'I gave back my adopted baby'

[LetThereBeRock]

I've just read this article from the Guardian about a mother who gave back her adopted son because she didn't/couldn't bond with him.

I'm planning on adopting in the near future and I'm curious to know what others think of her story.

Apologies if this has been discussed already.

Good God NanaNina you are so aggressive. You are bloody terrifying.

litchick I see a set of cases where most of the time the state has intervened inappropriately. Similar cases to those seen by Tim Yeo and mentioned in his speech.

At the same time the state is failing to intervene in other cases where the state should intervene and then covering up the number of serious case reviews that should be done.

It is this decisionmaking process that is failing.

Litchick - you are right to say that the state is not a good parent and you acknowledge that many children are already so traumatised by their pre placement experiences that it is difficult to care for them. However I think you need to look at the reasons why the state is such a bad parent.

Many years ago children coming into care were placed in children's homes and left there sometimes for their entire childhood. Many were abused in these establishments and many were sent to Australia as child migrants and were horrendously abused out there. This awful process was still being carried out until the mid 60s.

Nowadays, children (apart from teenagers) are almost always placed in foster care (apart from those who are adopted. There is a national shortage of foster carers and it is unbelievably difficult sometimes to find a placement for a child. Siblings have to be split up because a foster family can maybe only take 1 or 2 children. Another problem is the huge growth of Independent Fostering Agencies that have sprung up in recent years and are making vast profits. They charge local authorities around 4 times the amount the l.a.s would pay for "in house" foster carers, though of course pay the carers more. When a l.a. can't find a placement they are forced into having to "buy" one from an IFA and this can be anywhere in the country. Then because of lack of resources in SSDs and huge budget restraints they sometimes have to move the child from the IFA when an "in house" placement becomes availabe.

I have worked in the system for over 30 years and have seen huge changes in the children who are coming into care. Many of them are exhibiting major behavioural problems at quite young ages and many exhibit distressing sexualised behaviour. I have the highest regard for foster carers who try often against all the odds to care for these damaged children and many are very successful, but there aren't enough of them. So what are SSDs to do - you can't force people to become foster carers. I don't know any social worker who is not concerned about the way children in care are cared for in the system and is not wholly aware of the problems.

SSDs like all other public services are totally under resourced and unsurprisingly there is a national shortage of social workers, excacerbating the problems. I don't find it surprsing that social workers are leaving the profession in significant numbers, why would anyone want to be put in a position where whatever action they take they are deemed to be in the wrong.

I think your criticism of the way in which children are cared for in the care system is shared by many many social workers. The difference is they know what the problems are and know that nothing is being done by successive governments to address the issue.

OK another rant but I feel the need to defend social workers and foster carers who are doing their level best for these damaged children.

I think it is a mistake to assume that the best solution for a child is always foster care. There are individual situations and sometimes a small residential home is better for giving stability, but also making it possible for people to cope with the caring.

The Danish approach goes down this route and it is not that expensive compared to our system. (As I am told, but don't have the source materials).

I went to a small 'home' in Germany, I think it roughly translated to 'therapeutic home' and was most impressed.
Four children, five max. Live in social workers and therapists, all of whom were highly trianed but more importantly, highly regarded in their field.

To be fair I do think they worked out very expensive, but in the long run probably cheaper than the endless drain on resource that an average person brought up in care, taking into account the criminal justice system, joblessness, addiction rates etc...but getting governments to think long term is not easy is it?

I saw a documentary about the German care system Litchick, and the way it is designed looked really good. Family type units and proper, bonded relationships with long term carers. It was very heartening. Funnily enough I was reading recently about the care system for those with dementia in holland - they have small centres with large person to carer ratio, and get the residents involved with day to day life - cooking, shopping etc. Just so much more attention to basic quality of life. If they do that for elderly people with dementia, then the level of care for children is going to be high.

I wonder whether quality residential care in a small therapeutic home or unit can, for certain children, be a more helpful setting for them to cope with emotionally. Particularly if they have been let down in a more traditional family-type setting, including foster care, too many times.

There is less pressure to get along with just one carer (parent substitute) and less of the complicated dynamics that you get between the child and any of the foster carer's birth children and the foster carer. This diluting some of the unconscious incentives to act up or bait.

In a small residential home, the children are on theoretically equal footing. The interplay of personalities is also less intense in that if the child does not get along with one carer there are others. Plus just relieving the pressure of having just one carer cope with difficult behaviour, with more hands to the pump.

It could also help to keep large sibling groups together.

I think the idea could be beneficial in certain circumstances and worth exploring.

As for such a home being a magnet for paedophile rings, I would think that risk is much lower in these times with more stringent checks by CRB and Independent Safeguarding Authority. In fact, I would be more worried about a foster carer being exploitative (behind closed doors and all) than the greater checks and balances offered in a more open residential setting with a few carers.

That's certainly how I saw it working, blueshoes and added into the mix was daily therapy.

As an aside the best foster carer I ever met was a single woman in her fifties. She didn't try to provide her charges with a quasi-family. Instead she provided 'safety, comfort and structure.'

At first I was a bit . I thought these children needed love. But her view was that these children were not ready to receive or give love in the traditional sense. They needed to mourn the family they had lost.
In the meantime this wonderful woman provided loving things...a home cooked meal every night at the same time, a warm ,clean, comfortable bedroom, interest in what her charges had to say.
It was so very healing.

litichick: 'safety, comfort and structure' for hurt children who were not 'ready to receive or give love in the traditional sense'. So very true. What a wise woman.

