Elsie Scully-Hicks

[Elephantgrey]

How can you understand how someone can harm such a tiny baby. My husband knew Matthew Scully-Hicks and said you would never imagine he would be the sort of person to do something like this. When we first heard about it we imagined that he had just snapped but seeing the news report he inflicted so many injuries on her since the day she arrived. It's just heartbreaking.

Notreally - 'Adopters who are prepared to take the commitment of helping a child to recover from the worst kinds of abuse'. If they were abused. they wouldn't need to be adopted for 'future risk' would they! They are in fact being adopted for abuse. In which case that is a good thing. Great in fact.

I don't know if you have issues with reading or something...........?

it's almost as though some adopters are trying so desperately to convince themselves that they are parenting children who couldn't possibly have been procured through questionable assessments

Well that's hardly surprising is it? Adoptees are human beings too. They have attached to their child and love them very much.

Just say you're right about all of this and a medium sized percentage of freed children for x years for wrongly removed. Don't you think that even in those circumstances (especially in those circumstances) a secure, affectionate, adoptive family with parents who adore them is the best place they could possibly be?

You're lashing out at the wrong people now and becoming offensive.

Children who are adopted are adopted after being brought into the care system, without adopters these children will remain in the care system without a chance to leave it. Children aren't brought into the system to be adopted, they are brought in to be protected and adoption is a potential outcome for some children. Some women will have children removed at birth if there is a history of abuse and neglect with other children and the situation hasn't changed, as a society we do not prevent conception but we can attempt prevent abuse. No social worker is happy on discovering that a person who has had several children removed is pregnant again, there are no targets met, no money made just a sad realisation that another child is being given a very difficult start in life and a mother is not going to get her emotional needs met at the end of this pregnancy either. There are no winners in this situation it is nothing like a puppy farm, just damaged people making destructive choices and children getting caught up in them.

So basically @itstakenawhile thinks children who are perceived to be at risk of harm should be left in risky households to be neglected and abused, and only removed from parents’ care once the damage is already done. Lovely.

If you think courts make placement orders lightly or where the evidence suggests there is a chance for the child to be parented by the birth family then you know nothing about the family court system.

So basically @itstakenawhile thinks children who are perceived to be at risk of harm should be left in risky households to be neglected and abused, and only removed from parents’ care once the damage is already done. Lovely.

No I don't think you should be so smugly dismissive. There's a small kernel to what she's saying, amongst the ranting, that has the potential to be a scandal someday.

It's not adopters responsibility to police CP practice, however.

I’m not being “smugly dismissive”. Children are not removed unless the local authority can prove that the child is at risk of very significant harm owing to the parenting they would receive. That is an absolute pre-requisite to any sort of care order, let alone a placement order.

Battleax. Absolutely the best place for them to be is a loving family. However, and I think I made this point before 'the first step to a successful adoption, is to make sure that the child needs to be adopted' that's a quote from (I think, but not 100% sure) Nancy Verrier. Now, if a decade or less from now, an adopter has a child who was made available - 'future risk', and the adopter then goes on to find out that the Mum was subjected to repeat psych assessments, until one finds a negative to run with (bear in mind my background here, I'm not just casting aspersions). Would the adopter not be devastated, that they had spent just under two decades parenting that child who could have been parented by their natural kin. ie. the 'Amelia' case (Brighton and Hove seem to be going for Gold with their 'future risk' adoptees), Now, if the child rejects, the adopters (as I have said I have witnessed this happen) who will the adopters turn to?

My use of language reflects the deaf ears it's designed for. I have repeatedly, ad nauseum said, I hold the (adoptive) parents of abused/neglected children in high esteem. Then there will be someone along to say, how dare you, such and such was abused/neglected. Ugh, in which case they won't have been made available for 'future risk' then will they! I have made it clear, and simple, yet people still want to talk about how their child was abused/neglected, in which case I'm thinking, well thank f**k that you are now the child's parent. I wish you all the best. I don't now how many times I can say it before people understand. If you adopt for 'future risk' and you deny contact to parents who neither abused nor neglected the child, and you don't ask the SW what s/he has done to keep the family together, what are the chances you have an 'Amelia'? and yes, I think those people are below par humans, because they seem quite happy for the LA to hack into somebody's family tree, and a child's ancestry on their behalf, just so that they get the chance to parent. That old saying 'you reap what you sow', and if people are parenting 'Amelia's' just what do they think they will reap from that?

Its parts of what you're saying remind me of a very good book by Emily Buchanan (a BBC foreign affairs journalist) about her own path to international adoption. She was very clear with herself about why adopting from some countries was more ethically sound than others.

But what YOU need to grasp about UK adoption is it's not a market. Potential domestic adopters don't have choices to make the way potential international adopters do.

Once a family are cleared to adopt within the UK, they don't get to specify "Oh is like an abused or neglected one but no relinquishes or future risk cases please."

You need to step back and make the separation in your mind between CP practice (which like all systems may have some problems that need addressing) and adoptive families. The receiving families aren't the decision makers or policy designers.

I would like to point to one case on www.pinktape.co.uk/cases/rescuing-children-from-significant-harm-looking-forward-with-trepidation-and-hope/

A quote from that article:
Unlike the horrific tragedies that pushed our policy towards child rescue, this is not self-evidently a case in which criminal harm to a child arises. Much of the harm here is said to arise as a result of the problems in the relationship between the parents and the professionals with whom they would have to deal. Even if there were crimes, they would not be the kind of horrific crimes involving abuse, degradation and ultimately murder that quite understandably excite public outrage. Therefore, a policy push that responded to one kind of problem is now resulting in intervention in quite a different kind of problem.

FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME: I hold adopters who parent abused/neglected children in absolute high esteem. Without them, those children would be languishing in foster care, and that is no life at all.

