No legal aid = baby adopted

[CFSKate]

I saw this on Channel 4 News yesterday, I only saw it part way through, but it went something like this, there was a couple who were accused of abusing their child, they couldn't get legal aid, the court had the child adopted, and then it went to court again and new evidence said there was a medical condition and the parents weren't guilty of abuse, but the adoption is final, they can't get their baby back.

lurked, I think you're maybe confusing your opinion with 'accepted facts.

If a child isn't able to form meaningful attachments to its primary caregivers because it's been moved too often/been traumatised too much by those moves, all the explanations in the world about what happened and why won't count for anything, you're not going to have a better outcome. actual fact.

'When a looked after child has bonded with a primary care giver'.

Sorry, I assumed you meant looked after as in a child in care.

'Compared with children who have not formed bonds, not those who have'

That's what I'm replying to.

(Not deliberately misquoting the second, phone won't allow me to copy it. But sure you can guess the actual full phrase I'm referring to)

tldr but those facts aren't relative imo. It's not passing the child on to another new family to make new bonds with. It's the birth family that they already share bonds and common ground with, and up till recently were in regular contact with.

Excuse my hollow laugh at the vast over-simplification of the issues facing adopted children being attachment. I know its just about all social workers bang on about these days and what worries adoptive parents lose sleep over.

But my DS has a perfectly secure attachment to me (psychologists assessment not just my own opinion) his issues are believed to be due to attachment followed by broken attachment on several occasions. Whilst he has been able to attach to me, his brain processes have been deeply affected such that his executive processing is severely impaired.

This is a child who was not abused or neglected by birth parents, the damage was done by repeated changes such as many children experience when they are taken into care. And please don't assume that adoptive parents have no other experience of adoption. Some are adoptees themselves and some have close family who are adult adoptees.

You really don't need to give us a lecture on how adoption affects a child and which bits make it easier or harder. You can't treat people who were adopted as an amorphous blob. Every person is different and will have different issues arising. Just as this child will. Even if I were able to agree with you and say yes 75% of children in this position would do better back with birth parents with minimal attachment problems, that's not really helpful is it? Someone needs to decide what the best thing is for this child. You obviously don't agree.

Perhaps I should state for the record that I am categoricallynot pro adoption. I'm alright Jack, I have my child who will not be going back to birth family as this is 100% not possible. I do not need to advocate for adaption. Bluntly put there is nothing in it for me.

I do believe that when adoption is the least worst option that it can be very successful, the best option is nearly always to stay within birth family. But it scares me that so many who haven't seen the effects of broken attachments are so dismissive of the damage it can cause.

lurked, you're muddying waters by making sweeping statements wrt to all children everywhere, and this one particular case.

Wrt to all children everywhere, you are wrong IMO.

Wrt this particular case, I'll say again, none of us know.

And I would be more convinced of the bond the child feels to their birth parents if II knew the contact was more than an hour once a fortnight supervised at a contact centre.

I can absolutely believe the birth parents still feel bonded to the child.

I took DS to see the first person he'd bonded with. He screamed the place down at her assumption that she could pick him up whereas he was terrified she had come to take him away from me.

kew who said I was simplifying anything? I didn't think it was remotely necessary to go into the wide range of complex issues surrounding children raised by other than their loving birth parents, which of course includes adopted children. Or point out that statistically the outcome of kids growing up in care, rather than in adoptive homes, are usually worse. Most of which comes down to the difference in stability.

You do however prove my point. A child that has the stability of an adoptive home still has problems about that early instability. So how on earth would the issues be any less if you threw in the added complication of loving biological parents that were, and are, equally capable but didn't raise you because of a system fuck up. Are you under the impression older children form attachments and cope with instability better?

