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.

I don't think anyone's arguing that the children should just be taken on a car ride, dropped off at Mum and Dad's house and told 'welcome home'.

Although oddly enough that is the sort of thing that happens to children in care all the time. Shifted from foster placement to children's home to foster placement with no notice - often the first thing the poor kid knows about it is when they get home from (yet another) school and see the SW's car outside.

Partly to do with the worrying shortage of foster parents but again, it's ludicrous that it's OK for social services to disrupt children again and again and again, but something we couldn't possibly even begin to contemplate when it might actually involve a reunion with the birth parents.

edam - you're so right. The little girl my friends have just adopted has been in 3 different foster homes and now she's been adopted and she's not yet 3. She calls everyone who is kind to her 'mummy'

That is awful, that poor family. Surely they can take this to the European Court of Human Rights?

Edam - you're right, if they can do this repeatedly in the fostering system why not plan to return them to their own, innocent parents?

Edam, you are so right about how the authorities hide behind the 'interests of the child' to justify their actions.

Yet you would think perhaps they would actually speak to the child in question, where it is an older child, to ask their views. Lord Laming, in his report post Victoria Climbie, discovered that the social workers did not routinely speak to an at risk child without their parents present.

In this case, the Court of Appeal, overturning the ruling of the trial judge, ordered the return of a 10.5 year old girl who had been placed in care, to her mother. Throughout the proceedings the child, now 10 years old, had been adamant that she wished to return to her mother and had threatened/attempted suicide during foster care, but all this was discounted by the trial judge.

Interestingly in that case, the Court of Appeal considered whether there should there be a period of rehabilitation before returning the child and he came to an emphatic 'no': "I am afraid my view about that is quite clear: no. We are not moving this child to terra incognita, she is going home. Local authorities have no compunction in moving children from a home to a foster home without any attempt at preparing the way, and in my judgment T must go home."

Edam, that is exactly what you have been saying.

The so-called interests of the child is also invoked as the reason for the longstanding secrecy with which the family courts have operated. Except in very exceptional circumstances, no reporting is allowed and parents who go to the press would be in contempt of court.

Gagged. Very convenient for burying miscarriages of justice, along with the virtually inviolable rule of removing children from their adoptive parents. I have heard cases of social services deliberately delaying things such the 3 year mark passes, making it impossible for the natural parents to get their child back.

I believe there are plans to prise open the family courts, supported by Jack Straw. I would be interested to see how far the reforms go.

The case you have linked to is interesting blueshoes. I don't have any direct interest in family law, but DH does and his main concern was the way in which parents who are not well-educated and who may in fact be educationally subnormal/suffer from literacy problems etc are disadvantaged in these processes. Advocacy really isn't enough sometimes.

The mother in your case was described as "stupid". Which sounds to be accurate but also might go some way to explaining how she lost her daughter in the first place.

threads like this just get bloody ridiculous, loads of people wading in and slagging off social services and social workers.

there is a recruitment crisis in social work at the moment - something like 1 in 7 posts vacant. is it any wonder? maybe the people on here who are so quick to condemn should try training and actually doing the job.

all this suggestion that social workers enjoy removing children and get their kicks out of harassing innocent parents - it's complete madness.

i very much doubt that many of you would last five minutes with the reality of the job.

and yes, i am a social worker. and if i had my time again i wouldn't even consider training - huge caseloads, funding shortages, paperwork mountains. and that's not even taking into consideration the emotional toll.

the reality is that most social workers are trying their damndest to support and protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

unfortunately though ceres, the very small percentage of nutters in your job, have powers that are scarey.
but I hear your comments.

I'm sure there are lots of good social workers, Ceres, and lots of social workers who are good but have become battle-weary and are badly let down by their bosses and a lack of resources - Haringey, for instance, seems to have been a terrible place to work, where a SW who raised concerns was demonised to the point of her bosses/colleagues concocting charges of child abuse and trying to take her own daughter away.

But that doesn't mean there ain't anything wrong with the system. SWs have an enormous amount of power - child or adult (sectioning for adults) and those who are malign are a danger to anyone who comes in contact with them. It is well established that any caring role, or job with power and authority, tends to attract bullies as well as decent people. Or decent people get case-hardened and think the worst of everyone.

