Child taken from womb? Truth into darkness....

[LakeDistrictBabe]

Ok, the old thread is nearly full. If you read the other three, I don't need to re-write everything again ;)

But you know I am referring to the case involving an Italian mother and the British social services.
Opinions welcome.

Thanks for giving us some figures, Spero.

I think the debate does need some figures from credible sources in order to get a clearer picture.

Are there any credible figures that say how many children are taken into care every year and how many of those children are aged 1 year and under?

Yes there are, I think JH has cited them.

About to leave train, hopefully he will be along to elucidate. Or try searching family law cite, they often report CAFCASS figures.

"You ask about adoption targets. Yes there are targets set by the government for LA Children's Services to successfully place children who are already Looked After by the LA for adoption, in order to give them the opportunity of the permanence and stability that all children deserve. There is nothing secret about it, and some LAs have indeed improved on this issue and have met government targets. I believe that they are then allowed further funding from the government."

These targets are for children already looked after and are not for taking more children into care..

It would be good if we could have some credible figures about these targets. What are the targets, how do they differe between LAs, who sets them and what extra funding if any is given if the targets are met.

I think targets are fine for making widgets in factories, but I think there can be problems with government imposed targets set by ministers, officials and politicians with no experience in the care industry or hospitals or education or law enforcement. Politicians can speak about targets being met and can gain their 11% pay rise, but sometimes a box-ticking culture produced by targets may not be in the best interests of people.

I am against the 'target culture' imposed on our hospitals by politicians, especially when the targets are linked to financial incentives.

'Target culture' that led to Mid Staffs still exists in NHS, claims top surgeon

The target culture that led to the Mid Staffs scandal still pervades the NHS, with surgeons pressured prioritise less urgent patients because they are in danger of breaching waiting times, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons has warned.'

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9824256/Target-culture-that-led-to-Mid-Staffs-still-exists-in-NHS-claims-top-surgeon.html

I was against the financial incentives for placing patients on the Liverpool Care Pathway, which have been subsequently scrapped.

"NHS millions for controversial care pathway

The majority of NHS hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial “pathway” to death, it can be disclosed."

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9644287/NHS-millions-for-controversial-care-pathway.html

I am against financial rewards to hospital trusts to meet a target of vaccinating 75% of their staff with the flu jab

"Hospital staff have been warned that they must have the winter flu jab – or their Trust will miss out on funding.

Half of a £500million government bailout to NHS trusts will be ploughed into services this year to prepare for the extra pressure of winter.

But the other £250million will only be shared next year by NHS trusts whose staff flu vaccination rates this winter have hit 75%."

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-make-sure-75-staff-2263045

I am against Oftsed measuring how good schools are in part based on attendance targets, where some sick children feel pressured to turn up to school in case they let down their classmates by not reaching the class attendance target which leads to the class not getting the end of year reward or where the young children who had time off because their father died of cancer were not invited to the Christmas disco because they had not met their attendance target.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1235790/Grieving-boy-barred-schools-Christmas-disco-taking-time-father-died-cancer.html

Targets are good for politicians and Whitehall, but not always good for patients and people and the staff that look after and care for them.

I think it would be good to have some credible figures about the adoption targets for already looked after children and about the level of financial rewards for meeting those targets. I think it would be good to have figures about how many children are taken into care each year and how many of those are aged 1 year and under, so that the statement by Martin Carey, the government's adoption tsar, who is not a social worker but was a former Director of the Prison Service, can be placed in perspective

"He said adoption was at a historic low and had all but disappeared for babies, despite being a "vital tool in the child protection armoury", particularly for under-ones. " Only 70 babies were adopted last year compared with 4,000 in 1976. We need that figure to get back into the thousands so we need to quadruple it over the next few years – and quadruple it again ," he said."

www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jan/21/adoption-barnardos-chief-martin-narey

Could the "need" to get this figure back into the thousands materialise into a target?

Were there targets in the 1970s or is this a more recent thing introduced by the politicians and are teh financial rewards linked to the targets a more recent thing introduced by the politicians?

There also seems to be a new target of 26 weeks for finding a child a new home

"The new limit is intended to ensure children can be found a home within six months."

"The average length of care proceedings is still 14 weeks over a new target due to be introduced in April, latest figures show."

"The Association of Lawyers for children warned that many councils do not have adequate resources to be able to speed up the process."

www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1140988/care-proceedings-run-14-weeks-target

I think credible figures will help to gain a clearer picture.

Here are stats. Took 2 secs on google to find them

www.baaf.org.uk/res/statengland

As I understand it the first 'targets' were set by Tony Blair in 1997 when he first came to power. He was utterly horrified by the amount of time children spent in care before being placed with a permanent family - or not being placed at all.

Since then successive governments have urged LA to speed up and stop putting so much weight on racially and culturally appropriate placements.

One of the current prime movers is. Michael Gove who was himself adopted.

There are many of us who feel this emphasis on adoption as panacea is misplaced. But there is absolutely no evidence to support a culture that babies are routinely 'snatched' to meet adoption targets.

