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)

Nananina:

"I note your para about the parent who is loving and caring but whose medical condition prevents them from caring for the child. To be honest I think this kind of situation is highly unlikely to end up as a contested case in care proceedings. It does of course depend on what the medical condition is, but the wording of the legislation in relation to removal of children against the wishes of the parents states "The child must be suffering from significant harm, or likely to suffer significant harm" (the likely bit is there to cover cases where several other children have been ill treated by the parents or someone with a severe enduring non-treatable psychiatric disorder e.g. personality disorder, or parents with severe Learning Difficulties)"

Unfortunately in the case I know about it did end up in contested care proceedings, and yes it is rare (but this is to some extent my point). I do not wish to reveal too much, but the assessments carried out during proceedings contradicted each other, and more importantly (IMO) the opinions of the actual specialists who had been involved with the care of the mother for years.

In order to challenge any of this (because there is no independent body to hold ss to account) it has to go back to court twice (once to hear the outcome of assessment where the case can be put to challenge, then again to hear from the assessors their side). Needless to say not in the child's timescale and poof, off they went into the sunset.

Mother and baby placements in foster setting - wow, now that takes some setting up, and some seriously special people to want to be able to provide that kind of placement. I wonder what kind of training and support a foster parent receives in doing that?

In cases where there is a diagnosed mental health problem, woud they have any kind of specialist knowledge to be able to fully understand the issues involved?

To this day I still have not fathomed out whether those in adult mental health know more or less than children and families teams about the effects of mental ill health on parenting, and what happens if there is a conflict of opinion. Are you (or anyone else) able to shine a light on this aspect?

That's an interesting link DPBIHE - maybe OFSTED have learned to consult widely, since they were heavily criticised in the Peter Connelly case. Just a few months before the child's death OFSTED's inspection of the London Borough of Haringay found the service to be good (quite a high category, as the lowest grading is "inadequate/not fit for purpose (means the relevant LA dept are put under "special measures") or deemed to be good or outstanding. When the case was investigated it was shown that OFSTED had carried out their inspection as a paper exercise only. I'm not totally sure but I think the Chief Exec of OFSTED was replaced.

It's a pity Cameron did not carry out any consultation with Directors of Social Services (who would have passed him on to professionals in the field of adoption and fostering) and learned some of the realities of the complexities of placing children for adoption, before plucking this 3 month figure out of what I think must have been thin air!

Yes - some of JH's posts on Adoption threads have been truly shocking and all the more so because he is an MP. He has a huge axe to grind against social services (I do know the reason and if you are interested I will PM you). The irony here is that he has waded in to criticise malpractice in the courts, and yet he advises parents to be represented in court by one of his untrainedvolunteers rather than a fully qualified lawyer. Special permission had to be granted by the court for this to happen. He claims to have 30+ volunteers working his "organisation"

I honestly think that the people who are being exploited here are the birthparents he "assists"- many of these people who will be clutching at straws will think because he is an MP he will be able to help them, and that is just not the case. An MP has no more rights to be present in the County Courts than you or I. The only way he can get into court is by representing the parents himself (IF the court gives permission) and as far as I know he has not done this, or being a "McKenzie" friend. I forget the legal precedent that made this possible, but it means that a birthparent can have with them a friend or relative to give them moral support. The McK friend has no right to a "voice" meaning he can only speak if asked a direct question by the judge and can make notes and if necessary pass them to the birthparents. I imagine that when he was ordered out of the court by the judge in the Birmingham County Court he did not stick to these restrictions.

I think you mentioned the possibility of recourse to the emerging malpractice in the sense that it had been discovered that a significant number of psychologists commissed by LA SSD (and paid from SSD budgets) did not have the requisite qualifications to undertake this important work in care proceedings, and some were completely unqualified. The thing is (as I have already outlined I think) the psychologist report is just one in a significant number of other reports (dependent upon the circumstances) and so a case brought by the LA does not stand or fall on the psychologists report alone.

