Cameron's adoptions idea

[2old2beamum]

Our fantasic PM has decided adoption procedures must be quicker. Many of my friends and I have adopted several children with disabilities (we have adopted 8 sadly 3 have died) With the savage cuts proposed I am concerned children with disabilities will be left to stagnate in care costing far more than on benefits. (1 DS cost £5000/wk in residential care 1994)

The Adoption Action Plan is due to be announced next month.

What has been trailed so far concerns process with the aim of speeding it up generally and improving prospects for non-white children; and charities such as Barnados appear to be supporting what's been said so far.

I haven't seen anything on funding. Do you have a link?

It is hoped that in some cases, a six month process from entering the care system to adoption will be the norm.

There are issues with this. The main one is that the birth family have very little time tomake the changes needed to have residency of the children.

Originally this was going to be for families who have had previous children removed, as the family had already had been given the opportunities to make changes but hadn't.

2old- this is to stop the stagnation of children in the system,which happens at present. Sadly there is no easy answer for disabled children, thank goodness for long term foster carers.

sadly I think you are right op, I didn't think of that, but they will now be left behind

For the sake of the thread, could you explain why you think children with disabilities will be left to stagnate in care? What I heard on the radio this morning was about matching ethnicity between child and adopter.

A potential adopter has the right to pick whether they want a child with diagnosed disabilities, unless you think that they will get bored of waiting and decide that they will have a disabled child, after all, then i don't see your reasoning.

2shoes I know you get my drift I gave up a good career (senior midwife) to adopt our son) like topsy it grew.Without DLA it woold have been financially hard. With our dear lot £26000 cap we will struggle
Edith sorry no link just several old farts who have adopted multiple DC's with SN hoping to give them a loving forever family who will be financially penalised.
Birdsgottafly foster families are brilliant but I personally would die for my adopted DC's as I would my homegrown and kids know when they are with their forever family.

But there will always be a shortage of adoptive families for disabled children.
Long term fostering can work as well as adoption.

The new proposals will save money, but does come on the back of many questioning whether the system is meeting some childrens needs. The same rules shouldn't apply to all children, with very different circumstances.

Mary it is also about children waiting too long in the care system. God help if the child is black and disabled. Regarding SN children being adopted we can manage financially just manage with 5 DC's with £26000 cap thanks to pensions but many very suitable families are saying they financially would not be able to cope for one parent to be unemployed.

sadly 9and I hadn't thought of it) this will mean more disabled children without families, very sad, but the PM seems to hate disabled people so doubt he would care.
disabled children should have a family just like NT children. and tbh I am glad that anything that helps that is being pushed forward. it is just so sad to think of such vulnerable disabled children never knowing the security of a secure family life(I have met such children) but due to the cuts, who in reality could take on a disabled adoptive child.

The £26'000 cap shouldn't be happening, this along so many others means that in the long run, the propossed system will cost more.

But there is aneed to speed up adoption for some children.

I think Cameron is crazy as well as cruel. He knows not the first thing about adoption, yet sees fit to impose this 3 month thing - does he mean 3 months from when the child is removed? If so this is totally impossible and furthermore would be going against the law as the first duty of the sw is to keep families together wherever possible, and work in partnership with them and offer any support necessary (Children Act 1989). He clearly doesn't bother about legislation.

IF the child cannot be returned to the parents, then numerous assessments will take place of the parents, the chil/ren - there will by psychological assessments, psychiatric ones if there are mental health issues, and numerous reports from all kinds of professionals. These reports cannot be completed and filed in court within 3 months - utterly ridiculous.

However the facts of the matter are that there are not enough approved adoptors who are willing to take on sibling groups, older (middle years) aged children, those with disabilities and those whose have been so traumatised by their birth parents that this is manifested in very difficult behaviour. All children awaiting adoption will to a greater or lesser extent be traumatised by their birth parents by definition, and will need a great deal of patient positive parenting to attempt to learn that adults are to be trusted. Does Cameron propose to drag people in off the streets to adopt!!

