Forced Adoption and the Mums on the Run - Radio 4 'Face the Facts'

[Mapleduram]

1230 Radio 4 15 Jan

Forced Adoption and the Mums on the Run
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03pjf3z

Hundreds of parents have already fled the UK to avoid having their children forcibly adopted by social services. And more will follow, it's predicted , as the number of contested adoptions continues to rise. John Waite meets some of the "mums on the run" and some of the clandestine support networks that are helping them. Providing shelter, food, advice and money - all the things that are necessary for a new life abroad.

He also hears of growing international concern about the actions of British social workers, most notoriously in the case last month of an Italian woman who was forced into giving birth and having her child put up for adoption because she was deemed to be a risk to its safety.

there were 21 domestic adoptions in Belgium in 2003 (very out of date but probably not changed significantly since)

Which tells me there are, like Ireland and Italy virtually no adoptions domestically. You want to talk to some of the Irish and Italian posters on here about what they think of their child care systems and whetehr they'd recommend them

On the whole they are supported by people who believe the rights of the parents way over-rides the rights of the child.

INterestingpan europeam research study here www.eurochild.org/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Eurochild_Reports/Eurochild%20Publication%20-%20Children%20in%20Alternative%20Care%20-%202nd%20Edition%20January2010.pdf

Holly - just in case you don;t want to read it - it says that BElgium (when asked) had absolutely no data on what happened to the children who left care.

The Uk on the other hand was very well informed... 1 in 5 become homless, 27% of the prison population has spent time in care, people who have been in care are twice as likely to have their own childrne taken into care. I could go on but I suspect that you don;t want to let the facts get in the way of a good argument.

But this isn;t limited to the UK - the overall coclusion to the study was...

The statistics that are available provide clear evidence that children who have been in care – and in particular in residential care settings – are more likely to end up homeless; to commit crimes; to have children before the age of 20 themselves; and to have their own children taken into care

I don't know what's worse, the ignorance or the lack of basic human empathy and compassion. Do the rights of a tiny minority of birth parents really outweigh those of thousands of traumatised children?

Hello all,
we have had some reports querying whether this thread has been placed in the best topic and as such have decided to move it to In The News.

And again Holly disappears rather than answer questions related to her random and unsupported quips.
I wish I understood why she keeps starting threads on topics she clearly knows very little about and seems to unwilling to research.

Thank you YAHelenMN

HollyHB Sat 18-Jan-14 19:03:13
"roadwalker > Have you ever looked at the outcomes for children in the care system?

No. If it need to be improved then it should be improved."

But surely the inherent weakness of any fostering system- even the most well resourced and carefully monitored- is that it cannot provide the child with stability, with the knowledge that they belong somewhere?

I must admit I haven't yet listened to the radio programme on the issue of "forced adoption." As others have said the term "forced" adoption is an inaccurate description of adoption where birthparents do not give their consent to adoption. For what it's worth in many years of social work I have never known birthparents who have given their consent to adoption when their child has been removed because of significant harm being inflicted on the child.

"Forced adoption" seems to me to imply that someone is being forced to do something against their will.

HollyHB - I honestly don't understand so many of your posts as they appear disjointed and jumbled in content. However I really must take issue with you (as others have done) about your belief that no child should be adopted without the consent of their birthparents. You use the issue of capital punishment to illustrate your belief, but you are not comparing like with like. I am not in favour of capital punishment for a variety of reasons.

It seems to me that you have no understanding whatsoever of the developmental needs of a child and how those needs should be met to enable the child to grow and thrive and become a warm and well adjusted adult. You advocate children waiting around to see if their parents can prove that they are better parents, for an indefinite period I think you said, or "as long as it takes" Children only have one childhood - they simply do not have the time to wait around to see if their parents are going to give up drugs/alcohol abuse/domestic violence or indeed gain the emotional maturity that is needed for successful parenting.

In the main I believe that behaviour is a product of experience and we are more likely than not, to parent our children in the way that we were parented. Those of us who were fortunate enough to have happy stable childhoods and the unconditional love that every child needs from its parents, will almost certainly parent out children in the same way.

I am not saying that all children who were abused/neglected in childhood will go on to subject their own children to this ill treatment, and whilst I don't have any stats to prove anything, all I can say is that in 30 years of social work I have never me an abusing parent who was not abused themselves as children. They don't perceive that they were ill treated and I have heard this phrase SO many times "well my dad hit me with a belt and it never did me an harm" - and this being said whilst an investigation was being carried out into the possible ill treatment on his child/ren.

I do actually feel empathy for many of the birthparents I have come into contact with, as they are almost always emotionally immature people who have experienced ill treatment in childhood, have financial problems, low self esteem, often illiterate and have no family support. How would any of us cope in such circumstances. Nonetheless myself and my colleagues always followed the letter of the law and that the duty was to ensure that we acted in the best interests of the child and not the parents. However the Children Act 1989 gave LAs a duty to work in partnership with parents. I'm sure who ever drafted that part of the legislation in Whitehall had never met a natural parent who was angry with the LA for requesting permission of the court to remove their children. However I was taught when I trained back in the 1970s that we should always show "respect for people" regardless of what they might have done and I never forgot that and I believe that I did my utmost to be honest with them and not fudge the issue in any way, but also not to be overly critical of them. I think this was because in so many cases I saw adults whose chronological age was very different from their "emotional" age and what I saw was "children trying to parent children" - many of these young parents were functioning at a pre teen level, or even younger in some cases.

I also think birthparents withhold their consent for the child to be adopted because they need a "cover story" in the sense that they did not consent to the adoption, but it was the social workers who "took the child from them."

I've probably said enough and I cannot bear the thought of reading anything from that horrendous creep Ian Joseph and to think that JH MP "shares a platform with him" yet Clegg takes no action against him just leaves me speechless.