The last four cases in which I was involved where there were care proceedings at birth all involved significant issues of drink, drugs and violence. Every time, the mother was assessed. After about five months in each case it was clear that the problems persisted and the baby has a right to some stability and security.

There are adoption targets and of course they are not just for children already in the system, as there is now a 26 week process in the courts. So within any year children are taken into care and adopted, children who were not in care at the start of the year. Every LA will have a list of unborns. The targets are much easier to make with children under 3. Anecdotally I hear that it is much harder for older children to get adopted since the targets came in.

The target of 26 weeks is NOT for finding a child a new home.

It is for completing the care proceedings. Finding an adoptive placement may take many more months after that.

Care proceedings must not be confused with adoption proceedings.

Thanks, Spero.

I think these figures were linked earlier on too.

"6% (4,310) of children looked after on 31st March 2013 were under 1 year old"

This is the total number of under 1 year olds in care, as I understand it.
How many of this age group were adopted?

Narey mentions the following, is this a figure for under 1 year olds?

"Only 70 babies were adopted last year compared with 4,000 in 1976. We need that figure to get back into the thousands so we need to quadruple it over the next few years – and quadruple it again"

So 94% of children in care are NOT babies.

Pretty piss poor snatching that.

Kew - I thought of you when the matter of 'losing the baby's cultural background' was brought up. Yours wasone of the first threads I read on MN. The care and love you have for your son shines in your posts.

It may take many more months but if there is a supply of adoptive parents, with parrallel planning for permanence, it appears that adoptions are taking place within a year of birth which is why I say the figures include children not in the system at the start of the year.

'Care proceedings must not be confused with adoption proceedings.'

Thanks for clarifying that Spero, because all possible checks need to be made to ensure the best adoption for children and arbitrary deadlines and targets should play no part in that.

I would imagine (hope) that vast majority of the babies were adopted.

But for those who are male, mixed race, have difficult family heritage of mental illness or substance abuse, they may spend longer in the system.

"So 94% of children in care are NOT babies.

Pretty piss poor snatching that."

Exactly and

"Only 70 babies were adopted last year compared with 4,000 in 1976"

which shows that there is not a rush to adoption.
Social workers are determining what is best for those children.

Once they are adopted they are no longer looked after or in care. So there are unlikely to be as many babies in care as they are placed quickly to help the overall target. Older children sometimes remain lac until they are 18 and these are the children who the targets were invented for. The targets should be split by age group so the la cannot manipulate the figures by babies. There should be more mother and baby placements for mental health.

'Once they are adopted they are no longer looked after or in care. So there are unlikely to be as many babies in care as they are placed quickly to help the overall target. Older children sometimes remain lac until they are 18 and these are the children who the targets were invented for. '

Good point. So we need a figure of how many under 1 year olds were adopted each year and according to Narey it seems that it is only about 70 out of the 4310 who are still looked after, if I understand the figures correctly.

That is about 1.7% of under 1 year olds looked after.
Is that the correct figure because if it is then that does not seem like a rush to adoption?

Also what is the average time before a baby is adopted? Maybe it is more than 1 year due to all the checks required etc.

Just googled and found a Daily Mail article that gives some more details. This article argues in favour of Blair's goal of speeding up the adoption process, as far as I can tell on quick read through.

"So in 2002, the Blair government introduced the Adoption and Children Act, which allowed single sex couples to adopt for the first time and even introduced significant cash incentives for local councils which met or exceeded adoption rate targets.

Yet, adoption rates continue to plunge while the number of children taken into care, from parents judged unable to cope or dangerous, is on the rise.

More than 65,000 children have entered the state system since the Baby P scandal three years ago; yet in the last 12 months, only 3,050 have been placed within loving families."

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2043236/Why-social-workers-hate-adoption-much.html

So it seems that Blair wanted adoption rates to rise and yet they still plunged. This indicates that social workers did not rush to increase adoption but carried out the checks that they had always done in order to make the correct decisions for the child.

The article continues

"Something, somewhere in the adoption process, is going terribly wrong."

This of course depends on what the objectives are. Just because adoption rates were falling does not mean that the process of overall care of the child is "going terribly wrong", because it may that that more children are being returned to parents after successfl intervention by social services. We don't know unless we have credible figures.

" It takes the best part of three years for a child in the care system, frequently shunted between care homes and foster families, to finally find a full time adoptive home."

The article then goes on to discuss the case of the author's friends who were trying to adopt and mentions a somewhat loaded description of the social worker involved

"Their lives were lived in thrall to their social worker, an apparently terrifying woman in her 50s"

It seems that the social woker was correctly assessing the best outcomes and this takes time

"There was one major setback, when the grandparents relented and decided they might want to keep the boys after all.

Sarah was devastated. She dug out her research on rescuing a baby girl from China.

In the end, the terrifying social worker decided that the grandparents’ 40-a-day fag habit might not be ideal for the boys’ health and Mike and Sarah finally got their kids ."

