Mother 'not clever enough to raise child' has baby snatched by social workers

[Heated]

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What do we think?

It's all very very wrong.

how are SS helping her?? Surely they should be doing everything in their power to keep a newborn with its mother?

however the 'snatched' and 'kidnapped' terms are over sensationalised

Heartbreaking. Difficult to comment without knowing the full details. Reading the interview she doesn't sound incapable to me.

Same as CurtainTwitcher.

All very sensationalist. I wonder what the Irish social workers decision will be, although I think ultimately the decision as to where a baby lives is in the hands of the law courts.

This is hard one because we don't know the full story, just what we've read in the papers.

Its a horrific thing for the poor couple to go through. I would just die without my baby

Surprise surprise the daily mail again....

This story has been in the headlines before, its not as simple as, "Baby snatched from loving mum".

As unpalatable as it may be, not every parent is capable of being a parent without lots of support. If a parent refuses to accept any support (ie runs away in the middle of the night) then surely the child has to be made safe.

Although I do think it is wrong that the mother wasn't allowed to stay with a child in a mother and baby assessment unit, we don't know the ins and outs of this case and never will.

Looking at the bare facts though, she is 17 with mild learning difficulties and her partner is 25. Perhaps ss are worried about him having too much influence over her choices? Is he the one who is resistant to help?

there was a thread a while back about how the couples wedding had been stopped, on the morning of the marriage by the social workers.
I said at the time it was so the social workers could get the baby.... im so sorry to be proved right. Poor couple should get their baby back , but i doubt it will happen..

mild learning difficulties could be something like dyslexia , or a lower than usual iq (under 100) . The dad has no problems other than his job is a painter/artist.

My understanding is that the removal in Ireland has been thought to be unlawful.

I suspect there's far more in the background of this story than we are seeing in the newspaper articles. It's easy for the couple to go to the papers and tell their side of the story - which of course sounds terrible - but social services are not able to go public with their reasons for thinking this child is at risk.

how very sad, I hope mum and baby are reunited soon

Where is your understanding from Mr Hemming?

Can I ask a general question as well.

Why is it that so many of us automatically jump to the "it's so sad, get that baby back to its' parents asap" stance in these cases without considering that not every parent is a good parent?

Surely we should be considering all sides? Not just roundly condemning SS.

SS do not swoop and take babies without very good reasons.

The couple may love the baby but they may well be incapable of providing the basic care that every child needs and deserves.Running away to another country to escape intervention (and help) would certainly set alarm bells ringing.

What a stupid, senstionalist and biased article- written no doubt by a journalist of the same ilk as those who condemned SS for not acting in the case of Peter Connolly (Baby P).

Difficult to say, based on that one story.

What I will say is that she should not have had a child removed when she was still breastfeeding.

Well, what if she was on drugs, MMe Lindt?

Or in an abusive relationship, refusing to leave her man?

there are rare circumstances when it would be better for the child to be taken from its breastfeeding mother.

1- does she have mild learning difficulties or a mild learning disability? The article says the former and puts 'disability' in inverted commas. I would assume it was the latter, however.
2- the social workers acting in loco parentis for the young woman must have had serious concerns about her cognitive abilities to intervene in her wedding
3- irish SS might have 'more traditional values' but when that leads to children remaining with parents who cannot safely care for them that is not necessarily a good thing
4- confidentiality means we will never read the other side of this

and 5 - loving your baby does not mean you will be able to safely care for it. People with learning disabilities may not have the level of understanding to meet a child's emotional needs, leaving aside their physical needs. This woman sounds like she adores her baby but sadly that doesn't mean she is capable (necessarily) of raising him. I wonder what the father's circs are - I would expect, if he was NT and appropriate and safe, SS to have put a lot of effort into keeping the child with them as he would hopefully be a protective factor. However if he also had LDs that would be different.

I just had a meeting with a 16yo lad and his mother. He was removed as a young boy and is a lovely but very angry young man. His mother adores him but her LD means that she was never able to care for him properly. By the age of 10 or so his cognitive functioning was probably further than hers. She just couldn't give him what he needed.

but she hasn't been given a chance to be a mother has she, so how can SS judge her unfit?
surely allowing her to keep the baby and monitoring her would have been better....but that costs lots of money.

MmeLindt
sometimes it is unavoidable. I work with a young woman whose baby was removed for a couple of months while she was BF. The LA bought her an electric breast pump and couriered the milk to the foster carer daily. She had daily contact for 4 hours to allow her to feed as much as possible.

IME, mild learning difficulties are not enough to warrant a child being taken away.

There must be more than that to it. We shall never know either, as HCPs follow a STRICT code of confidentiality. And quite right too.

MNers should know better than to take the DM as verbatim.

The statement from social services says

"Stephen Moore, executive director of social work at Fife Council, said: ?I can confirm that although the Robertson family are not presently within Fife, we are committed to working closely with professional colleagues elsewhere to ensure safety and welfare of the child and indeed the whole family as this is of paramount concern to us.

?I would urge Kerry to use all the support that is being made available to her and her baby and to get appropriate help should she need""

Which even as a nobody, says to me that the Mum needs support but is resistant to it. My child goes to a special school for learning disabilities and alot of the parents unluckily have learning difficulties themselves. Some can cope and others cannot but the ones who cope better are the ones with lots of support (be that family involvement or extra support from social services) I understand this is a different scenario because the children i am talking about are disabled but so are their parents and there is no shame in accepting involvement and help and maybe her resistence has brought about this seemingly 'heavy-handed' approach

When this kind of thing is reported it is always going to be one sided, isn't it?

It is in the sensationalist DM, but couldn't find it picked up yet apart from on blogs.

This assumption that she will be a poor mother because she has a mild LD is very concerning and the decision to remove any child on the chance she may prove a bad mother is very Big Brother. Is there any evidence that they are not competent to look their child? She's in a loving stable relationship (prevented from marrying) is breast-feeding her newborn and committed to her child.

It takes a fair bit of evidence against a parent for ss to take children away- especially in cases such as this where it has been deemed more important to take the babe into alternative care, than to encourage the continuation of breast feeding.
Don't get me wrong the reason i know this is because i have contacted ss about an old friend of mine who is now a confirmed drug addict, they advised me that they have been made aware of her case and as no actual drugs were found in the home they could do nothing. having visited her once i witnessed her empty a bag of crisps onto the floor for the children to eat. They came over to the crisps and squatted like slum dwelllers over this pathetic offering and ate as though it was the only food they'd had in months. It took some self control not to pick them up and take them home with me. I made the wrong assumption that ss would take control, they did not, and as she seems to know that i reported her all she will do is hurl abuse at me. So i can't help these children either. The ss let me and those children down. But in this case i feel that there MUST be something that we are not being told. They do not snatch. They give warnings. They offer support. They offer to intervene. They offer shared care, they suggest the help of community officers. They do all that they can to keep a child with its mother(whether fit or not seemingly). Then they will take child if all of this is rejected. I'm sorry that this couple have lost their child, but surely instead of going to the papers, and earning a bit of ash from their story, they should be taking the steps to get their child back. Ss will have advised them of what needs to done(again whether this is reasonable or not can easily be questioned) they will suggest courses on parenting skills etc they will have to be observed during visits, all of which is demeaning to a parent but still if that is what it takes any parent would do itsurely? Any way the point of all this rambling-sorry, is that we only know half a story here

I don't think it makes any difference that she is breastfeeding. Would she automatically be a worser Mother because she was bottle feeding?