I also have no idea why you are attaching those thoughts or your comments on adoption to what I've said. Nowhere have I suggested adoption doesn't cause issues or that they aren't varied and complex. Pointing out the issues of the care system are usually more significant in no way equates to down playing adoption issues. Nor do I think a lot of personal knowledge of adoptees adds weight to your opinion, the issues this child faces are more akin to those of kids in care, or the adults who came from it. Because as soon as that child grows up and can realise what has happened to it, the absolute biggest positive of adoption over care, i.e it offers far more stability, is going to be cancelled out completely.

tldr / kew of course none of us know exactly the full facts for this child. However from what we do have, some people are of the opinion breaking the adoptive attachment is too detrimental. I'm just of the opposite opinion from what we do know. If we reduced having a factual opinion on what is best from intimate knowledge on the case, we'd be left with zero posts because nobody who had that knowledge would be able to post it.

Read 'Beyond the Adoption Order' by Julie Selwyn (linked up thread or Google it).

of older child adoptions (the most problematic) a long term review (and also therefore almost all had hit the difficult teenage years) suggests about a third are pretty much no more difficult than a birth family, about a third have significant problems but there is also some progress, and about a third at breaking point or the child has already left the adoptive parents home (but in most cases the adoptive parents are still battling to make sure their child has the care and support they need, and have regular contact with their child).

The attachmentdisordermaryland.com website has some excellent material on parenting children with attachment issues (which of course are a spectrum).

I agree that 80% of adoption parenting is the usual stuff, and the rest is a bizarre sort of living in a soap opera.

I can't begin to explain how exhausting it can be to live with a child/children whose responses largely come from a place of fear and anger. And over and over again you don't take it personally, keep calm, strategize about how to make your child feel safe in a relationship that they find desperately threatening because of their past experiences - they want to believe they can trust you, but they don't dare to.

Whose repeated moves and chaotic early experiences make it difficult for them to understand basic things such as cause and effect and sequential events.

some people are of the opinion breaking the adoptive attachment is too detrimental. I'm just of the opposite opinion. No. Nobody has said that ending this adoption should be ruled out - they are disputing your certainty that that is the best thing to do. Your certainty is based on the conviction that attachment is an insignificant issue, and we are trying to explain to you how significant it is. You are then dismissing our experience, saying 'this is not about your personal experience, this is a unique case'. Yes it is, and we don't know what the most significant risks are for this child, so the point of this discussion is not to reach a fully informed view on what is right in this case, but to all think and learn more about the pertinent issues.

It would be great if you could open your mind to that learning, rather than simply justifying your certainty that you know what is right for this child in this case.

exactly where have I posted that I believe attachment is an insignificant issue? I've said nothing of the sort. So please refrain from attributing false comments to me in the belief it gives your opinion more weight. And it's pretty arrogant to assume that because I won't agree, I'm closed minded. I'm just looking at more than the short term upheaval, and the lasting attachment problems that will arise from that. I'm looking at the bigger picture.

I don't expect anyone to discount their experience of adoption based on my reasonably wide experience of the care system. Nor would I want to, it's an interesting discussion. But don't expect me to discount my experience and knowledge because it's contains other factors as well as early attachment.

I'm not wanting to put words in devora's mouth but your certainty that identity issues in the adult this 3yo will become outweigh all other considerations suggests that you're not attributing to attachment issues the significance we would.

IMO, significant 'lasting attachment issues', have the potential to far outweigh identity issues. And the possibility of causing significant 'lasting attachment issues' increases with every move. And in this case, those things need to be weighed against each other.

You seem certain that identity issues in all cases trump everything else.
We are saying they don't necessarily.

Again, where have I said identity trumps attachment issues? The child is going to have attachment issues even if adoption had been the correct route in the first place. Instability is about a hell of a lot more than identity issues.

You haven't said the words, but your insistence that the child should be 'returned' to birth parents would certainly suggest that.

What do you mean by 'instability'?

"The child is going to have attachment issues even if adoption had been the correct route in the first place."

Absolutely not true. My ds has no attachment issues. He has other issues which were probably caused at least in part by early repeated broken attachments. If he were to have been moved at 3 having been with me for 2 years I truly believe it would have been catastrophic for him.