As far as same race placements are concerned, i believe this to be the ideal if it is a suitable match. On balance though I think every child regardles of their ethnicity who have been ill treated by birth parents, need a loving adoptive family who understand that "love is not enough" for these children, and they need to understand how to parent a hurt child . There is often a big gap between a child's chronological age and emotional age and adoptors need to understand that these children need to regress at various times.

I think there is a case for adoptions to be speeded up but not by laying down some figure of months that is meaningless. Yes ok Barnardoes are in favour but they do not have any statutory responsibilities and don't always know what life is like at the "sharp end" for social workers with high levels of caseloads.

Cameron is busily slashing the budgets of all public services and selling off the NHS and at the same time is expecting that practice will be swift and improvements made. Does he not realise that the 2 do not go together - clearly not. Many LAs are running at 30/40% vacancy rates in the inner cities and sickness levels are at an all time high with sws off with stress related illnesses.

I think the message to Cameron is "operate brain before opening mouth"

NanaNina many families have a history of non compliance, they very rarely come for contact and All the agencies involed are I agreement the children shouldn't go back

In my view I can't see why it would in thoses cases even take 3 months

You say that
"furthermore would be going against the law as the first duty of the sw is to keep families together wherever possible"

In my view that's the whole problem with sw and courts their first duty should be to keep the child safe from abuse and negelct children are to precious for parents who have already tried and failed to be given "a go"

I do agree we're it's a parents first time on the tread mill so to speak more time needs to be taken as it might be a one off and support might help

But as you well know most of these families have 5,6 or even 7 children all removed on on the at risk register and do not have the capacity for change , we know that so why are we waisting the childrens time

We faff and pander to people who have to be paid to show up for contact, who make allergations against the carers, and who won't see child number 7 won't help matter mean while
Children sit and wait for bad parents too come good their childhood slips away
They get attachment disorders and mental health issues from parents showing when they please
While foster carers beg for support for the abused or neglected child the parents get every resource thrown at then (usually to no avail)

Whilest the child could have been adopted from the off and lead the life that is due to them

How long should a child wait for their parent to come good ?
3 months sound plenty to me espically ss have been involved for years before or the parents have had pervious children removed before

Mr Bojangles. I believe in cases you mention above you are entirely right, but this isn't always the case and surely the law should reflect and be allowed to accomodate all situations.
IMO the law should really reflect the best interests of the children and I don't think it does.

No your right at the moment the best interests of the parent and the budget of the ss are the only things taken in to account

As much as I agree with the urgent need for permanency from a child's point of view, the state must provide a failsafe process which ensures the right decisions are made. In some cases this may and should be possible within 3 or 6 months. But it seems to me to be completely dubious as to how and whether this can be made possible in all cases.

And until the "expert" witness issues in such cases have been thoroughly explored, any debate is futile IMHO, and inaction on this by Mr Cameron outright irresponsible.

The time limit is going to be 6 months and is planned for children who have had previous siblings removed and the issues haven't been rectified.

Some mothers are giving birth almost yearly and the assessments etc, still stand.

Yes ok Barnardoes are in favour but they do not have any statutory responsibilities and don't always know what life is like at the "sharp end" for social workers with high levels of caseloads.

Barnardoes is mainly staffed with ex and still working SW's, usually CP SW's and has strong statutory links.

Barnardoes and the like see more through their work because they work with the adults that have been let down by the system and also disabled people, perpitrators, etc, so have an extensive range of knowledge about what isn't working as well as it should be and are in a good position to be ableto identify what needs to change.

What is meant by the time limit has been described, and is not as described above. The alterations not to the time up to the point at which the child becomes available: that will continue to be assessed as it is now.

The new "limit" is that if a child is still waiting on a local list after 3 months, the local authorities will have to put the child on the national adoption register.

There is no need to scaremonger beyond that unless/until contradicted by the actual plan. Anyone know when that comes out?

Thanks Edith, that clarification is helpful. So as I understand it, the pressure is increasing on local authorities to speed up the process of securing an adoptive placement, once a care order has been made to place a child on the adoption register.

What remains my concern is if the process by the which care orders are made is fundementally flawed, and we are speeding up the process the other side of the care order, this doesn't seem to take into account the best interests of a child (and family) for which an erroneous decision is made in the first place.