Also the LA sw or the guardian can argue against the psychologists reports in their own reports if they so wish. I certainly did this in one case in which I was involved as an independent social worker - I simply could not believe how gullible she had been, and her recommendation to the court was not followed. The psychologist was cross examined for 2.5 hours by a barrister for the LA and she more or less fell to pieces in the witness box and she had a PHd FGS!! She was recommending that a g/mthr should be allowed to care for her grandson who was in foster care. I did the a/ment on the gr/mthr and there wasn't a hope in hell I could give a positive recommendation. Without going into the case in any detail, the gr/mthr had recently served a 4 month custodial sentence and had 35+ offences for all sorts of criminal activity. All of her own children had been in care for significant parts of their childhood. The psychologist was recommending a residential a/ment for g/mthr and child at a centre in Devon - and guess who was the Director of the Centre - yes, you've got it the psychologist!!

I honestly don't know the exact problem with these reports by psychologists but it could be something to do with the way they evaluate their evidence to support a recommendation, often by the use of psychocemtric testing involving mathematical principles. I have often read psychologist's reports and have thought "yes can't disagree but surely the sw could have written this" and when I was in practice some years ago, we didn't commission pyschologist's reports. We made out the case ourselves to inform our recommendation.

I had better stop - I'm putting off washing the floors!!

Our posts have crossed and I can't answer yours now, but will do so later.

and yet he advises parents to be represented in court by one of his
untrainedvolunteers rather than a fully qualified lawyer.
This is perhaps the most important untruth in what you say.

I know that there are some good lawyers out there. I advise people to use them. I also know (because I was told by social workers) that there are lawyers who act to undermine the parents (even if in theory instructed by them).

At times people cannot get legal aid. Hence to do an appeal and get a case to the European Court of Human Rights requires the assistance of a Mackenzie Friend.

It is also difficult at times to change lawyers because the legal aid will not transfer. Hence if your solicitor is not doing what you want you have to sack the solicitor and go LIP.

The best solution, however, is an honest lawyer. There are honest lawyers.

What is intolerable and frustrating is that the system is a complete mess, and whilst we can all accept the various excuses such as huge case loads, cut budgets etc it does not help the child that is caught up somewhere among it all, sometimes with needs and problems that are not being dealt with or even acknowledged. Cameron's policy to meddle with an already overstretched system does no one any favours at all, my LA children's services have had there budget slashed by 2.9 million for 2012, whilst in the same breath record levels of children were brought into care in January 2012---err sorry what school did Mr Cameron go to ?

If this were a consumer goods you would return it the store as " not fit for purpose"

I agree childatheart.

Sadly it seems the most vulnerable in our society again fall to the bottom of the pile

O gawd.

JH ~ who are these lawyers who 'act to undermine' parents even though in theory instructed by them?

What on earth does that even mean? There are certainly issues that need to be debated about the system. You help nobody when you toss around allegations that stem from your own consipiracy theories.

If I am paid to represent parents, I represent parents. They may have a crap case. I do my best. I certainly don't lie to them and tell them it will all be ok. I tell them we will have a mountain to climb, but we will do what we can.

Is that what you mean by undermining??

And WHAT are you doing complaining about adoptions taking so long? I thought you didn't think they should happen at all becauase they only come about to fit some deranged quota fantasy.

'working from home'. I really should have a word with myself.

NanaNina - I think that whenever we try to engage with JH on a thread like this we are living proof of Einstein's famous saying - the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I expect he will pop up in ten minutes or so, making an unrelated point. Maybe that Vicky Haigh is much misunderstood young lady.

I really ought to dust off my JH Bingo cards so at least these threads would have a modicum of purpose.

Here you go NanaNina www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed1283

FWIW I don't think psychological reports are that helpful in family cases. If a parent cannot meet a child's most basic needs for warmth, food and clean clothes I don't need a psychologist to tell me that this parent is unlikely to turn things around within a suitable time for a child.

