Children Assaulted/Critical but stable condition

[Claire2009]

Two boys aged 10 & 11 being questioned about this. Don't know how to do links but this might work

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7984392.stm

Lulu - you're right. I just keep hoping to hear news that the boys are still recovering.

Thinking about it more, I do wonder if it fits into a bigger picture that the care system is in a terrible state. So there is not enough early identification, early intervention, not enough significant and meaningful intervention. "Care" is not good enough and so is not resorted to enough, and is not effective or "caring".

It seems clear that the foster care these boys were placed in was completely inadequate here. I wonder if the foster carers were even made fully aware of the level of difficulty the two boys were coming with (think about that awful case in Wales recently).

And there was clearly a lack of joined-up supervision, with various reports to the police not being viewed as part of a bigger picture.

I too think there ought to be some sort of compulsory parenting course but that does then become a civil rights issue. It would have to be mandatory, I suppose, or it wouldn't reach those who most need it. And what about those who "fail"? And it would almost certainly end up eroding that cherished belief (and cherished with good reason) that everyone has the right to have children.

And fattiemama - I can't see why anyone would flame you for what you posted.

2shoes yes of course the victims will receive support. But what more is there to be said about them on a thread like this other than "oh it's so ?"

Whereas when a crime like this happens people question how and why these things can happen, because they are so far from the norm. And it is in that questioning that conclusions about the perpitrators will be drawn, in the hope that something can be done in order that, when they have served any sentence, they can lead normal, productive, non violent lives.

"they're scum/vermin/evil/lock them up and throw away the key/

but Rhubs the thing is that not all women have teh strength to leave. and even if they do they may not have the ability to fight to get their children the help that my own son has had.

I have had to really fight to get him the intervention he has recieved. Thankfully i have the intellect and experience to challenge the LEA and ask for thehelp he needed. a great number of parents just aren't capable.
they get fobbed off and they simply aren't able for one reason or another to get the support they need.

As i say, it has taken vast amounts of intervention to get my son anywhere near "normal"
he still can't be allowed to play unsupervised because of his agression, similarly to Peachy's ds but at least he is able to play with children now.

Orm we're OK LOL- a crap week (DH on redundancy notice / told very gently by SENCO that ds2 has a gamut of issues to add to ds1 / ds3 asd....) but we're OK, these news events just bring out my worst worries is all.

I hope these kids have been effed p by someone,and I hope whatever happens to them one day it can be mended with enough care and input. There are many kids at the SN sports group we go to who have been abandoned for differeing reasons and I will never know how a Mother manages it, but so often the back story when available is the same- drink, drugs, parents who pretty certainly have SN themselves. At least my kids get help- for every one like mine there seems to be another several whose parents dont bother with the endless knocking on doors and letter writing it takes to put in any help, or who dont turn up to meetings with school, complain that there kids are 'just being kids' or dont need labels (but there's no help without a label). I don't get it, and I never will. My feet hurt from kicking LEA backsides but I'd do it again like a shot if needed. Luckily only one of the three have any behavioural problems within their SN so i've gotten off relatively lightly.

Peachy im the same. when i saw the news the first thing i thought of was that one day it could be DS they are talking about.
as either the victim - he hits out at someone who gets the better of him or the perpetrator. it makes me feel phsyically sick.

I've ahd nightmares where i'm lovcked up for something DS1 did and trying to write appeals on ASD to explain what happened (I think in my dream he burned the school down)

but I managed a trip to a shopping mall with all 4 today! That's amazing progress really, and only a few minor stresses after returning home so-

remember with the bulger case, how much was made of the fact that they'd watched 'video nasty' chucky? i remember feeling rather unconvinced about that at the time, and this was later borne out by the stories that came out of the homes.

however, i do agree with rhubarb in that i do think that letting your child watch violent films is emblematic of an attitude to your responsibilities as a parent, and that should set alarm bells ringing. and if you don't have alarm bells...

as an aside, has anyone ever played these violent computer games? i was really shocked at how quickly i became immersed in it. i think if you have a still very plastic ten year old brain they must have a HUGE influence on behaviour and the notion of right and wrong. i do worry about how i'm going to keep my dds away from them.

fattiemumma you are so right and well done for getting away from that crap and doing that for your kids I couldn't agree with your post more.Those boys had all their power removed by the parenting or lack of and adly tried to exert power over those other poor boys.it is a tragedy for all concerned

Foster carers are not there to provide a secure environment ie locking their foster children up. If a child was deemed dangerous then they would need a placement in a secure unit, not a foster carer's home. And places in secure units are like rocking horse poo...

This case makes me so sad.

Sad for the 2 young victims whose lives will never be the same again.

Sad for their families.

And sad that 2 young boys are so screwed up that they commit attempted murder. What a waste.

my mum's friend is a foster carer, not long-term.

she said first of all that she only wanted to look after kids under 5. she had one baby to look after, then one night a social worker called with an emergency, two teenage sisters whose mum had been taken into hospital. she said yes and she never had a baby in the house since.

she's a normal woman, a professional in the health service, who wanted to givesomething back now that her own children are grown up. she gets seriously disturbed children dumped on her at a moment's notice, they hate being there, bless them, they need entertainment and attention and do not want to spend their evenings in the house with my mum's pal and her husband. so as to keep an eye on them, they take them to the bowling or the cinema at their own expense and are often not treated with any respect or kindness for it.

it's not a job i could do, not in a million years. i think anyone who does it is pretty heroic to be honest, and those boys sound fookin' scary to look after.

Aitch speaks sense as usual.

The ones we get at Sn group are amazing (some of the kids now attend EBD schools).
Quite a few etiehr adopt or will foster long term, aka until adulthood in reality.

