[quote BowserJr]@Honeybobbin the irony is that you are only in work because of parents whose children have ended up in care. Interesting way of looking at it, don't you think? Bad parents keep you in biscuits.
As someone who has experience of the care system, you would understand that just because someone's children are removed from them, it is not always the case that they are never allowed to see their children ever again. Or that the children are never returned.[/quote]
In theory-this may be out date-the 1989 Children Act had a principle of non-intervention with regard to families.There has to be good reason for child-removals. Looked-after child meetings should be held twice a rear after Care Orders are applied for, and one of the subjects under discussion is the possibility of the family being reunited.
In practice it can be a bit different. Two of my three children were in the care of my partner after we separated. One of them had severe learning-disability with a mental age of five (non-vocal) at the age of sixteen. To my amazement, he contrived to run home to me four times (it was five minutes running-time for him, straight across the road). Social services continued to press for my partner to be the resident parent despite this, and at a Care hearing gave "a possible lack of deference" by me as a cause for not returning the children. (My partner was desperately ill with lung cancer and died weeks after the Order was made, but was the Resident Parent, though by that time in a hospice, to the end).
Though the law stated that returning the children and ending the Care Order had to be discussed at the reviews, the section on this in the agenda was always struck-through with a biro prior to the meeting.
I have continued to have shared-care with the council for 14 years now (all three sons are adults) including overnights each week with the two held by the council.
Oh. And a seven weeks after my sons were removed, Ofsted put the council into Special Measures, in part for using child removals "as a first rather than a last resort" and having a far higher rate of removal than similar councils. As far as I know there was never a review of any of the Orders, and none of the children were returned to their families prior to reaching adulthood.