Babies taken from parents on any excuse to reach government targets on adoption?

[CoteDAzur]

Can this really be going on?

it's the Mail! aaarrrrgggghhhhh!
many people i know work with kids including dh and you really have to go some to get kids taken off you these days - quite shocking really.

There's a long full of posts thread about this from last year. If I remember well, the outcome of it was that the news were unlikely to be true or that the newspaper was blowing the thing out of proportion.

The Mail blowing things out of proportion?! surely not!

I think its a load of tosh!! I work for ss and removing children is so hard and getting judge to agree to adoption is even harder.
The reason that children under 5 are more likely to be removed is because research shows that children under 5 are more at risk and children under 1 years are most at risk
Also it is very true that younger children are easier to place for adoption and sadly older children spend more time in foster care
Lisa

This is from The Times:

"Babies are being taken from their parents and placed in care before all other options are exhausted so that local authorities can meet targets on adoption, a group of MPs claim."

And this :

"... a woman whose baby was removed by social workers, not because the child came to any harm but because there was a suspicion that her father might have injured a child from his previous marriage. That suspicion was never proven, no charges were ever brought and the child of the earlier marriage was never removed."

Yes all well and good but ss hold meetings with local police and there they discuss possible risky people, it doesnt have to be proven by courts. There might have not be efoort evidence to take to court but enough to confirm abuse.
Its not just ss who decide on removal of children, they legally cant do it without police permission and adoption has to be agreed by lawers and judge not sw.

i believe every word of it and find it very sinister. what really changed my mind was when my sister started a social work course and the quality of training and staff (sorry to the sw posting on here) that she told us about was very very scary indeed. this was also confirmed by another friend whose job is to keep an eye on sw and stop them operating beyond their remit - again, same kind of details. and finally, watching a documentary last year about one of those terrible cases from a few years ago where the whole country seemed to become obsessed with ritual satanic abuse - that was a very disturbing documentary indeed, the worst part was the footage of the actual interviews with the young children - I was so horrified by the utterly utterly crap interviewing, appalling behaviour by so called trained professionals and the way that the information then obtained in these farcial interviews was put before the judge as evidence. the worst part of it all was that despite seeing that video footage those sw are still working for that local authority.
having seen how every other organisation and individual responds to pressure to meet targets etc i would also completely believe that this could be happening in order to meet targets

AIMS is quoted in that article as backing the allegations. They are a reputable organisation. And many MNers will remember the Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy hysteria which led to blameless parents having their children snatched away on the evidence of 'experts' like Roy Meadow who were so busy pursuing their own theories they were too busy to actually meet the parents they were talking about.

What's more, at least two of the social workers who abused children in Rochdale - because that's what those interviews were - are still working.

im not a sw but work for ss, so no worries
I dont disagree that some sworkers are terrible anf watched that horrible doc the other year, terrible and very sad for those children.
i just dont agree that children ae being adopted to meet targets. there is such a long process with so many proffessionals and lawyers i dont think it would get done. Lisa

Thing is, it was a long process with lots of lawyers and professionals that led to children in the Rochdale, Cleveland and Orkney miscarriages of justice being wrongly taken from their parents... not to mention all the cases involving Roy Meadows and David Southall.

It is worrying, but I thought that there is a shortage of people who want to adopt and that there are plenty of children who need homes?

Don't think it was that long a process in the Cleveland cases, anyway - i knew a guy at college whose mother was a ?judge or magistrate in that area - the family used to be woken up in the middle of the night to make legal orders for removal of children - strong suggestion it was being done fast.

Which is presumably why it is at least supposed to be a much more complex process now.

Sorry, I don't think I believe this one, but would be completely horrified if it were true, so am probably biased against it.

~It is worrying, but I thought that there is a shortage of people who want to adopt and that there are plenty of children who need homes?~

There a shortage of people to adopt older children, often with special needs or abusive backgrounds.

There is never a shortage of people who want to adopt a perfect young child/baby.

If newborn babies are being taken from maternity units, it seems like social services is deciding that some people should not have children at all.

Why not castrate them by force?

Oh wait. There was that adoption target...

