Kids in Care

[sumum]

will you all be watching this program tonight? BBC 1 at 9pm.

Wonder if we will be portayed in a good light.

Mmm yes-it will be interesting...........

interesting could be right

OOOOH thanks Sumum didn't know this was on - that will take up this evening :)

Who's watching then.
Thought Shannon was a difficult placement for first time carers hope it works for them all.

very interesting and quite balanced really, no blame going on.

Felt sorry for the small connor having an adoption breakdown, heartbreaking.

Agree with you dolphin, difficult placement for new carers esp with no kids of their own.

And wow the emergancy carer who has done 1000+ wow.

we don't have emergancy carers here, we all just take the emergancies and keep them, sometimes for a very long time!

Yes I agree it was very balanced. We have emergancy carers. How do the police decide where to take your children out of hours then sumum.
Shannons mum was so typical of the parents we work with although to be fair at least she tried to support the SW. Shame she couldn't lead by example though.

There's a thread about this in AIBU.

Just read the other thread.

If we decide we can take emergancies and have spare bedroom we go on the edt list and can then expect calls at any time out of hours.

I have had kids at all times of night, I even had a baby once who came with no name or details as she had been found with her unconcious mum, it was three days before mum woke up and we knew her name, she was a poppet.

Yes it is a pity that many of these parents can talk the talk but not carry it through.

I am going to have to get some match sticks for my eyes tomorrow - as in Scotland it was on at 10.35 to 11.35!!! of course that doesn't explain why I am still up at 1.11am....

oh back on track - programme was great - has made me nervous as it really hit home what an enormous effect we can have on a child's life.

I don't think adoption breakdowns should be allowed. I think it should be treated as any other family, with family support workers going in, and social workers getting involved, and parenting classes happening.

You try turning up with a 2 year old biological son and saying "I'm not abusing him, I just don't really like him and he's harder work than I thought he would be" and see how far that gets you!

Once you've adopted, you should NOT be allowed to just change your bloody mind.

I've had a few of my children's adoptions break down, although they were all older kids over 5, and I think it depends on if the adoption is pre or post adoption order.

Pre adoption order I think it's pretty much as you describe colditz but after the order has been made they do try and put in family support and keep the kids with their new parents. pre order it may be that ss decides it is not working and stops it going ahead.

Adoption breakdowns are very sad and I was shocked it even happened when the first one of mine failed, but I think it's now more common than people know.

It's the reason we decided to keep the 8 year we have on long term fostering as adoption for her would have been very high risk of breakdown.

Fortunatly none of my baby or toddler adoptions have failed and there are some excellent new mummies and daddies out there with my old foster kids.

I have just watched an adoption breakdown and SS sent in FSWs etc to help but the parents didn't respond. They had been the ideal parents prior to this and then just locked down :(

I was in a meeting a few months ago about two of my FC. They are 5 and 7 and really lovely children who would IMO be ideal for adoption. The SWs decided not to go down the adoption route as over 50% of adoptions involving older children will break down. I was really shocked that the figure was so high .

We are keeping them long term now.

Personally I was shocked (though not surprised) at the placement for Shannon.

This child is an abuser of drugs and alcohol with failed placements behind her already-she is a truant and runs away consistently.My concern is that she was placed with these new foster carers as it was convenient and makes another mockery of the 'matching' system they say is in place.

I do realise that this is not an ideal world and that 'matching' is ideal but not always possible but to me this placement is almost doomed from the start which means that Shannon will then be moved yet again to goodness knows where.Which then leaves these new foster carers wondering if it was the right decision to foster at all and they will possibly lose confidence and give up entirely.

I know that I am talking about 'possibilities' here and I would love nothing better than to be proved wrong and the placement turn out to be a roaring success but........but.....but......

it feels like train smash waiting to happen and we desperately need to recruit more foster carers not scare off the ones that are already in the system.

Apologies for the slight rant ladies but I feel better already having got it off my chest.

I thought the new foster family for Shannon looked terrified... it made me wonder if we looked like that when we realised the SW was leaving!!

I was so relieved though to see at the end of the programme that it was going well... all credit to them... I think I'd have struggled to take her on for our first placement.

It was all so heartbreaking... yet real life..

To be honest, it made us very proud to be carers (I think its good that we are reminded of this when times feel tough)

p99gmb... I said exactly the same to my dh when we were watching this... shannons foster family really did look terrified lol. Felt a bit sorry for them. It was a difficult first placement, particularly for a couple who don't have children already. hope it works out for them.

It's so sad to hear about adoption breakdowns, and also that foster children can be moved on so often For a 3 year old to have had so many "homes" and been with so many families is terrible.

Yes I was shocked at that placement. You are right minnerva.

It did say the placement was going well but I wondered how long after filming that was. Think they may well have still been in the honeymoon periond.

period even.

A few of our Fc's have gone on to suffer adoptive breakdowns, without exception we have tried to tell ss that it didn't feel right, or we had concerns.

One social worker I voiced concerns to actually asked me if it was a bit of "sour grapes" as we loved the child so much. Err no, it's because we love him we want whats best for him.

The damage to self esteem thats done to these children cannot be repaired when adoptions break down

Having recently been contacted by a former placement who went through this at aged 8 and is now 18, I know he has suffered terribly for what is in effect adults making mistakes and not bloody listening

I have been reading the thread in aibu and it shows just how little the general public know about the care system and the kids we get to care for.

I have got a liitle lad who is just like the little connor, he looks delightful, he presents well for short periods but is very hard work and needs specialist adopters. Put him on tv and you would get hundreds of responses but they would not want the reality only the dream.

I also hate it when people say 'oh I could never foster, I would get too attached, I don't know how you give them up' This REALLY gets to me, like we are heartless folk who do it as a job and don't grieve when the kids move on.

Perhaps the program may have opened a few eyes.

Rant over.

Agree sumum.

We used to foster a little 3 year old who was adorable to look at. He had very unusual hair which little old ladies always felt the need to touch and comment on. When this happened his response would always be "fuck off you witch".
He was without doubt the hardest placement we ever had (including the teenagers). We were told by SWs to end the placement when he started sexually touching a young baby we also had. He went on to have two more placement breakdowns before being adopted. I don't really hold out much hope for his adoption working .
It's unbelievable how much damage parents can inflict in a short period. I think the arguement for removing more children at birth is very valid. We spend to much time worrying about the rights of parents who have already proved themselves to be inadequate.

Colditz - so you don't think adoptions should be "allowed" to break down. Hmm _ I have spent 30 years of my working life as a social worker in Fostering & Adoption and I was annoyed at your comment.

Children who are placed for adoption are always children who have been seriously abused and or neglected and the damage is done long before they get to an adoptive home. So many people under estimate that the damage done to a child (physical, social, sexual and emotional)in the first years of life, will very often continue to ause problems or the child throughout the life span. These children have learned from their birth parents that adults are not to be trusted.

I have seen many many adoptors who have struggled against all the odds to parent a damaged child. Their own children suffer, marriages often break apart and mental health problems can occur for adoptors left with a terrible sense of guilt for being unable to care for a very damaged child. You talk of the fact that you cannot surrender your own 2 year old because he's harder work than you thought - you must know that this is highly unlikely to happen but if it did, then that child would have to be cared for by relatives or the LA.

So before you condemn adoptors maybe you need to know that this a very complex thing and yes adoptions do break down because of the damage that has already been done and cannot be undone sometimes, no matter how much love and care is given by the adoptors.

Should read "will continue to cause problems for the child throughout the lifespan."

There is an old saying "you need to walk a mile is someone's shoes before you condemn"