And to push ahead with plans "post" care order, before sorting out what comes beforehand, is IMO irresponsible.

My intention is to raise awareness of this issue. I speak as someone who has witnessed and been on the receiving end of highly dubious "assessments" when offering to give a home to a child whose mother's capacity was in question, before a care order was made. The conflicting views of the "independent experts" to those who were actually involved first hand in the case, basically lead to the child being adopted without agreement, because further challenges to these assessments were not deemed to be in the children's timescale.

In the Ch4 article:
"After the death penalty the most draconian act that the state can do is remove a family's child."

The fallout and further cost to society of picking up the pieces in these situations must be taken into consideration.

adoption not care order

DontPutBeerInHisEar

The cost to child is far grater the later the are removed.

At the moment the currant situation is mum who has has various children removed has not made any changes and is not keeping up with contact is still getting costly assements when

All the agencies which can be up to 10 are all in agreement that the child should not be placed back with the parent but for some reason they are all ignored and the parenting assement is all that is held in any asteam

Children don't have years to wait for their parents to come good, we foster children who often come when babies and have every chance of being adopted but the process panders so much to the parent a decision is not made till the child are 5 or six when their chances then of being adopted are nil

Why when everyone is agreement, the quailty or quainty of the contact is nt good do we need to take 2 years to decide what we already no

That the parent is unable to make a change

Like birds said you then end up with crazy situations were mum is in court for one child whilest pregnant with another, then in court for the child she was pregnant with whilest pregnant again with another

The failure on our part is not to see some parents are just not up to the job
And to be more concerned with the adult that the child

To those who think camron is working to quickly

What shall I tell my foster children how long should they wait to be part of a forever family

In my view the child timescale is the only one which is relevant

By acting quckiley we dont just give the child a loving home we save the police, mental health, education and ss and lot of resources so the can put into family's who can make a change

MrBojangles I can to some extent understand your frustrations, and I do think there is a case for the adoption process to be speeded up, but there are issues that you will not be aware of and I will do my best to explain. I mentioned in a post that the first duty of the sw is to keep families together wherever possible and you say this is what is wrong with sws and the courts, and that the safety of children should be first, but there are cases where putting support and help into a family, it means that the child does not have to be removed. Sadly less and less of this kind of preventative work does not happen now because of the coalition slashing the budgets of all public services. It also means there are far fewer sws available to do this work. Also it has to be remembered that it is Parliament that makes the law and sws have a duty to follow legislation, and the Courts interprete the law.

Sws these days spend around 60% of their time in front of a computer screen because after the death of Victoria Climbie the govt requested that Lord Laming carry out a "serious case review" which always happens after the death of a child known to SS. In his wisdom he recommended this lengthy computer programme, which amounts to little more than box ticking (and which most sws hate with a passion) which means of course that they have far less time with the families with whom they are involved.

I know and understand why foster carers get so frustrated with long delays and I stress again that ideally a child's future should be decided by the courts sooner rather than later. However you say you can't see why it can't be done in 3 months. I don't want to be rude but I do think it's a touch arrogant to state this when you will be unaware of the reasons why it can't be done in 3 months. You talk of "faffing and pandering to parents" and I understand why you feel frustrated at this, but you need to know that a vast amount of evidence has to be presented to the court to prove that a child is being neglected/abused etc.

This means that the sw has to prove to the court that she has done everything in her power to try to keep the family together. She then has to demonstrate that lengthy assessments have been carried out on the birth parents and give evidence based reasons whythe child cannot be returned home. Then the parents will have psychological assessments, if there are mental health issues they will have psychiatric assessments, a guardian will be appointed by the court to investgate all of the circumstances and this willmean many visits and again a lengthy report to the court,and all of these assessments take time. Just to give an example it is commonplace to wait 4 or 5 weeks for a psychological assessment and then wait another 4 weeks for the reports to be filed. The sw will have around 25 cases to deal with at any one time, (I think foster carers sometimes forget this to be honest) and a limitied amount of time for each case. The guardian also will have a very heavy caseload and he/she also has a limited amount of time.