Ok , I dont usually change my name but this is a painful subject.

IN respomnse to the posters who believe that you really have to go some to get your kids removed this is sadly not the case. I know this for a complete fact.

Ds was removed from my care whilst I was in hospital with severe postnatal depression. Ds had been well cared for, physically and emotionally however at the time I was severely severly depressed. He was removed soon after my admission on an EPO. Placed with foster carers (a week before his birthday) and then placed with his dad who was told he had to choose between ds and me. After a long and drawn out court case, where it was proved that I had suffered from PND and was a good mother it was decided he would remain with his father as 2 years had lapsed. I had maintained contact through all that time. I had to prove myself sane and fit, was lucky to have very good psychiatrists. The so called independent one had private meetings with the socail work and GAL who told her not to believe a word i said.. - this was documented but no action ever taken. I am now a qualified nurse and my ds has been back home with me for some time now and he still regulary sees his dad. He is a wonderful and very much loved little boy and soon to be older brother. There was lots more to this case, and alot of it is very worrying. The main one being that nothing is allowed to be discussed outside of the court arena at all. Therefore ss could state things that were not true but could not be questioned! It came to light that social services had lined a family up for adoption. So I do believe this happens but families that it does happen to are often so scared of speaking out for fear of losing their children all over again.

that's terrible, nearlylostds, I'm so sorry to read what a terrible time you had and glad you did not in the end lose your ds. It isn't until you've experienced something like that first hand that you see how scary it is once you've got caught up in the system and how hard it is to get back out again.

shocking nearly

Nearlylostds, this is shocking

I feel like crying. You must be an amazing person to get through that. Is there any possibility of some kind of inquest?

This thread should be bumped, it's serious stuff...

Tbh if it hadnt happened to me I am not sure that I would have believed it possible. The new sw that got involved because the other got 'promoted' said off the record that ds should never have been removed. I must stress he was never ever harmed. Part of my PND was a fear that I wouldnt be able to protect him from someone if they tried to get him (I meant people like murderers etc). It was very frightening. I was lucky enough to find mumsnet tho towards the end of case and found so much support here. I also found out I wasnt entirley alone.

You poor thing. Does ds have much memory of it now?

It is indeed very serious stuff. I know when SWs post on MN, they are at pains to point out that the unpleasant stories are the only ones that make the papers, and I want to believe it, but personal experience is a different thing. It makes me very nervous indeed, and I'm very glad my children are nowhere near the system.

Def going on.My cousin has been repeatedly threatened with having her twins removed with varied excuses.These include
Putting the dc's on at risk register before born on grounds that their dad was brought up in care and my cousin didn't know how to raise dc's(even though she had helped her ex raise his 4 for over a year)
After splitting with boys dasd she was then threatened again due to being down(social had made her choose after pressuring the dad so much he went off rails)
Her house was a bit of a mess so they removed boys and gave temp. custody to her mother(who's house is a tip and always has been)
There are other things they have tried but to many to list.They keep trying with the hose not being perfect.They told her that she has to keep the house spotless.She's a single mother to twin boys aged 21months FGS.
My mother and myself are the only reason that she has made it this far.She has had to put up with emotional blackmail from the SS and trouble with ex(who have recently said they want the dad who by the way tried to set my cousin and babies on fire)to have unsupervised visitation,thankfully she said no in the end,and constantly being told she is not doing a good enough job by them.It is now wonder that she is stressed and sometimes wants to scream.

Ds is home, which is what is really important and he never lost contact with me. He used to cry all the time when I said goodbye and kept asking to live with me. This was hard for ex-p and myself. Ds loves his dad very much and we are just so lucky he wasnt lost forever.

I have thought about an inquest but so damn frightened that they will take him all over again. Totally irrational, i know. I hope to go back to court to get residency order discharged as ds doesnt live with his dad. There are no social service orders in place so that isnt going to be an issue.

With my case the social worker and GAL where 'buddies' too. The GAL got rapped by yhte judge in the final hearing as she never bothered updating reports attending etc. THe social worker changed as I said before and the new one and GAL didnt see eye to eye as the new sw used to be a MH sw so knew their stuff.