OK OJ I do realise that sarcasm isn't helpful but I do tend to resort to this when I am very frustrated. Having spent some 25 years as a social worker and middle manager in a LA children's Services Dept., and 5 years as an independent social worker (mostly carrying out parental assessments on parents where the LA are in care proceedings) it is very frustrating to hear all this talk of "forced adoptions" and assertions made I suspect based on comments from aggrieved parents whose children have been removed from their parents by a court order. These accounts are then relayed by DM journalists and people in the "Forced Adoption" camp to provide "evidence" to support their conspiracy theory about babies being "taken" for "forced adoption." The missing part of course is the facts that are only known by the parties involved in the care proceedings and on which the Judge makes the final decision about the making of an Order or not, as these matters are quite rightly confidential.
I must take issue with you about comments you have made in your last post:
"there is a prescriptive attitude to how people should parent, that reasons to intervene are getting smaller and smaller and that whether it is the blame culture, incompetence or corruption, or a mix of all three, many adoptions should not happen that do. Systems may be set up with good intentions, but they are at the mercy of the humans that use them and people are very often corrupt."
I am assuming that it is your opinion that there is "a prescriptive attitude to how people should parent" and wonder on what basis your opinion is based. There are certain issues that need to be explored by anyone carrying out an assessment of parenting capacity and they include whether the child's needs are being met (or not) in all aspects of their development e.g. physical, emotional, educational, social etc. I can provide more detail on this if you so wish.
You then claim that "reasons to intervene are getting smaller and smaller" and I honestly don't know what you mean by this and again wonder on what basis you have formed this opinion. Social work intervention in terms of child protection can be for a variety of reasons, usually based on a referral of alleged abuse/neglect from a teacher, health visitor, relative, neighbour, anyone really - and many people want to remain anonymous, which is their right. A decision has to be made on the basis of the referral whether or not there is a need to investigate the allegation. Some referrals are vague and without any foundation and checks can be made with the school/nursery/health visitor etc and if there are no concerns then the matter is NFA'd (no further action) However social workers have a clear duty to investigate referrals that do not fit into the category I've mentioned. All social worker activity is quite rightly underpinned by legislation and the Children Act 1989 places a duty on social workers to work in partnership with parents, and this has to be the starting point, though the nature of the "partnership" will depend on the circumstances of the case. However there is also a duty to ensure that a child is not being "significantly harmed" or is "likely to suffer significant harm" (I think I gave examples of the latter term in an earlier post) so here the social worker enters the "muddy waters" of offering support to keep the family together on the one hand and ensuring that they are aware of when the concerns are increasing and it is time to take steps to protect a child, on the other hand. "Damned if they do and damned if they don't"
You comment "many adoptions shouldn't happen but do" - I don't think you are in a position to make this assertion as you are not in possession of all of the facts of a particular case, nor seen the entire court documentation (known as the court bundle) which is contained in a hefty level arch file and contains statements by all professionals involved in the case, together with statements from the parents, and anyone who makes a statement has to be cross examined as I have explained before. I think it's worth mentioning here that in all cases of care proceedings a Children's Guardian is appointed by the court (this is a social worker who is independent of the LA and employed by CAFCASS (Children and Family Court Advisory Support and Services) and their role is to carry out their own investigation of the case and they appoint a solicitor to act for the child. Believe me guardians do absolutely not always agree with the LA, and they are usually very influential in court.
I have carried out many parenting assessments commissioned by the Court as an independent social worker. This can happen if all parties and the Judge are in agreement that there is a need for such an independent report. It might interest you to know that there have been cases where I have not agreed with the LA's application for a Care/Placement Order (though this is in a minority of cases) and have obviously outlined my reasons in detail. In 3 of these cases I was not satisfied that the LA had not offered the parent(s) and child/ren the opportunity of a residential assessment and recommended that this should happen before a final decision was made.
OK I will try to answer the issues you raise:
I don't believe I have ever said that mistakes are never made - that would be naïve in the extreme. In a career spanning some 30 years I have seen social workers who are highly competent and others who are in the wrong job, and managers who lack the experience and competence to properly supervise their staff, and senior managers who unsurprisingly become divorced from the core business of social work, as their focus is on budgets etc. Of course I can see from the link you mentioned where a Judge returned children to the care of their parents, is one such case and of course the children will have been emotionally harmed and the family put through an enormous amount of distress. I did acknowledge this in another post. However mistakes are made in all organisations - medics make mistakes and people die as a result, the police make mistakes and again people die as a result, politicians make "mistakes" (the quotes are in relation to the expenses scandal) I am concerned about the fact that children are not removed early enough and are ill treated or even worse at the hands of their parents.
You are most definitely "preaching to the converted" when you talk of the scandal of children and young people being sexually abused in care homes. It is indeed a scandal and I don't believe any of us will ever really know the true horror of what happened in the past, and what was covered up and by whom, although the JS scandal has encouraged many victims to come forward. I say "in the past" because I think it is far less likely (though by no means impossible) that young people will be abused in care homes in this day and age. I can recall that sexual abuse did not really appear on the radar of social services until the mid 80s and then of course the floodgates opened, which is what happens when something hidden for generations emerges into the open. We discovered that sexual abuse was inter generational and it was very chilling - it seems strange now that we knew nothing about it for so many years.
I think children's homes in the past (often miles away from anywhere) and very little contact with their families were something of a "paedophile's paradise" especially when the Home Manager was one of the perpetrators. We now understand the profile of the paedophile and the predatory nature of these individuals. However there is no room for complacency in this respect.
Finally - and I apologise for the length of this post, I think Children's Services is in crisis due to a national shortage of experienced social workers, difficulties in recruitment and retention especially in child protection, high vacancy/sickness rates, low morale in the profession to name but a few of the problems. However I place most of the blame for this state of affairs clearly at the feet of Cameron and the Cabinet for slashing the budgets of all public services, and at the same time expecting improved services. Any fool can see that this can't be done.
Oh can I ask Spero why legal aid is being refused for parents in public law cases. I knew this was the case in private law and that is dreadful, but if it is not available in care proceedings that is indefensible. I read of one case in your CPR where a child was made subject to a Care Order but placed with parents and was subsequently removed and an application for a Placement Order was made and legal aid was refused to the parents on the basis of their financial standing. I was horrified when I read it and decided I must not have properly understood. Can you advise please?