Sadly the system seems to have very few checks and balances to root out the bad apples. No-one seems to have read Arthur Miller's The Crucible or they wouldn't have been so keen to fall for all the hysteria about satanic abuse - and the Rochdale social workers, caught on their own cameras lying and treating children very badly are still working. That's horrifying.

MSbP, now renamed FII in an attempt to evade scrutiny, is today's satanic abuse. I'm sure there are parents who hurt their children to gain attention, but it is over-diagnosed based on very woolly criteria.

The General Social Work Council or whatever the regulator is called is very new - I wonder if it has ever struck anyone off.

I know one of the most eminent doctors in the country who told me he had been threatened by social workers when he pointed out allegations against one of his patients were a case of the Emperor's New Clothes. No-one was thinking clearly - he merely pointed out, as a doctor, that one should exclude the most likely reasons before leaping for MSbP. If they can threaten someone with his professional standing, what hope do ordinary SWs who dare to raise concerns, or nurses, or doctors, or SALTs - or parents - have?

edam - the gscc have a website where you can learn more about their role in the training and regulation of social workers. you can also see the codes of conduct as well as find out how to make a complaint.

and yes, several social workers have been struck off.

in response to your last sentance - ordinary social workers raise concerns every single day , thankfully most of us do not see raising concerns as a pointless task.

ceres, I have no doubt that there are very good social workers, doing a good job despite working with challenging families in difficult circumstances. As a society, we need much more of them and properly support them in their jobs.

Do you think there is something of a postcode lottery in how effective social services are? Do you work in a particularly deprived area eg comparable to Haringey?

I've seen suggestions that attitudes and practice seem to vary dramatically from authority to authority. Maybe you work in one of the better places? (And I'm sure you do your bit to make it that way!)

Social workers pull off miracles ALL the time, and get NO recognition for it. It's not 'newsworthy' when they work hard with a family and manage to get them to stay together; it's only newsworthy when something goes wrong. I'm not a social worker, and I'm not married to a social worker. I have no axe to grind, except with twats who brand all social workers incompetent or evil. There are no doubt some incompetent social workers out there, just as there are incompetent bankers, lawyers, plumbers and bus drivers. But most of them, just like most other people, are decent human beings, trying hard to do very difficult jobs most of us wouldn't do, for very little money, no prestige and precious little in the way of gratitude. And they're functioning within a system which focuses only on back-covering and meeting targets. They can't win.

I think you will find, that many of the "twats" who mistrust social workers, actually have personal experience of how destructive social workers can be.

i think the kids should be returned to their birth parents, yes it is sad for the adotive parents, but it has been much worse for the birth parents who's kids have effectivly been stolen by the SW , the birth parents only fault is passng on defective genes, and taking poor advice re the soya milk! this might be traumatic for the kids if done all at once, but if done slowly, bit at a time and short stay overs to start with it is possible and would be less traumatic than finding out what happened whe they are older!.. i think the adoptve parents have been treated badly too. they've opened their hearts and homes to these kids thinking ,they are giving an unwanted child a loving family, the kids in question are very much wanted by their birth family, and i would go so far as saying this has been very dishonest on part of SW. the kids should be returned and all parties should recieve compensation and appologies!

would like to add , i know not all SW are "bad", some are very good at thier jobs and a godsend to some families!, just the one in this case im talking about! , perhaps if there were mors prove positives in the news more poeple would want to train in SW?

This case was quite near to me. I remember watching lots of things about it at the time.

They did one programme with a human family tree and everyone in their family who had had or known of a similar trouble stood forward. It seems that cases of accidental broken bones went right back through their family, not sure if this meant they were prone to scurvy or not.

It is dreadfully, dreadfully sad. I wish something could be done. They should at the very least be allowed to see their children.

NewQueen, who, pray, is that twat who is branding all social workers incompetent or evil? Have you bothered to read this thread properly before coming on here guns blazing and going off on one?

