Rather terrifying article about social workers attempting to take baby from its mother as soon as its born.

[Callisto]

It was in the Sunday Telegraph which I got round to reading last night. The story plus a couple of related articles is here: www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/26/nbaby126.xml

Hello all,

Adoption statistics are available from the Office of National Statistics:

www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=581

These stats do not prove a causal link between any two factors, they just show how many children were adopted. However, they do raise some important questions. I'll leave it to people with greater knowledge than I of both statistics and of this issue to comment further.

A BRIEF SUMMARY:

Adoption Stats, by age, for 1999:

4316 children adopted of whom:
251 (5%) were

Some more statistics

The below link gives more stats. When parents are fighting to retain their children it takes perhaps 2 years for an adoption to go through although the government changed the law to make it easier to forcibly adopt children in 2004.

Hence the babies taken into care wrongly are adopted.

Most importantly compare the scottish figures to those in England and Wales.

If we take last year Scotland had about a third of the rate of adoptions from care as exist in England and most importantly 2/3 of children under 5 leaving care in scotland went home to their parents. The vast majority of children under 5 leaving care in England are adopted.

I think that is perhaps the strongest statistical evidence that England is adopting children that should be with their birth parents.

It is worse in the sense that the statistics imply that a different age cohort of children are taken into care to get them adopted. Eg without the targets they woudl not have been taken into care.

All the sources for the information on my reference website are governmental of some form.

i think it is wonderful that Fran has come here, to tell us more....and I wish her and her daughter Molly, the very best..

am just a little concerned, that perhaps some of this might be sub judice, and should not be discussed at all? don;t know what the state of play is with regard to legal proceedings right now

legal proceedings cannot commence yet as the baby is unborn.

Once proceedings begin Fran will not be able to discuss the contents of Court documents on this forum.

The secrecy is an awful thing.

This is just bloody MAD, a paed who hasn't even MET SOMEONE being listened to over psychiatrists who HAVE MET SOMEONE. When the fking fk is someone going to rein these social workers in? Why are they allowed such absolute power over peoples lives without any accountability. It makes me so cross.

Fran, you are being extremely generous in your consideration of their pov.

thanks for that chipkid...

The gagging of parents whilst care proceedings are progressing is much more substantial than not revealing court documents. They cannot even admit that their child is part of care proceedings in a public forum such as this.

There are some really evil things going on at the moment that I am not allowed to talk about even though I am an MP.

Are your eally Joh Hemming the MP? [hmm} (well yu could be anyone on here). I wqs going to stand for Lib Dem counsellor but got pg instead LOL.

The whole current state of the system is ridiculous- when aprents like myself of disabled kids are too scared to ask for help, when others keep passports at the ready- and by dint of being on here, we are all at teh very least interested, caring parents!

I can't beleive the shift has been so quick either- only a few years ago I worked for HomeStart,a nd i could barely get even the most needy famillies referred, even when there was genuine risk of harm.

I cannot, of course, prove which John Hemming I am or even that am not an alien from Proxima Centauri.

My websites, however, are static.
john.hemming.name
johnhemming.blogspot.com

There are in fact about 92 John Hemmings in the UK.

I monitor where people are linked to my websites on the basis that the people using those links may be interested in more information. There were quite a few people visiting my sites from this thread.

Good for you John Hemming.

Yep, one was me LOL!

Good to see you on here anyway, dont'ya know we are (Ahem) the daddy of aprenting sites??