It isn't just about the facts. Its about the child and her experiences and reaction to them. Some children are more resilient than others, there might have been more or less moves than we know.

I do find it odd that out experience of two sides of the adoption triangle are dismissed but we are expected to bow to your experience of the care system.

But even odder is the idea that someone saying "I don't think that we can judge what is best for this child without significantly more information" is considered to be in the wrong! I find that bizarre.

Its perfectly possible to have a debate about this case, what might have gone wrong, how it might be prevented, what should happen now etc without saying "I have decided the child must be returned" (gavel).

I don't even know where to begin on that tbh. Try looking up the outcomes for kids from care. Or even the problems for those in care. The instability of not having a normal family in short. Because again the realisation there is a birth family who could have raised you, is going to wipe out all the usual benefits of having a normal adoptive family.

There is a reason why a preschool child or baby may be removed from a situation it is deemed best to leave an older child in. And it isn't always about the practical side of the birth parents ability to fulfill the different needs of different age groups. And nor do I think the usual reason is a baby snatching conspiracy.

So eg an older child suffering x level of neglect in comparison to their needs is usually better left because the current issues are deemed to be of less long term impact than breaking the attachment to everything they know and all the insecurity it brings. They need the mental stability of remaining in situ.

By comparison, a toddler suffering x level of neglect in comparison to their needs would be removed. Even though need for need their birth parents aren't as neglectful as the older childs. Just level in terms of how much they are failing iyswim. And that's because usually it's deemed the issues from breaking that attachment and all the security they do have, will have lesser impact on long term outcomes than leaving them in situ would.

It is different, as children who are removed normally have either an insecure or ambiguous attachment due to a sporadic/ unstable environment. In this case the child would be removed from a secure attachment, which is a different thing all together

Removal is based on risk not attachment

kew how on earth can you say on one hand I'm wrong to suggest this child will already have issues from attachments and in the next say your ds has issues from it?

I'm not asking anyone to bow to my opinion or experience, or banging a gavel. I'm just not agreeing with you. Everyone is entitled to a different opinion, which includes me. The only way any of us have a more valid opinion is if someone has insider knowledge or is the ruling judge in any future case, at which point they wouldn't be posting on here about it. In the meantime I'm unaware of any rule saying I must bow to those coming from the adoption angle.

christina its part of the assessment when a normal attachment/bond to the birth parent isn't in any doubt too. Young children aren't left with birth parents based on the fact breaking that normal level of attachment would be too damaging. And the risk doesn't need to be future physical neglect or abuse. It can be for future emotional/ mental risk too. Which I'd say there is a significant chance of here. No matter how well the adoptive parents attempt to reduce it and how much support they get to do so.

It can be for future emotional/ mental risk too. Which I'd say there is a significant chance of here. No matter how well the birth parents attempt to reduce it and how much support they get to do so.

And this is equally true.

I don't think anyone here knows enough to have a valid opinion about the child's future - which I think is what the people you say are 'coming from the adoption angle' are actually saying. That only the people who know the specific situation and child could possibly have a valid opinion about what is best for the child.

Here's my evidence: [Attachment] Issues? Yes of course. But on a much smaller scale than to an adult trying to live with the knowledge they could have been raised by their biological parents.

I wish we had more facts on this. The barrister on R4 said the child had had a lot of contact with birth parents and probably could easily be returned. It not like adoption ages ago and fully bonded to new parents after a wrongly removal from the natural parents. however we need all the facts to assess that.

The other case that comes to mind is the 3 month olds in S America switched by mistake in hospital. They were just switched back even though breastfeeding etc. If I were the mothers I would move near each other and do a gradual handing over.

I think if I were the birth parents I would be arguing that the adoption wasn't legal as the removal was wrongful

Whatever happens this wee one will need a lot of support

So glad I no longer work in front line social work, too many demands, lack of supervision and lack of resources...an accident waiting to happen