terribly sad story about wrongful adoption where the birth parents have been proved innocent

[edam]

Today programme look at 2hrs 10mins in this morning had a segment on the case of parents who were accused of abuse, their children were taken away and adopted. Now it's finally emerged that the parents are innocent but the Court of Appeal says the adoption order is permanent and can't be overturned.

I do understand that adoption has to be solid and safe but surely the courts and social services could promote some form of contact between innocent parents and their children?

In what universe does the 'best interests of the child' = refusing to recognise and address a miscarriage of justice? Surely the child has a human right to a relationship with their birth family?

Just makes me even more fearful of SS after the stream of stories about miscarriages of justice and heavy-handed tactics. I would NEVER ask them for help.

thread here

FFS for the last time I said about signing papers for dramatic effect in my post!

There was something on the BBC recently about other care options being effective and good for children let me have a look...

While there are all these cases of children being wrongly removed from innocent parents and being put up for adoption ie permanent removal then yes, I think other options should be used.

Define neglect though, my friend who used to be a social worker, openly admits when she was a 25 year old with no kids she made reports about new mums not making eye contact with the baby whilst feeding it as being a sign of lack of bonding, now as a mother herself she can see the poor woman was probably just bloody knackered.
She also admitted to being shocked a woman breast fed her 3 year old child, yet the WHO recommends up to the age of two and I know two parents who fed until the age of three, very wealthy, intelligent women who are model parents, yet in a young mother that was taken down and used against her.
It's all very sad for everyone involved, surely there are measures in place to help people even if they were neglecting the children it must be cheaper to show the parents the right way to do things ?

As for the other case with the father being accused, yes that's bloody awful but if SS told me go near your husband and you loose your child he wouldn't see me for dust.

I just want to say I think this has been a really good debate and it's made me really think about the situation.

It is usual for there to be a lot of intervention in a family to try and keep them together, (the 60 visits in the Baby P case are an example), but some parents simply don't co-operate. Some do, and overcome their problems, and there's a happy ending to the fairy tale.

Tum, were you thinking of concurrent care? Where people foster children with a view to possible adoption, when it's not clear how it will turn out? Then the children may be returned to the birth family without having risked another move.

'they have already suffered trauma in being separated from birth parents - so to do it again would be more than they could cope with, and very cruel.'

even crueler would be to deny them access to their own flesh and blood parents when those parents lost their child through a miscarriage of justice on the part of the state.

and no one can assume that gradual contact and access would be more than a child can cope with.

i really feel for these people if the adoptive parents keep their children from them.

again, as a mother myself, i can't imagine behaving as such to another mother.

blithedance I'm not sure about all the different types of care available but that concurrent care sounds good.

There must be alternative options to getting these children adopted out while the parents are stil fighting. There just must be. As what is happening is just wrong.

tumtum - did you not read my post where I said the children were adopted several years ago? They simply cannot overturn their adoption orders. I do think they should revise the no contact ruling though - that is definitely an area where there is scope for flexibility.

For the authorities to overturn this, it would set a precedent that bio parents could at any point be entitled to overturn an adoption order should they be found to be good parents. And I'm sorry, while I feel desperately sorry for these people, that cannot be or adoption would be utterly meaningless.

spicemonster have you not read any of my posts?

I have at no point said that the adoptions should be overturned.

Maybe you have me confused with someone else.

Yes I did but these posts:
'I am saying that in cases where the birth parents are still in the process of contesting findings the adoption process should be put on hold so when (and it is when) birth parents are exonerated they can have their children back.'

'There must be alternative options to getting these children adopted out while the parents are stil fighting. There just must be. As what is happening is just wrong.'

seemed to me to imply that you thought they were contesting the adoption as it was going through which they didn't. If you didn't mean that, then I'm not sure what you meant, sorry.

How do those posts say I want adoptions to be reversed?

Oh okay - sorry, completely misunderstood, was reading with one eye and the other on a toddler. Now I understand what you meant. Still think there would have to be a time limit in cases like that and I suspect that this particular case would exceed that.

But as I said, I do think that the no contact order should be revisited. I know for a fact that those are highly flexible as generally SS are very keen for adopted children to maintain contact with bio parents. If the courts in this case accept that these parents didn't harm their children, then they should be allowed to see them. It will be terribly traumatic for the children in the future too once they find out what's happened.

Presumably children are taken away from their parents though because SS think that they are at risk of harm?

So I'm not sure how the contact thing would work - wouldn't it put potential adoptive parents off if they knew the child was going to continue contact with birth parents who were considered by SS to be "bad"?

I think really, reading all that John Hemmings chap says about the family courts and the papers as well that the set-up there needs to be revisited.

Then the care system should be looked at to see why care homes/fostering are less satisfactory than permanent adoption. Having said that though, others have said that once the children are adopted they are left alone - so how do we know the outcome is better than other types of care. Not to do down any adoptive parents at all - but it seems that it must be an assumption that it's better if children are not monitored subsequently.

I wish I could find that thing on the BBC the other day where they are trialling a scandinavian approach in childrens homes as it has really positive outcomes for the children - it involves dedicated care people who stay with the children throughout their lives (to 18 and still having contact beyond as well) - but not living with them - so they do all the bonding hugging kissing continuity stability etc. Apparently it yields real results and the children are much happier but I can't remember what it's called...

