UK forced adoptions of foreign nationals

[Hummingbirds]

This is sick! How come in Slovakia the media has reported on this extensively and they've had demonstrations outside the British embassy yet here in the UK there's been almost total silence? With a few honourable exceptions including journalist Christopher Booker and MP John Hemming.

"... The case that goes to the Appeal Court this week concerns two young boys, Slovakian subjects, whose parents have lived and worked in Britain since their country joined the EU in 2004. Two years ago, when the parents took one of their sons to hospital to enquire about a minor infection, social workers were alerted that it might be the result of a 'non-accidental injury'. The boys were put into the temporary care of the family's American pastor, who describes how social workers then arrived with three police cars to remove the children, screaming as they were torn from their horrified mother and grandmother, to an official foster home.

"Thus began a protracted legal battle, involving many court hearings, four different social workers, seven 'expert' doctors and psychologists, 16 interpreters, 13 different 'contact supervisors' and dozens of lawyers. Initially the local authority seemed happy to contemplate that the children might be returned to live with their grandmother in Slovakia, but the social workers of a council that advertises its enthusiasm for adoption on its website then suggested to the foster carers that they might like to adopt the boys.

"By now the Slovak authorities were involved and could see no reason why the children should not come back to live with their grandmother. But earlier this year a judge found in favour of the council, ruling, to the astonishment of the Slovak authorities, that the boys should be adopted."

"The case has attracted widespread media interest in Slovakia, and the Slovak justice ministry has posted on its website a 'Declaration on adoption of Slovak children in the UK', stating that it has such 'serious concern' over the workings of Britain's 'family protection' system, and the readiness of the British authorities to remove children from their 'biological parents' for 'no sound reason', that its representative on the ECHR plans to challenge the legality of Britain's policy in Strasbourg."

"... the Slovak media claim to know of some 30 other Slovak children taken from their parents."

Read the full Telegraph article

And incidentally, speaking from my own experiences of being investigated by various authorities on more than one occasion, I have never felt that being middle class and well educated was to my disadvantage, regardless of the background of the investigating official.

In fact, I have often wondered how I could have coped and could have got people to listen if I had been a 19yo working class girl with little confidence in my own standing and no training in how to express myself. I am convinced I talked my way out of that hospital, I talked dd out SS intervention, I talked her way into a school that would support her and believe her. Whoever is disadvantaged I don't think it's people like me.

In those cases I would argue that the damage done through potentially removing children where that might be in doubt is worse than that done by removing children where it has been done. Most children in care are more likely to end up in prison than university.

I agree some parents are pretty nasty to their chidlren. I suspect is you took any of us over our lives as parents you could pluck a few things out as grounds to rem ove the children and that is very worrying for a lot of parents.

If the basic rule were is the child fed, kept warm and not physically abused and concentrate on those cases there may be more fairness but I need to work now and I am just an interested outsider and mother.

I was just encouraging John H and others like him.

But if JH keeps losing cases, is he saying that judges keep getting it wrong?

Xenia, do you have any personal experience of adoption or fostering?

"Most children in care are more likely to end up in prison than university".
How do you know that the number wouldnt be a lot higher, if they were left with their emotionally abusive parents?

"Most children in care are more likely to end up in prison than university."

And this is a reason to ban adoptions? [hmm}

Xenia Wed 21-Nov-12 11:55:25

"I agree some parents are pretty nasty to their chidlren. I suspect is you took any of us over our lives as parents you could pluck a few things out as grounds to rem ove the children and that is very worrying for a lot of parents"

I repeat that this has not been my experience of how SS work. We have been investigated repeatedly, on the first occasion because a paediatrician misdiagnosed dd's medical condition as psychosomatic and likely to have been caused by abuse, on the second and third occasion called in by dd's HT, who was unhappy with dd's attendance record and our criticism of the school's failure to provide disabled access and inclined to believe we were faking or exaggerating dd's disability.

At no stage did I find SS at all interested in plucking out a few aspects of ordinary parenting as grounds for removing dd- and I am sure they could have found plenty of ordinary parenting issues, not to mention mildly odd or eccentric aspects, about us if they'd tried. Their only concern was to establish whether dd was being harmed.

And I don't think you could argue with the contention that if we had deliberately been denying dd an education and chances to socialise because we wanted to think of her as ill, then that would have constituted harm.

If we had kept her in a wheelchair when there was no physical reason, wasting her muscles and denying her healthy exercise, then that would have constituted harm.

If we had brought her up to think she was ill and unable to cope when that was not true, and if her present state of health anxiety and depression (for which she is on constant medication) had been our doing, then that would certainly have constituted harm.

But once SS had established that this was not happening, they were not going to hang around looking for insignificant departures from ideal parenting.