SGM, the Canadian group family foster homes also sounds very positive.

There almost seems to be a prejudice against institutional group care in the UK as being inferior to a more traditional family-type setting. I am not entirely convinced. Sometimes, for certain children, in certain situations, well-managed institutional care can be a safe half-way house which provides the safety and stability for children who have healing to do before they can properly form relationships.

blueshoes which is what the Care Leavers Association have argued. They have perhaps the most well informed experience of the system from a Child's perspective.

I agree that small group living situations are undervalued in the UK, but I think the different arrangements in other countries are often over promoted when they just represent a different alignment of professional child care.

The debate for the UK really needs to be about what we are prepared to pay to secure positive outcomes for the most vulnerable looked after children and how we can ensure that they are removed from abusive parental care at an earlier stage before the worst damage is done.

Re the comments directed towards Nananina, I think they're unfair. She makes a lot of sense and speaks from a clear knowledge and experience base. Johnhemming does not.

well i think she was very sensible....better than keeping the child and both being unhappy !

I don't know. Johnhemming only needs to make a terse comment before hell and her fury descends on him in the form of nananina. It has become a personal vendetta and makes me wonder about her objectivity, notwithstanding her self-professed long service in this area.

It detracts from what she says, sadly.

By lottieC Fri 27-Nov-09 21:11:21
well i think she was very sensible....better than keeping the child and both being unhappy !

But she did keep the child Lottie..for two years. I can't imagine the devestation caused by being rejected by your mother at nearly 3 years old. He would have been old enough to understand...and he'd been with the family long enough to become attached.

John Hemming does have experience in this area, he has worked with many families on the end of atrocious treatment by the justice and care systems and has a good knowledge of how those systems work. Nananina simply doesn't want to listen to him because I think she has him down as one of those mindlessly anti social worker people; she doesn't really understand where he's coming from because she's won't read his posts with an open mind and allow for his good faith IMO.

StewieGriffinsMom said: "Very rarely does Hemming admit that SS is over-stretched and poorly funded. He doesn't seem to acknowledge the good they do."

I am quite happy to agree that Childrens Services (not SS that changed a few years ago) is over-stretched and under severe pressure. If the system worked properly it is not the case that it would necessarily cost more as the Danish example shows.

In particular I question why I always have to say "they do some good". Obviously there is good practise which achieves good results.
However, the fact that I may not always refer to the good work that is done by some practitioners does not mean that my criticisms of the very real and common bad practise are erroneous.

But John, you fail to see what offends is your perception that there are islets of good practice in a sea of crap; rather that actually quite good work, with some crap.

You also have odd ideas about adoption targets and impact on practice which are reprehensible to social workers as it suggests that we are the 'child snatchers' that some fantasists make us out to be.

I get really fed up with this, as you know I work in a front line CP team and despite sometimes being run ragged, every member of my team respects the serious nature of the decisions we make and the harm a wrong decision can cause. It is upsetting to remove children from parents and it is not taken lightly at all, certainly not to meet government imposed targets, that is just insulting.

I suggest we don't try to analyse what proportion is good, adequate or poor practise.

The Birmingham report did that for Birmingham and concluded that around 10% was good, 40% was adequate and 50% poor.

Frankly I think that overstates the "crap" element.

I accept entirely that I will generally see the "crap" work after all if there is good practise generally people won't contact me.

What johnhemming says makes perfect sense.

He and MPs like Tim Yeo are approached by parents who believe they have been unfairly treated by the system. They would hardly be contacted if everything was peachy.

Of course, they only hear one side of the story ie the parents'. Without access to the records of court proceedings and other information, they have no way of hearing the other side of the story.

So what are they supposed to do? Just say, as some social workers on this thread seem to suggest, 'oh but of course you'd say that as a parent, even a crap parent will disagree to their children being removed'.

That is denying parents any voice in the matter, in a system that we know does not always work perfectly but is shrouded in secrecy ostensibly to protect the children.

MPs like johnhemming and Tim Yeo are playing the role they are intended to - to act as checks and balances against potential abuses by the government and highlight issues.

I welcome their views. I am glad for their intervention.

And the more determined some people on this thread are to shout johnhemming down and shut down discussion, the more I fear they might have some vested interest in the status quo.

Checks and balances are fine by me, even people operating on the fringes have something useful to contribute to this process, as long as they do not aid parents to flee the country and put children at risk.

However, I believe that Nananina and others act as another check and balance to the disinformation about social workers and CP practice that is also put about by people with vested interests.

Anyway, I'm not going to change anyone's mind, although if it were legally possible I'd invite the harshest critics of CSC to spend a week with my team and open their eyes. Such a shame you can't.

wahwah, there is good practice, there is bad practice. I think both you and johnhemming can agree on that.

Your beef is with the extent to which you perceive john is accusing the system of. Short of statistics like Birmingham's, I doubt even he knows. I, who have absolutely no contact with child services in UK, could not possibly think he knows. As far as I can read, he takes care to qualify there is good and bad - what more can he say?

I am sure your team is working very well indeed. I have no reason to believe otherwise. But when bad practice takes root, it is not just an isolated case per borough. I would expect such cases to be clustered together in a borough or team, that is not yours.

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