And a damned good way of doing research lol

most of the general public are not aware of exactly how the family courts work ,the uttmost secrecy ,even if ,as in our case the family want to go public,becauase the secrecy has been allowed to flourish we now have many corrupt lawyers,sw,drs,experts and many judges who do not make the correct decisions regarding the children,most of these people can make a lot of money and they do,local authoritys do not have the interests of the children at heart as in our case it was personal ,but we will have our say we have done an interveiw for bbc news at 10 showing either mon or tue of next week so for all blackpool local authority did to us we are stronger than them,i can name blackpool as the abusers as we have a judgement allowing us to and i would advise any parent fighting any local authority to keep your cool ,never lose your rag with anyone to do with your case,dont talk about your case to anyone,always tell the truth and never ever let them see you cry or be angry they WILL use any emotions you show against you,i was an acused msbp mother of 5 and had 9 months of hell without our kids ,we are doing not so bad now and we are 4 years down the line but will never give up fighting blackpool we will never rest until we have justice for our kids,may i just add that in our case our judge was justice munby who was fair and knew his job as he judged against blackpool then has allowed us to name them publicly,all you parents out there KEEP FIGHTING,karen

I have never read anything in almost 7yrs that mirrored my own situation as much as the article did. I am seething as I write. I too was hit with the emotional abuse handle whilst pregnant. I had my DD at 20 and was told my child would be placed on the at risk register at the moment of birth and I would have to move into a unit to be monitored. The alternative I was offered was to give my child up at birth which I refused.

I had an history of BPD which I have never been ashamed of but I never realised it struck me off the parenting list! But according to an evil unfulfilled SS I had contact with in my teens it was cited as a major factor in the order.

Thankfully I had a great mental health team that argued my case. BPD sufferers are extremely intelligent and high functioning and they fought my case all the way.

My DD was placed on the at risk register for 18months in the end and I had to contend with bi yearly reviews, a SS in my house weekly checking up on me and weekly visits by a health visitor checking DD naked incase I had bruised her somehow. It was the most depressing period of my life. I remember once DD scrathed herself and I was in tears that the order would be implemented. I lived with the nightmare of her being taken away from me for 5 years, long after the matter was dealt with on paper. No-one cane give me back those years and it was all unfounded. My DD is a testament to good parenting - a happy, healthy with a high EQ & IQ and I am a damn good mother. I have gone on to carve a fine career for myself and gained my BA & MA along the way. This has been my justice.

Fran, the system is a farce but know that a lot of people are on your side and will fight this with you. Keep your head about you and fight this with all you got. Prove them wrong at every point. No-one has a right to pass judgement without any due cause or reason. No-one has the right to taint you and your unborn child with their negativity so be sure to reject it all. No-one can see into the future. You and Molly will be just fine x

Fran - I'm so sorry you have to face this - wishing you all the very best.

damn typos! scratched not scathed!

is bpd bipolar disorder Woodyrocks? Sorry for being ignorant.

Bi-polar disorder, Kathy.

Please can I ask a related question?

My sister had treatment in a psychiatric unit (so she was hospitalised for a couple of months, voluntarily, dignosed as bi polar disorder) around 15 years ago. She has been well since and hasn't taken medication since. It seems to be have been a one off episode.

She is now pregnant. Should she be worried? Is there anything I should tell her? This has suddenly occurred to me and has made me feel quite nervous on her behalf.

WWW - I really believe that your sister will be fine, she is not actively involved in mental health services, it is such a long time ago. I cannot believe that SSD will take any interest at all

BPD can be Borderline Personality Disorder as was as bi-polar, I've seen the acronym used for both.

Thank you overrun. sorry Fran for hijacking your thread, I suddenly though omg, will anyone take a ss interest in my lovely sister, I do so hope not.

Hello all,

I've set up a website and discussion forum about both my case and all the terribly complex issues surrounding it.

If anyone wants to take a look it can be found at: www.wardrobehudson.co.uk/askingforachance/Home.html

The address will change to something somewhat more sensible just as soon as the web forwarding updates.

Thanks for all the support.

Fran Lyon

Sorry for not getting back to you quicker Kathy and thanks Greensleeves for providing an answer whilst I fed my DD! It is indeed Borderline Personality Disorder ( ironically enough I have Bi-polar underscore).

Fran thanks for providing the forum link. I, as I am sure many, will be keeping abreast of the situation. If you need a petition signed just holler!

Fran, do you have enough family and friends around to support you?