I very much doubt that you could find any grounds to remove a child from most parents, based on my experiences. You would find many homes whre you could find many valid grounds for removal but not meet the threshold for going into care

I read a social worker commenting online who said they went into a house which was filthy with dog poo over the childs bed (and child expected to sleep in it) and was told by their manager that that in no way proves neglect. I suspect this is very common

Emotional abuse nearly always occurs with other abuse, but we must recognise that in and of itself it can be extremely damaging. We aren't talking daily mail-esque mother might shout at children in the future, we are talking a child being bullied day in day out eg. 'worthless...', 'I wish I got an abortion', 'you don't deserve to live', 'I hate you', 'no one could ever love you', and that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Parents favouring one child to the extent they blatantly ignore and belittle one whilst praising the other and giving them nice things all the time. Parents taking drugs in front of their children, parents taking their children to drug dens and staying there with them, parents beating each other up in front of the children, parents controlling their child completely, parents forcing their child to do very degrading things. This all comes under the banner of emotional abuse. Some of that is very common in child protection, especially drugs and domestic violence. I think people percieve emotional abuse to be just about words. The effects can be life long and damaging. Very poor self esteem, stunted development, self abuse and so on

Most children in care are more likely to end up in prison than university".
How do you know that the number wouldnt be a lot higher, if they were left with their emotionally abusive parents?

Because we have data to prove it. Please read the study I linked to earlier in this thread. Children, on average, are far better off being left with neglectful, somewhat abusive parents (not talking about life-threatening violence or sexual abuse), than foster care. There are less likely to be delinquent and more likely to be better off financially when they grow up.

We need to be more focused on collecting and analysing outcomes data to understand the consequences of our child 'protection' policies. Science and data, not emotions and facile cultural judgements should govern how we deal with children in less than ideal family environments.

Lilka, even in the cases you suggest, it is likely that the children would be better off with their parents, than foster care.

Please do link to the data that shows positive outcomes for children left in abusive homes.

Xenia, I recall on a thread where a woman wanted advice about retraining for the Bar, you were quite scornful about women who wanted to go into family law, 'low paid ghetto' I think you called it.

Is that still your view? Just interested where you think these 1,000 of crusaders are going to come from seeing that you have such a poor opinion of the importance of the work donein this field.

Spero, please see the link I posted earlier in the thread. Like I said, decisions should be made based on outcomes data for children, not emotions and moral judgements.

Back to my earlier question -in the US there is a lot of data, especially outcomes data collected to evaluate child protection programmes. What is being done in the UK? How do we know social services are effective and that the children are better off based on the decisions made on their behalf?

However imperfect or incomplete data might be, it is a far superior guide to govern policies, as compared to secret courts and an opaque social service system.

Flatbread, what about medical abuse of the kind we were suspected of? Would dd have been better off if exposed to that? Or what about the case of the asthmatic girl Spero linked to in her 19.02 post on 18 November?

That was a little girl who was denied a normal childhood because of the way the parents handled her (relatively minor) medical condition. It was impossible to re-train the parents to do it correctly as they did not listen to advice and consistently lied to the medical professionals about what they were doing. They were constantly trying to get her admitted to hospital (50 hospital admissions in 6 years including 22 by night by ambulance!) and claiming that she didn't respond to the treatment (because they didn't give it to her). In the end, her whole life centered around her medical condition and her social development was badly affected.

Once she was placed with her grandparents, she was able to resume a normal life, access education and participate in ordinary children's activities.

Are you really saying she would have been better off being left on heavy medication and with regular ambulance calls made by her hysterical parents? Being made to believe that she had a dangerous illness that could not be treated?

What would her chances have been of growing up leading a normal life unless something changed? And as it proved impossible to get her parents to change, how else could things change for her?

I know that false accusations of Munchausen are banded about. I have good reason to know that. But that doesn't prove it never happens.

Lord McAlpine's name was cleared. He was innocent. That doesn't prove that paedophilia doesn't exist, nor that everybody who is accused of paedophilia is innocent.

I think many of those children are better off in care. A parent who is constantly high on drugs, passed out, leaving their child in the supervision of other strangers and addicts who could be anyone, not providing the child with enough food or a predictable safe home to live in, not engaging with them, not bothering to provide them with an education....I can't believe we would expect the children of this country to live in such horrid conditions. We wouldn't leave a dog there for 5 minutes. Children's attachments to their parents are important, but their overall wellbeing is more important. One of my best friends is a foster carer and it's heartwarming to see the progress her LO's make in her loving care, going from children with drug withdrawal, serious developmental delays, withdrawn, aggresive etc, to children who, whilst they will always carry the scars of poor care, are in many ways unrecognisable compared to the children they were before

The difficulty with parents who have not committed actual physical abuse but are e.g. heavy drug users is that by the time SS's fears that they would be unable to keep their child safe have been justified, it may well be too late.

A 4yo who is left to play in the street at midnight may not show any signs of actual physical abuse- but he's not terribly safe either. A child left unsupervised in a house where drugs and needles are lying around may not come to any harm, he may be luckly, but you won't know until afterwards.