Every social worker knows that unless she has evidence of abuse/neglect and has given the parent every opportunity to be supported etc, the Judge will not make the Order. This happens rarely because the LA solicitor will ensure that the sw has done everything by the letter of the law.

Birth parents are legally represented in court and be assured that they fight their client's corner vigorously and they will jump on anything to prove to the court that the sws have not followed the legislation and Regulations. You mention paying them to attend contact and this is because if a birth parent tells their lawyer that they can't afford to get to contact, and the LA sws have not paid the fares, their lawyer will jump on that from a great height and the sw will lose credability with the judge.

Believe me sws get just as frustrated as you do with everything they have to do to prove to the court that the birth parents have been given every chance to keep in contact with their children. In some cases they will offer the parents the chance of a residential assessment especially in borderline cases, that may not meet the threshold for care proceedings. These assessments can last up to 6 weeks, so as you can see lots of weeks are passing, way way beyond the 12 weeks you speak of.

Then finally the case gets to court and the parents lawyer can ask for an independent assessor and if the judge agrees and all the parties agree an independent assessor is appointed by the court. (I worked for a LA for 23 years in CP and fostering & adoption) but after I retired I worked as a freelance social worker and I was regularly appointed as an independent assessor and this would take me another 4 weeks (dependent upon how many other cases I had on at the time) Another big delay is caused by the court timetable. County courts are stacked out with care proceedings (they have risen by approx 50% since the death of Peter Connolly) because sws are no longer prepared to take the risk of continued support for borderline cases. There is a big shortage of county court judges experienced in child care law. If a case is adjourned for any reason, youdon't get a date for 2, 3 or 4 weeks in the future, the case goes back to the beginning and the new court date is 6 months down the line.

I do think that decisions should be made earlier - there has to come a time when there is a realisation that with the best will in the world the child is never going to be safe in the care of the birthparents. I think some sws try for too long before saying "enough is enough" but I have tried to demonstrate why things take so long and why sws appear to be pandering to the birth parents. It is commonplace for a sw to be cross examined by the lawyer for the parents for 3 + hours and he/she is trying to trip the sw up the whole time to discredit them and show the judge that they have not acted fairly. This is the reason why sws have to be so so careful of ensuring that they cannot be faulted in court.

Sorry this is so long but it's a complex issue and I hope I have been able to give some of the reasons for the delays.

Thank you nananina for explaining so well in a nutshell, the processes and timescales involved with childcare proceedings.

I too wish to acknowledge to the frustrations of everyone involved in these cases, and you provide a very good perspective on the complexities of the issues involved. I don't think it is any wonder that we are now hearing directly from a highly respected and accredited Family Court Judge about these issues. How rare is it that we hear a judge speak out?

You also explain very clearly how difficult it is also for a sw to be on the receiving end of a cross examination by a lawyer who's aim is to trip them up, and discredit them in front of the judge. I accept this is an incredibly challenging aspect of a sw job.

I would also like to add that under the current system, this is also what is faced by a birth parent. And please for a moment consider what this must be like for a loving parent whose children have never actually suffered any harm in their care; but who may well be a vulnerable adult whose medical condition makes parenting alone an impossible task, and therefore meeting the threshold criteria for childcare proceedings.

They will also be on the receiving end of a lawyer (probably much higher calibre and ranking than one obtainable on legal aid) who is trying to trip them up and discredit their abilities in front of a judge; representing a local authority which is pressured into trying everything in their power to meet adoption targets (and they hold much more power than one individual birth parent). It can feel like they are being tried in a criminal court.

If you also add into the mix a bunch of "independent expert" reports which don't do an adequate job, and as yet are not held to account, we can see that sometimes children and birth parents can needlessly carry the can of a life sentence apart.

There needs to be a strong voice for the minority of cases where children are not helped by the way the current system is run, either by their remaining in with a family when they shouldn't be, or being removed unnecessarily. In my book, either outcome is traumatic and abhorent, and we need to start as a society as a whole, to acknowledge that with the best will in the world, both outcomes do sometimes happen.

Nananina - I don't understand why residential assessments aren't more common place and available much earlier on - is this simply a budget issue? Would it not make huge savings against the costs of lengthy legal childcare proceedings?