Italian adoption case III

[Juliet123456]

The last thread says all I need to know about those in the system. It also the most legally dangerous thread I have ever seen on mumsnet. I hope someone has been through the posts for libel risk. It also entirely one sided and biased and makes me laugh.

The defensiveness of those involved in this area will hopefully disappear once we have the openness that JH and indeed many others are seeking and obtaining as the judges increasingly accept that it helps everyone to understand what are very difficult decisions - parents, children and lawyers and social workers and expert witnesses in this field.

It will continue to be important always to get to the facts and where possible publish the facts. I continue to believe that almost any of us could have our children removed if the state set its mind to that. If publishing more decisions and giving rights to parents and those involved and the children to write what they like on twitter, facebook and the like and to let parents and children even when separated communicate and talk about any issues they choose will help then let us hope the law continues down that course.

what do you categorise as low income, John?

So jh has between one and five children he has stats for adopted due to low income. apparently.
That hardly proves anything does it ? In which year were they ?

Devora, as I stated earlier 'neglect' is the reason I should imagine ie parents cannot afford to provide for basic needs due to low income. Which is basically the same thing?

"Many people underestimate the extent of poverty in the UK.

In fact, the number of people who officially experience poverty is quite startling. Figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) suggest that about three in five British households experienced income poverty for at least one year during the period 1991–2004"

'living on an income below the standard state entitlements'

I would like, honestly, to know what that means.

If you are claiming all your benefits, and are in receipt of them (don't get me started on the delays and horrors of claiming state benefits) why would your children be living on a lower income?

And how would that feed into the overall Child Protection Plan?

Do you mean: their parents were not entitled to state benefits (asylum seekers, illegal immigrants?) and they could not afford to feed their children, so children taken into care?

And then parents disappeared, or underwent protracted appeal processes to remain in the country, or had other problems, and were not able to get settled and offer their children a living even on the bottom rung of the welfare ladder, and so the children ended up being adopted?

In which case I'd suggest the scandal here is focused on our immigration system, rather than the care system per se.

Otherwise I can't see how this can happen. Please do explain. In these cases, did it actually say 'child adopted because of low parental income'?

Sorry not quite sure what more recent stats are for 'poverty' in the uk etc, that was just a quick google, its late and im tired! but im sure you get the picture, without having spot on stats!

claw. I can categorically state that my ds lives 'below the poverty line'

Yet at no point have ss ever been involved in our lives.

If low income were the one and only factor in taken children into care, and then proceeding to forced adoption, the entire system would grind to a halt within a day.

read the headlines lately? Unemployment? etc? Food banks, etc?

Cutting of benefits, etc?

I didn't mention forced adoption.

Yes, claw, I agree that poverty is a huge factor in children ending up in care. I have known one wealthy family whose children were taken into care but I'm sure that is vanishingly rare. But it is not as simple as low income=neglect, as arguably benefits levels allow for children to at least be fed, and not sleep on the floor surrounded by dogshit.

I expect 90% of children taken into care are living in poverty, and that poverty is a strong contributory factor, but that is not the same as social workers taking a child from its parents because they have low income. The fact that JH says up to five a year are taken for this reason shows that he is NOT talking about the general grinding poverty that is usually a co-factor in family dysfunction.

3200 looked after children are placed with their parents .

Far more than the one (or perhaps five ) apparently adopted due to low income.

Low income is the reason given in less than one percent of looked after children who received a service

jh you said that stas showed that kids were adopted due to low income the ssda 903 does not say that.
That you personally mow there's one tow three four or five kids adopted due to low income does not hold water.
You said ssda backed your assertion. It does not . It gives reason for being looked after and getting a ss service.

John, can you actually read?

Claw 2 yes lots of poverty but the ssda shows that less than one percent receiving ss services as looked after children are due to low income . Just look at the graphics.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/244872/SFR36_2013.pdf

claw, here's the difference. I was raised by a single parent on benefits, in a crappy council flat with no inside toilet and no hot water. We never went hungry, we were clean (though it took a lot of boiled kettles), our basic needs were met.

Poverty (UK standards) ALONE does not explain children who are malnourished, who are unwashed, who were stinky ill-fitting clothes, who have untreated lice for months on end, who do not attend medical appointments, who don't have anywhere safe and warm to sleep, who never see the dentist, who don't even own a toothbrush.

It is impossible to deny the importance of poverty in child neglect, but it is usually the indirect manifestations of many years of poverty and deprivation, not a direct cause.

Abuse or neglect is the main reason for becoming looked after.
Being returned to parental care is the biggest reason for no longer being looked after . Low income is less than one percent reason for receiving services from ss (not for being adopted or for having a care order l for receiving services. Which may or may not include a care order less than one percent. )

I am so glad jh referred us to the ssda stats . Thanks mate.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/244872/SFR36_2013.pdf

That's interesting Cest, yes 1% for low income, I wonder exactly what that means. Removed purely because of low income?

As I stated previously i can see how low income or poverty can result in neglect ie not being able to provide for basic needs (which made up 62% of the graphics, obviously it does not specify exactly what kind of 'neglect') so this is opinion and i am assuming neglect does amount to not providing for basic needs for a variety of reasons ie mental health, drugs misuse etc. I wonder how much of that percentage is due to neglect due to poverty.

Thanks for that link, cestlavielife. It shows under 1% of children taken into care because of low income (perhaps because of a temporary family crisis) but does it show they were then adopted for that reason?

John Hemming, why do you think sending someone some figures you have pulled out of your fertile imagination constitutes proof of what you allege? It just defies logic.

I don't think you can separate neglect due to poverty from neglect due to other factors very easily, claw. They are inextricably interwoven.

No it does not Devora, so I don't know where jh gets his figure from.
It says less than one percent of looked after receiving a service were low income as sole reason. This could easily be were referred to a food bank or sure start etc. just as my son was included in the three percent as a disabed child but was never up for adoption... He just received services as a looked after child .

That reminds me. Last time JH offered to send Spero incontrovertible proof of something, it turned out simply to prove the opposite. I note that he has not answered the questions put to him about the social worker who, it turns out, was not sacked for recommending that a child stay with his parents, I take it that he now accepts that this allegation was yet another pile of rubbish.