Some see it purelya s a job though which I struggle with- one set cared for a very need child for a couple of years then just as he settled chose to retire and move abroad. Their right entirely but I did feel for the LO involved.

If mine get independence then it's something dh and I have said we would do, but specifically with SN.

i would desperatly like to Foster but i don't think i'd be accepted given Dc's ages (8+4)

Just wanted to make clear that my earlier post wasn't meant to be a criticism of foster parents.

What I had on my mind was more the situation in Wales recently. And I thought, having read the news reports, that something similar seemed to have happened here, somehow, but to the village, rather than the immediate family (and obviously, to the two attacked boys).

(Probably being overly paranoid here but I, too, rate people who foster and I just would like to make that clear.)

I'm bias.
My mother fosters and always has done. We were shoved to one side to make way for the latest foster child. Our problems were insignificant compared to theirs. She used to go out and leave us to cope with them too. I remember one foster child, I was only 10 myself and my brother was about 14, this girl was 5 and she screamed and screamed and screamed. If we tried to touch her she'd bite and kick. She rolled around on the floor and just screamed blue murder. We were terrified.

My mother now takes in teenagers. She's 70. My brother, who has learning difficulties, still lives at home and he's had to share his bedroom with a teenage foster child - you can just imagine what a vulnerable position that puts him in. He's had money stolen from him, CDs, that kind of thing.

My mother shouldn't be fostering. She doesn't do it for the sake of the children, she does it for the money. She gets an allowance to take them on holiday every year, so she usually goes to a caravan site with them for a week. Then she'll give them to a respite foster carer whilst she jets off to Spain or Florida for 2 weeks.

I'm sure she is in the minority of foster carers, but I'd like to know what social services think they are playing at giving a 70yo woman a teenager to look after. And they shouldn't be putting my brother in the position where he has to share a bedroom with one of the foster lads.

Rhubarb that is shocking. What the fuck are SS playing at?

How can they expect this of a 70 year old woman? Im even more flabbergasted that they think its appropriate for your vulnerable brother to have to share a bedroom.

As mentioned earlier, I work with some very damaged teenagers, but I can walk out at the end of my shift and go home. I cannot imagine for one minute what it must be like for a foster parent, stressful would be an understatement.

Playing at desperation perhaps Rhubs? Sadly there's a massive shortage of FP's isn't there. Still crap though.

Remind me of another family I know (I have mentioned the child on here in relation to ds1, follows him round claiming he's also ASD and causes massive issues). Mum has issues herself- manic Depression etc- bt can't ever get any hel;p from her Mum as there's always a fster child who gets preferential treatment. Saw the Nan literally drag the GS out of school last week, becuase he'd asked her to attend parents evening in lieu of Mum (not sure where Mum was, possibly owrking which is obv fair enough).

I have raised concerns about family withs chool BTRW who are handling.

My mother has mental problems herself. Hopefully those mental issues will be coming to light pretty soon as we are raising concerns about my brother. But it's not without abuse from my mother.

She is supplied kids by catholic social services, which figures doesn't it?

Rhubarb its not allowed for Foster children to share rooms unless they are siblings and of the same sex.

I spent my teenage years in Foster care I came from a violent back ground and hand on heart my Foster Mum was the most wonderful woman she changed my life for the better. Lived with that family for nearly four years and got on really well with there sons. Still in contact with them 7 years later.
Foster parents don't get enough support from Social services and have limits to what they can and can't do. For instance I was never grounded regardless of what I did.

As for these boys they clearly have had some messed up past and haven't got anything stable in there lives but that dosent justify what they have done.

I did live with another family that were not so pleasent to live with very messed up living arrangements husband wife and boyfriend living together but lived there for 6mths and got put into a young adult placement after that as I was not happy with the care provided by the Foster Mother who I saw hit the smaller kids and was clearly only fostering for the money.

Foster parents don't get enough support no which is terrible, thing is thogugh neither do the parents and its quite posible that if they did less foster care would be needed (financially for a start- compare carers allowance and fostering income).

The sad situation seems to be that both caring and fostering are viewed as vocational / devoted things to do and someone somewhere is automatically downgrading them as a result (next time you watch a debate n the suffering of people on pernsions and fixed incomes you watch to see if carers are mentionew- almost never).

The whole system needs shaking up badly. Give carers more support (both financial and real) and you'll need less foster carers; less foster care needed and better quality ones can be used; that will mean quality carers such as your foster mum can be rewarded appropriately and given enough support to make thir own life easier.

It's a win-win but won't happen. Why wouldn't it? Too many foster carers in it for the money (there does seem to be a divide between those and the brilliant ones I do meet) who wuld object, and too many carers run down and with no voice to speak for themselelves

(sorry- sopabox )

Well my Foster Mum gave up Fostering after I left due to the lack of emotional support that was provided to the carers. Her and her husband had been foster carers for 20years but even as a foster child the support system was lacking when trying to contact my SW it would takes days on ends.

When moving to the young adult placement at 17 SS moved me two minutes from my Fathers house Which of course caused major problems. My Social worker didn't know where I was for two weeks as my case had been passed on to the leaving care team.

The whole system needs to be sorted out. Starting all the way from the top.

Foster Children and Foster Carers don't get enough support at all.

It is all crap isn't it?Sopcial services is failing in every way and nobody is getting any of the help they need as a result (my own perspective is as a mum of 2 / 3 SN children so different view but same department IYSWIM).

there is an element of sexual abuse in all of this too. News reports say the two brothers forced their victims to perform humiliating sexual acts ( no detail).

Also that one of their elder brothers aged 13 has already been sent to a YOI for his crimes.

It says a lot - IMHO - that the foster parents were present in court to hear the boys being charged but the natural parents were not.