In cases which are less stark, psychologists can give some useful insights into why parents are finding it hard and what they can do to improve their parenting - BUT as these recommendations are almost invariably 6-12 months of some kind of therapy and as no one will pay for it, the case rather grinds to a halt shortly thereafter.

'the PM seems to hate disabled people so doubt he would care. '

What a horrid thing to say about someone whose own disabled child, much-loved, died just a few years ago.

Are you saying he hated his own son?

Your post spero made me smile (a lot) I hadn't heard that quote from Einstein but it is very apt. Yes I'm sure he will pop up soon with some random comment. The only good thing I can say about him is that he is completely impervious to criticism.

I am in complete agreement with you about psychologists' reports usually recommending long term therapy (as though to sugar the pill) knowing as you say that the LA or anyone else is going to pay around £50 per hour, and the sad fact is that some of these parents who have been traumatised in their own children could have therapy for years but would still be unable to keep their own child safe.

Thanks for the link. I will invite others on the thread to access it. I think the more people who know that he talks patent nonsense the better.

My husband and I have entered the adoption process 16 months ago. They keep on messing us about, delaying the panel date and in general showing a level of incompetence and slowness I've never met before. We have been tempted to leave the process a few times, but we're sticking to it because we want to give an older child or siblings a chance in life. The approval process should take 8 months. Why aren't LA who fail this fined or social workers be given formal warnings? We dared express our disappointment, we've been delayed more and told we like to be in control and are sticklers for detail. So many people don't come forward or give up because the whole process is a nightmare. Forgot to mention: we're married, very stable, have our house,I will be able to look after the children full time, we have an excellent network of friends and family, iwe've always made ourselves available for the home visits, in other words, we're an easy couple. And people wonder why so few adoptions?

Probably going somewhat off topic here but have been reading this thread and followed the link Spero gave to family law week. I have been reading through the site and it has made for disturbing reading as to the actions of Social Services.

This is just from one case

This family had six children removed! (later all but one were returned)

"In contrast, the factual evidence of the parents' behaviour was largely positive. The allegations of criticised conduct were described as largely trivial. There was a complete absence of some of the common features of harm and abuse which is was noted often characterise cases of this kind: the parents had been an established couple for 10 year; father is the parent of all the children; he is a hard working man with a decent employment history; no history of drug and alcohol abuse; no history of significant violence; no sign of the children being disturbed or misbehaved or out of control; no hint of sexualised behaviour; no question of dangerous visitors; the house is adequately care for, clean and looked after; the children are well enough fed; neither parents has been in any trouble with the police. There was positive evidence from an independent social worker, the parents self-referred to Home-Start and engaged successfully; father accepted counselling; and the health visitor's evidence was entirely positive.

{The local authority's case was ] ... The younger two, it said, should be adopted and the elder four should live in long term fostering, permanently separated from their parents and with only minimal, in effect identity, contact with them. (!!!!)

On 18 January 2010 the local authority again peremptorily removed the children from home, again arriving with the support of a number of policemen. There was a thoroughly regrettable scene with the children being wrestled away from mother. It was at a stage when the two little girls were both being breast fed and one of them may have been being breast fed at the time. The occasion for this removal was that on that same day the little boy, M, had gone to school and had been seen to have a red mark on his neck which looked as if it might be a scratch or perhaps a carpet burn. When he was asked about it he said that his mother had done it and that she wanted him dead. The medical examination of the mark was inconclusive. The judge in due course heard all the evidence and concluded that mother had not hit M nor caused the mark.

It has to be said that this followed the earlier peremptory removal on equally slender grounds in January 2009.