I think many of those children are better off in care

Lilka, it doesn't really matter what you and I think. What matters are outcomes data, imperfect as they might be.

Anecdotes and good intentions should not drive policy. Child welfare policies and decisions should only be made based on outcomes evidence, analysed over large samples and time periods.

And this data should be openly available (names protected) to researchers to conduct analysis and an open debate to guide policies

Firstly, thank you to everyone for offering their perspectives on this thread. I personally am finding it very interesting reading all your contributions. Having said that, I continue to believe that one of the most deeply damaging things you could ever do to a child is to remove them from their mother or father. Of course there are extreme situations where it has to be done, no one is suggesting otherwise.

On a personal note, I remember very vividly what it felt like to be a child. I remember how all of us children were rarely listened to by adults. We perceived adults as tyrants, really.

So to the poster who, several pages ago, asked me if children whose parents had subjected them to horrific, criminal abuse should be allowed to maintain contact with the parent: yes, I think the child should always have that basic right of contact with their natural parents. Of course, if the child doesn't want to, then that should be respected, too.

Regarding Fran Lyon, I read the article linked to. It shed no new light, though, on the SS's appalling behaviour.

Panorama had a very interesting programme (available on Youtube): 'The Truth about Adoption.' An illuminating peek into the child protection, fostering and adoption system. What emerged for me was how deeply these children are damaged by removal from their parents. Most of them spend years essentially parentless and homeless in foster care. Surely if the 400-odd pounds per week given to the foster parents could be redirected towards support services for the natural parents, many removals could be avoided?

Lastly, Spero -- I think you are misrepresenting John Hemming's arguments. If a specialist is receiving work from the local authorities, then they are more likely to be subtly swayed by that; it is not necessarily a case of pure, conscious corruption. I've seen, in a professional capacity, all sorts of situations where that kind of subtle sway has been at work. In a nutshell, nine out of ten people will feel a tug of loyalty towards the hand that feeds them.

Spero, thank you for the link to the Guardian article. The judges referred to in the article, though, are effectively suggesting the very thing that John Hemming has been saying all along: that there is indeed an agenda at play. And one that is not being driven by the welfare of the children.

One difficulty, Hummingbird, seems to be to me in the case where a parent uses contact to reinforce damaging ideas. For instance, a parent who insists that only s/he can protect her child from a dangerous illness or sexual abuse when it has been clearly proved that no such illness/abuse exists, whose child is now in recovery and beginning to lead a normal life, but whose parent uses all the contact time to tell the child that she is in danger from her carers. Or a parent who has been abusive telling a child that they've done no harm and that SS have stolen her.

I don't think any of us are in favour of willy-nilly removals.

But then we don't all believe that willy-nilly removals are a great problem. I for one do not believe it- and if you have read my former posts you will see that we are a family who would have a lot to fear from reckless action by SS. It would have been very easy to make up a case against us if that had really been their agenda.

I am finding this debate interesting because I am seeing things from the other side here. When we were first suspected I was terribly hurt and angry and could really only think of how horrible people were to us. After years of living with what dd has to go through, I've come round to thinking that if there had been any way of stopping it, then that would have had to be done. If I could cure her by jumping off a cliff, I'd do it. If she could be cured by going into care, then she should do it. It's only because I genuinely believe we are the best option for her that I would think another investigation wrong.

Spero, did Xenia really say that?
whoa.
She wants the work done but doesnt want to do it herself.
She wanted a lot of her childcare done by someone else, and then makes degrading comments about their profession.
She wants women, or actually maybe men to go into family law in case she needs them at a later date. But then makes degrading comments about them as well.

Hummingbird, I have been reading this with interest, but as a foster carer, let me enlighten you.

Many (most) foster carers do not get paid "£400 odd" a week for looking after children.

Those that do are 'earning' less than £2.50 an hour.

There has to be a line drawn as to what is an 'acceptable' risk of harm to a child from leaving them with their birth parent/s and the alternative, which would be placing them with a foster family.

There are plenty of people fighting over the pencil, but no-one's put it to the paper yet.

Xenia, post 18 Nov 07.06am
"Emotional abuse not to be grounds to remove a child ever.

Just so we are clear what emotional abuse is classed as, at least by wikipedia and the NSPCC

www.nspcc.org.uk/help-and-advice/worried-about-a-child/online-advice/emotional-abuse/emotional-abuse-a_wda87104.html

And
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_abuse

Very useful definition there from the NSPCC, amillion

"No parent (or carer) gets it right every time and an act of bad parenting does not amount to emotional abuse. Emotional abuse is severe and persistent ill treatment which adversely affects a child's emotional health and development"

In the case of the girl in Spero's link, it was quite clear that her parents' persistent hysteria around her health issues had damaged her social, emotional, physical and linguistic development- that is an awful lot of catching up for her to do and, sadly, no way to get the process started until the parents were out of the picture.