Not sure about whether the 40-day-a-fag habit should play such an important part in the process, but from the details in this article, it does not look like social services were rushing to adopt children to meet government targets.

Even when I have represented convicted paedophiles they are still assessed. In my experience it is vanishingly rare for care proceedings to be concluded in less than six months, even with a new born and even with parents on the Sex Offenders Register.

It must be very disappointing for JH that even the Daily Mail will not reliably support his conspiracy theories.

So which is it?

Social Workers snatch babies for adoption?
Or Social Workers won't snatch because they hate adoption?

2% (90) of children adopted during the year ending 31st March 2013 were under 1 year old

This is slightly misleading as it doesn't include those children who were placed under age 1 but adoption order granted after age one.

74% (2,960) were aged between 1 and 4 years old and the average age at adoption in the year ending 31st March 2013 was 3 years 8 months.

That implies to me that the majority of those in the 1-4 year age group were not just over 1 but more likely 2-3 years (slightly back of an envelope maths but probably about right)

I have said before on other threads that if its a conspiracy to snatch babies that SS are pretty piss poor at it as the vast majority of children in care are way way way older than 1yr old. But no-one much paid any attention so I gave up saying it.

The problem with the baby-snatching conspiracy theorists is that if anyone in the system or any adopters both of whom have experince of the system argue against there being a conspriacy we just look like we're part of the conspiracy and therefore easy to ignore if you subscribe to that theory "La la la la - can;t hear you". But the danger is that there are shortcomings both in the system and with individuals and banging on about nonsence detracts from teh real work that needs to be done to improve the system for paretns and childrne alike.

I fear some people in banging their drum loudly to garner publicity for themselves are doing a disservice to the wider good of children who need help.

johnhemming

What is clear is that there are adoption targets. Hence you are clearly wrong.

Of course there are, it is also nice to see more children adopted than being fostered in an orphanage for life. It is the same in nearly EVERY nation, and until now I lived in 5, in three different continents. People like you are called ‘conspiracists who live in their own bubble’ and believe me I could have posted that from New Zealand.

I am still wondering why you’re posting here, given your unsuccessful battle.

MurderofGoths

Are you reading the same thread as the rest of us? Because I've only seen spero say that targets exist to get children in temp placements adopted, I haven't seen her say that no targets exist at all. She denied that targets exist to snatch children from their families, and you haven't proved otherwise.

I couldn’t have said it better!!

MadameDefarge

They should be left with their birth families to abuse them?

Hemming & Co think so, because as Joseph said on Gardner’s blog children in foster care all become convicts and prostitutes (speechless!).

HollyHB

The baby is being wrongly deprived of her country and her culture. If she is to be adopted it should be by Italians in Italy. The baby has done no wrong but is being wrongly detained in a foreign land that is harmful to her. At this rate she is in danger of acquiring the burden that is British Citizenship.

It completely baffled me the appalling ignorance of some British posters who commented and believed that a baby has a nationality in her/his DNA after birth. The baby was born in UK and never went to Italy. How is it possible that the foreign land harms a baby when it is NOT even a foreign land for her/him? Look, I lived more or less 30 years in Italy and UK didn’t harm me, nor any of the countries I lived in. As a matter of fact I feel, now, more British than Italian and I’ll be 200% proud of receiving the British citizenship when time will come. It amazes me that you said that without knowing what kind of burden an Italian citizenship is.

Wise men (and women), when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.

Kewcumber

Thanks for posting that link, I had tried to find it for ages, I’m an hopeless technophobe.

claig

I think the debate does need some figures from credible sources in order to get a clearer picture.

Yeah, I agree. Credible source being the key ;)

WestmorlandSausage
Replied to your PM and off to email T. Farron.

YoniMatopoeia thats very kind of you. He is very easy to love and care for as he is divine (still at aged 8!)

And he is so badly treated by me and so starved of a cultural identity that he was recently extensively interviewed by a Kazakh film crew with a Kazakh Embassy representative for a public service broadcast on Kazakh children adopted around the world who I must add thought he was delightful.

He does feel British 100% in the same way that anyone of Asian/african/etc descent who has lived all their life in the UK feels British. Some of them have family who keep cultural ties with their birth/heritage country some not. Just as for adopted children.

I hope people are not suggesting that if your birth family want you to move and be raised in a different culture because it will result in a better life for you that is OK but if you have no birth family competent to take care of you that you must stay in your heritage country even if that means a life in care.

Whenever I feel a slight pang at what I took DS away from, I think of reading him Harry Potter at bedtime (still) and how he still rushes out of school with his face lit up to tell me he has won the Target Smasher award of the week and how he looks for me in the audience at the school carol service and doesn't settle until he's spotted me and grins. Because he knows that he is the most important thing in my world and that is as it should be - every child should be the most important thing in somebodies world. And in care they're not, they're just not, and they know it.

But thats OK because they'll be Italian and I'm sure that will be a great consolation to them.

Thankfully the Hague Convention doesn't agree.

Wise men (and women), when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.

We have a differnt saying in our family...

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than speak out and remove all possible doubt.