In those various circumstances the judge's powerful criticism of the removal in January 2010 was merited. He was also highly critical of a particular assistant social worker who had told the children's school in December 2008 that the guardian "wants the children removed from the parents". That observation the judge described, expressing his regret at having to do so, as a "flat lie"...That is because there was an obvious danger that it might induce the school to view the case from the wrong standpoint, might induce it to assume that the position at home was much worse than it actually was and might lead to it being treated as an invitation to provide evidence to support a conclusion which had already been arrived at in principle, when it had not.

Imagine if the adoption process was speeded up, this poor family would have unjustly lost their two younger children.

Doesn't bear thinking about

Sabrina I can understand your frustration and it is unfair of them to "keep on messing you about" and delaying the panel date. However I think possibly you are unaware of some of the major difficulties for LA social workers. I spent 30 years of my life as a LA sw and tm mgr for a Fostering & Adoption team and retired 8 years ago. I worked for a shire county and we were able to keep on top of the work. However I know from ex colleagues that things are very different now. Nationally all Social Services dept are significantly under-resourced. I don't know where you are, but some of the inner cities SSDs are running at 30/40% vacancy rates, and around 20% in the shire counties. This coalition are busy slashing the budgets of all public services, which of course exacerbates the problem, because the vacant posts cannot be advertised, because there isn't the money in the budget - so the posts are "frozen" Your social worker is probably overloaded with work or she could be incompetent or both.

I find your comments about "fining LAs" and giving social workers "final warnings" very worrying. Social workers are accountable to managers and there is a chain of hierarchy as in all other large organisations, and if there is concern over a social worker's practice it is dealt with in line with the disciplinary framework.

To be honest I think if you jump to conclusions like this you will probably find working with social services most unsatisfactory and maybe those disatisfactions will outweigh any pleasure you get from fostering children.

You can in fact make a written complaint about your social worker to her manager. This is the first stage in the complaints procedure that is freely available to anyone on request, and you will note the stages that have to be undertaken in respect of your complaint. I can understand that you might not want to do this, but I think it is only fair to the sw and yourselves to take such action and then if she is found to be incompetent, the necessary disciplinary steps will be taken.

Nananina, thanks for your message. Of course it'd be difficult to write something without all the details, but thanks for trying. We did complain to their boss and, surprisingly, he tried to stick by them. They lied to us from day one in terms of how the process would proceed etc. and in general they have been ignoring our pleads for time management, which they admitted to and said they're sorry. They can say sorry to our future kids when they will have spent an extra 8 months in care. I understand that there might be difficulties, but your attitude to blame others, just like they blame my 'attention to detail' for their mismanagement, just doesn't help the kids. They told us that the home visits need to be every fortnight, while with other people they did weekly. They took references just Weeks away from panel date, when they had months to do that, they wanted to arrange a'quick' second opinion visit the day before panel! And they had 2 months time after the last home visit! They gave us the report less than 4 Weeks before panel date and expected it back within 9 days, while the policy is 2 Weeks. Do I need to carry on or do you want to continue defending them just because you're an ex SW? I could add so many things that if they had been in the private sector they would have got the sack!

Hi sabrina,i can really understand what you are saying about the adoption process being so longwinded and frustrating BUT dont give up!I felt exactly like you i really did.
However we kept going and jumped every bloody hoop they put in front of us.Sometimes it makes you feel like SS are making it difficult to test you but i dont think it is that simple.
We have a beautiful adopted ds-worth all the emotional ups and downs.

Hi DPBIHE (only just realised it rhymes!)The case that you outline though rare makes for ver sad reading. You mention a number of court hearings and this is quite usual. Some of them will be Directions Hearing (so that the judge can ensure that the professionals are keeping up to date with the court timetable and that the final hearing can go forward as planned.)

You ask about mother and baby placements and we did run such a scheme in the LA where I worked. It was however run as a pilot and was very small. We did not advertise for these carers but asked existing carers if they might be interested. Several carers were interested, but like anything else in life, some carers were better than others and we had the advantage of knowing who were most suitable. We had 3 families and did a short preparation group with them, and invited in health visitors, social workers for the children, fostering social workers, and a birthparent who had managed to keep her child following a very successful residential placement for her and her baby.