I agree with you, in every profession there are bad eggs. I am a lawyer myself (nothing to do with child protection so no axe to grind myself). I am even keener than the average man on the street to ensure that all bad lawyers are named, shamed, disciplined and struck off, for the protection of the public.

The point is that whilst there are good and bad social workers, the bad ones are allowed to ride roughshod in a system that operates on secrecy and gives them unchecked powers to split up families on a whim and which uses the 'interests' of children to keep the family apart even where there has been a miscarriage of justice. Would you not be concerned if untrained and petty individuals who decide to go into social work for whatever reason are allowed to take your children from you because they don't like your face or the fact you don't listen to them like they are godking.

I am not making this up - this is from other mnetters with some frankly horrific experiences of certain (not all) social workers. Do a search in archives....

Quite, blueshoes. Does the fact that most doctors and nurses are competent excuse the Rodney Ledwards and Beverley Alletts? (Can't remember spelling.) Should we get rid of all the disciplinary systems designed to weed out bad eggs because they just serve to cast doubt on the decent ones?

If anyone wants to read the judgment in this case it's here
It's very long but has a useful index at the top that you can use to jump to the right bit.
Sorry if it's already been posted - I've read most but not all of the thread.

Blueshoes, Edam

I didn't say there shouldn't be checks and balances or that social workers shouldn't be monitored, and supervised. Did I? No. Thought not.

Of course they should, as should any professionals who have positions of responsiblity for members of the public. So we don't disagree there.

Those who made the sweeping generalisations about social workers' incompetence no doubt know who they are without me pointing the finger at them. Maybe you could re-read the thread yourself to find the remarks.

On your point re 'untrained' social workers, I don't know what evidence you have for this. All the social workers I've ever met were highly qualified individuals who go through regular on-the-job re-training to keep their skills up to date. Oh, but wait, no, they're only social workers, so they must be thick, vindictive and meddling, right?

It's easy to slag social workers. I'm not joining in, though.

One of the children was 6 months old when s/he was last in the care of his/her birth parents. So s/he is - what, 4 and a half, 5? Same age as my (adopted) DD, so let's use her as an example.

You're suggesting that she should be gradually introduced to her birth parents, forced to go on outings with them and stay over at their house. My DD cannot get to sleep without either me or DH lying beside her until she drops off. But you'd force her to stay at her birth parents' home just because she's got their DNA. Often she wakes up in the night and needs comforting, she'd be terrified if two strangers went into her room. At what point would you hand her over permanently to the birth parents? Would you withdraw her contact with her adoptive parents to facilitate this?

My God, my dd would be petrified! She doesn't care about genes or DNA she cares about being with the people who are mummy and daddy to her. How cruel would that be to take her away from everything she loves and trusts.

yes but was it not originly cruel to take her from her parents and adopt her out without their consent! i mean why did they not find long term fosterers for the kids? perhaps beause they knew the case was a shakey one and is they got the kids adopted asap then it couldnt be undone!the worst part is they repeated the "error" by chasing the parents to ireland and taking there newborn too. again id like to say not all SW are like this, but this case surely had a little hitler who knows best and didnt take medical history of the whole extended family into concideration! should never have happened! children should be returned. end of.

'She doesn't care about genes or DNA she cares about being with the people who are mummy and daddy to her. How cruel would that be to take her away from everything she loves and trusts. '

She may not care now, but she will.

That's why.

And this isn't the same as someone who voluntarily gave up their children for adoption or who really was abusive and neglectful

As a mother myself, I can't imagine knowing that the truth of the matter was that my child was wrongfully taken from some other woman who lost her child and in good conscience keep my child from knowing her.

I wouldn't rest easy with that, because I'd know sure as the sun rises in the East that not doing the right thing would come back to haunt not just me, but my child, too.

Why is it not possible, for someone to have more than one set of parents/caregivers? To live in harmony in many relations?

Why is the definition of family just man/woman/children?

If it were me, if I were that child, I'd want to know. I'd be furious if someone hid that from me.

I just think, 'What if it were me, and I were the mother who wrongfully lost her kids?' What would I be grateful for?

It would be for the chance to know my child again.