent before his adoption but instead of supporting her and the child, they chose to gaslight and blame her, disgraceful.

A couple of things to remember for most mums they will do their best for their baby, stop smoking, give up alcohol, clean up their act.

For many children who end up in care, they are born with drug addiction etc. Possible FAS other issues.

Deciding to take that on as an adoption parent needs to be an open and informed decision.

The other sad thing is not only did the council cause more problems for the child, they failed to move any child out of the care system.
This was a potential mum, and family for a child. And they squandered that resource