We were very careful to ensure that we were crystal clear about the specific tasks that we wanted of the families, so that they were clear from the outset. This may seem obvious but we had seen a similar scheme breakdown because of a lack of clarity about what was expected and the ensuing conflict between sws and foster carers.

There were positives and negatives to the scheme. Unsurprisingly the most successful placements were where the mother and foster carers got along well and the process was collaborative. The negatives were similar in a way to what happened in residential placements, in that the mom (usually young and emotionally immature) resented someone monitoring their care of the child and cleared off leaving the baby in the placement. However when we evaluated the scheme we were able to demonstrate more positives than negatives. One family dropped out and the remaining two were still taking placements up until the time I retired.

You ask about mental health issues. To be honest we were very careful who we placed with these foster carers as initially we needed to see how it would work with less challenging cases, so we did not place mothers with serious mental health issues, though of course they all had emotional problems.

You ask about adult mental health workers v children's social workers. I think that the former are more adult focussed and obviously have an expertise in mental health, and the latter have more of an understanding of child protection issues. I don't think it's a case of "who is the better" I think it is a case of the 2 social workers sharing their knowledge and expertise, with a willingness to do their best to understand each other's position. I think this is the only way forward to be honest.

Thanks Monicamary, we won't give up, we will be parents. I'm just so heartbroken that children's destinies are sometimes in the hands of such incompetent people. We're strong and we have each other. Kids are defenceless and dependent on adults' choices.

No it doesn't bear thinking about squashedbanana. And what do we hear about the cases where this has happened unjustly? How in hell's teeth do you fight something like that.

The sad thing is, in amongst the good practice that does go on out there, I expect it often takes having a judge actually see all the evidence before him/her, and a guardian ad litem, before a birth family actually feels listened to without prejudice.

Before this stage literally anything and everything said and done can feel twisted to suit the LA's agenda.

And I am sorry NanaNina but in my experience, questionable reports can also come from "independent social workers".

I am aware of a case where such a professional did not even take the time to read the relevant court papers in preparation for making an assessment, declaring they like to "make up their own mind" (clearly based on what they are gleaning from whoever hires them and the snapshot of who they are assessing!!!).

Unbelievable.

Sorry nananina - x posts!
Will need a mo to absorb your points, thanks for replying

squashed banana - there are cases where SW get it very badly wrong. And there are cases where they don't act quickly enough and children are hurt or die.

It must be one of the hardest job in the world.

I hope you can feel some reassurance that when the SW do screw up, the court system does work to investigate and to curb any abuse of power. But JH and his ilk would have you believe that the entire system is corrupt and all lawyers who act in it are simply LA puppets.

I would urge anyone worried about the system to actually go and read the various judgments on Family Law Week rather than taking on board the weird conspiracy theories of JH et al.

I hope you will be reassured that the Judges take their jobs very seriously, listen to all the evidence and engage with it. The parents too are represented by lawyers who do a good job.

I don't excuse the failings in the system and I don't deny they exist. But they are NOT the result of some grand conspiracy to snatch babies from loving, competent parents. I defy anyone to spend half an hour on the Family Law site and still think that.

I don't have the time to respond to all the rubbish from Spero and Nananina. What we are getting now is clear evidence that what I have said for years is true. The regulators are finally after real struggle being forced to take action about the experts to get paid to talk nonsense in the family courts.

This could have happened a lot faster had the judges permitted the use of the evidence at an earlier stage.

There are good people working in the system, but over all it has a lot of complacency and dishonesty. In the end it is the children that suffer.

Let me help you out then JH.

Just respond to a little bit of my rubbish?

What did you mean by lawyers who represent parents yet undermine them?

As a seasoned politician, I am sure you don't need me to point out that if you continue to refuse to engage with reasonable questions from others, you start to lose credibility on all issues.