I just can't think of anything worse than having my children removed permanently when I had done nothing wrong - there must be another way.

No not necessarily tumtum. There is letterbox contact as well as face to face and if there are concerns around abuse then that will be the way to go.

I'm afraid I don't agree with you that long-term fostering is a good idea - it doesn't give children any stability and I support the current SS goals to try and have children in care adopted within two years.

There are of course instances of malpractice but they are few and far between. In the vast majority of cases, SS act properly and adoptions are in the child's best interests.

I support John Hemmings' campaign to get more transparency into family court proceeding wholeheardedly however - I think it can only be for the good of the whole system and everyone involved in it to have clearer oversight over what happens.

Think the Danish child care worker are called pedagogues and yes, it does seem to work well, far more child-centred than our current system of shifting children from placement to placement repeatedly.

I'm struck by the comparison between adoption and life sentences that the judges made, in terms of their finality in law. Surely we need to reform adoption so that there is some redress for wronged families? OK, adopted children need permanence - but that should not be framed in such a way that it makes it impossible to address miscarriages of justice. Tearing children apart from their parents hurts the children, too. And there is tons of evidence that adopted people overwhelmingly want to know about their birth families and to have some degree of contact - although of course there are exceptions, it is generally a very strong drive.

adoption is a legal process that gives the adoptive parents parental responsibility for the child/ren. legally adoptive parents have the same rights and responsibilities as birth parents.

those who have made the comparison with kidnappers - this is a non-argument. adoption is a legal process involving the transfer of parental responsibility, kidnap is a crime. regardless of how the kidnappers may treat a child they have no legal rights or responsibilities with regard to that child.

post-adoption it is quite usual for there to be some form of contact with birth families - often 'letterbox contact' which, as the name suggests, is the exchange of letters, photos etc. the frequency of this is usually prescribed e.g. twice yearly. any contact arrangements will be agreed pre-adoption.

earlier in this thread i suggested that those who would like to know more about how social work is regulated, find out about sw training, learn how to make a complaint etc should visit the gscc (general social care council) website.

for further information on adoption, particularly the legal aspects and to learn more about the differences between fostering and adoption, visit the baaf (british asssociation of adoption and fostering) website.

tumtumtetum Sun 15-Feb-09 18:26:11 Add a

"I am saying that in cases where the birth parents are still in the process of contesting findings the adoption process should be put on hold so when (and it is when) birth parents are exonerated they can have their children back."

But is it not the case that they were not contesting the findings at that time and that noone could reasonably know that they would do so in the future? That the appeal came much later, after the children had been adopted? So that it would seem unfair to blame SS for not knowing that this would happen?

Also, when the new findings were made the first reaction of the biological parents was not that they would fight tooth and claw to get their children back; instead, they said the adoptions should stand and it was only later they changed their minds.

The link above mentions adoption targets. The Websters case would presumably have been at the same time. Do we know if these have been abolished, or ammended to cover only children already in long-term placements? It beggars belief that rather than make an effort to help unwanted children in local authority care that SS instead went after loved but "adoptable" ones on flimsy pretexts in order to meet them. It's nothing short of a disgrace that that was allowed to happen.

spicemonster, grammaticus, can you explain more about contact orders?

After picking my way through the judgment, I was not able to find anything said about a contact order. Now that the Websters have been denied the right to appeal/overturn the adoption order, can they apply to vary the contact order?

In this case of a possible miscarriage of justice (as acknowledged by the Court of Appeal), I would think that mere letterbox contact is not sufficient and face-to-face is the very least. How much further can a contact order go and is it potentially available in the Websters' case seeing that there is not going to be a re-trial and therefore, no forum for the Websters to prove there was an actual miscarriage of justice.

'Why would they not have contested the findings at the time? That seems a bit odd to me. If you believed your parenting was fine, surely you would have contested all the way'

Well, we're not going to know because it's all kept secret and parents in such situations are threatened with imprisonment for going public.

blueshoes, I can only talk from my own personal experience (well not mine actually, my friends who have recently adopted). The bio mother of their child gave her up for adoption. She had face to face contact on and off while her DD was in foster care but is 'in a bad place at the moment' (ie using drugs quite heavily) so this contact has been reduced to letterbox for the timebeing. However, SS are keeping in touch with her and it is their intention (and my friends) that she will resume face to face contact with her child. My friends are really keen that this happens - not all adoptive parents want to keep their children away from their bio parents.

my SIL was adopted under similar circumstances, spice. the ILs did all they could to ensure contact.

unfortunately, the biological mother was uanble to overcome her addiction and passed away when SIL was 21.

That's really sad expat

I am really hoping that doesn't happen here. She was doing really well for a while but isn't doing well at the moment.

blueshoes - I have no idea I'm afraid if parents can petition to have contact orders changed - I'd hope they can. It does seem to be the only control they have. I don't know if adoptive parents can refuse them either - I know that it's part of the adoption contract that if there is letterbox contact you have to honour that so presumably if that changed, you would have to do that too. Whoever it was said down the thread that once you've adopted, you have no more invovlement with ss than any 'normal' family isn't stricly true - if there is any kind of contact order, they will be involved and a lot of adoptive families keep in touch with their SWs after the adoption to provide them with support with what can be pretty challenging children.