However, and I think I made this point before 'the first step to a successful adoption, is to make sure that the child needs to be adopted' that's a quote from (I think, but not 100% sure) Nancy Verrier.

Yes I'm with you on that and you won't get the "family courts are infallible" line from me because I've reviewed anough systems and processes to know that nothing is.

I can see something has shocked and angered you.

I can even find it credible that a small subset "of future emotional harm" cases (not younger siblings of existing LACs BTW) might be flawed.

But attacking adoptive families is barking up the wrong tree. It really is.

Children removed for “future risk” as you put it would also languish in foster care if not adopted. You do realise they don’t get sent home if no adopters can be found?

And by the way I’m not saying the family court is “infallible” or that it doesn’t ever get a decision wrong. That would be the case whatever the law. However this works both ways - sometimes children are sent home and it ends up having been the wrong decision eg Ellie Butler who was then murdered by her father.

FOR THE UMPTEENTH TIME: I hold adopters who parent abused/neglected children in absolute high esteem. Without them, those children would be languishing in foster care, and that is no life at all.

But so would any child who has been removed. Even if their removal was the biggest mistake in the history of social work. They're still then "languishing" in limbo until adopters come and give them permanence and warmth.

It is not unusual for adopters to adopt children who have been abused and or neglected and then adopt younger siblings born to the same mother who are adopted before any abuse or neglect is allowed to take place. Waiting until criminal abuse and neglect of the younger children has taken place would be horrific neglect on the part of the local authority. No system is perfect, sometimes children will be left when they should have been removed and vice versa, tragedies tend to impact policy on a pendulum. Waiting until abuse happens in every case cannot be the answer though.

(Not that foster carers aren't warm).

Battleaxe; 'Once a family are cleared to adopt within the UK, they don't get to specify "Oh is like an abused or neglected one but no relinquishes or future risk cases please."'

I genuinely thought that the reasons a child has become available would be told to adopters before hand. If I am wrong, all I am going to say is that there will most certainly be families not too far from now, who feel duped, and that is not a strong enough word.

So adopters don't even know if it's abuse/neglect/future risk. Christ- like finding your way out of a maze whilst wearing a blindfold!

I was reading an article recently (I wish I could find it now - chemo fog kicking in) in which an Mum (adoptive) was talking about her child's life story, and that when she met the Mum (birth) she realised how awfully wrong it was, and she wanted answers as to why the child needed to be adopted because she didn't believe it was necessary and that it would have been better for Mum (birth) to be given support if she fell on times when she needed it.

As for talking about money and targets, I never bloody mentioned those, don't try and write me off a some sort of David Icke - the Queen is a lizard type person. I make my position VERY clear. I don't think SW's and family courts are the problem per se. It's the expert witness' on thousands of £'s worth of fees. Now one person said I clearly have no experience of family court, which is wrong. My experience of family court leads me to assert that ALL psychological testing used in family proceedings should be undertaken by an NHS psych ONLY, Purely because they have no bias in a particular outcome that could garner more work for them. NHS psychs get paid if the parent turns up and if they don't. Which makes them impartial.

My experience of family court leads me to assert that ALL psychological testing used in family proceedings should be undertaken by an NHS psych ONLY, Purely because they have no bias in a particular outcome that could garner more work for them

Yes, that strikes me as eminently sensible. I don't think the full lessons of the Munchausens fiasco were learnt in respect of medico-legal expertise.

As for talking about money and targets, I never bloody mentioned those, don't try and write me off a some sort of David Icke - the Queen is a lizard type person.

Who said that? I can't see any mention of money or targets.

So adopters don't even know if it's abuse/neglect/future risk. Christ- like finding your way out of a maze whilst wearing a blindfold!

Adopters don't get the full details until they're already emotionally committed. And I don't think they'd be popular if they were that picky.

Besides which, you can't expect ordinary adopters to be investigative journalists. Whatever there might be to be debunked, hasn't been (yet).

I don't believe just a BPD diagnosis can be grounds to remove children.

Battleax - Mumisnotmyname mentioned 'there is no targets or money to be made'

Unborn - unfortunately BPD can be used to remove a child childprotectionresource.online/personality-disorder/

Quote from article: Those whose personality disorder falls within Cluster B, such as those with borderline personality disorder (BPD), are at serious risk of losing their children in care proceedings.

Ah yes, so she did. Thread is going so fast.

Its I have diagnosed BPD, I also have three children. Two of them have additional needs including my oxygen dependant baby son.

I had children's services out two years ago when my ex-partner made a malicious report, nothing was said about it and I've never really hid it.

Obviously that's just my one account of it. It was on my maternity notes as well.

Battleax. I have certainly learned something today, and I am not afraid to say when I am wrong.

I had NO IDEA that adopters were not told beforehand why the child has become available. THAT changes EVERYTHING for me. It makes what I imagined adopters to be like very different indeed. For that I am genuinely sorry. However, I have been close enough to the family courts to witness injustice, so I know it happens, I know there are more 'Amelia's' than anybody would like to believe. I also know that I now view some adopters as being as much a victim of system injustice as I do the parents. Like I said, that changes everything.

It now also makes sense to me why so many adopters valiantly defend the system. It seems more of a protective thing that a deflective thing as I had thought it was. I feel as though I would likely do the exact same thing. I doubt as though anybody wants to feel as though they are parenting an 'Amelia'.

I would be really appreciative if there is an adopter about who could give me (non identifying of course) a picture of what you DO get told pre and post adoption.

Anyway, I have a couple of errands to run, but I will check back later perhaps an hour or three from now.

Unborn - before I log off, I am glad you didn't manage to get caught up in a web of 'expert witness' and best wishes to you and your children.