Preston's Law

[Soul4soul]

Good morning all,

I hope this is allowed, please delete if not.

If you agree with the contents in this petition, please sign.

I am sharing this on Chat instead of Petitions, assuming there will be a wider reach (i could be wrong though). Please move this to Petitions if this is not allowed on Chat.

Petition · Introduce 'Preston's Law': Mandatory Safeguarding for Every Adopted Child - United Kingdom · Change.org https://www.change.org/p/introduce-preston-s-law-mandatory-safeguarding-for-every-adopted-child

Signed by me, I can’t get poor baby Preston out of my head, I’ve never been affected so deeply (probably stemming from the fact that I have a child pretty much his age). Beautiful little boy, I hope he is resting in peace

This is written by someone who has no knowledge of adopted children, attachment, trauma.

When a child is placed for adoption you actively reduce the number of new people they meet so they can settle and bond.
Many adopted children find home visits from
professionals re-traumatising as they associate them with being moved again.
There is no great number of child psychologists/trauma experts to monitor social workers work.
The hospital visits for Preston were deemed by medical professionals to be not of concern - they are the experts in this area, not the social workers getting all the flack.

What has happened to baby Preston is devastating, but every Tom, Dick and Harry spouting out answers and solutions is unhelpful.

Thank you for signing x

This.

At least the creator of this petition is trying to achieve something positive for adopted children, even if it may be flawed. Instead of sitting in your armchair and criticising others people's efforts, why dont you come up with a better solution to prevent there being another baby Preston? If you have a better proposal i am happy to back it and i am sure others will too. If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem.

None of this would have saved Preston. He was having monitoring visits at home.

I know it’s upsetting but it’s impossible to stop everything bad that happens to children. People try their best and changing the law as a knee jerk response will just cause new problems while not being able to prevent something else happening differently.

You are not part of the solution, you are part of unhelpful noise that might make you feel that you are doing something but you really are not and neither is the creator of the petition. You should listen to @EdinLS - they know what they are talking about. The creator of this pointless petition does not. It does not make me any less horrified about what happened than you.

I think the unpalatable truth that people dont want to hear, and I'll go as far as saying that in many SCRs its found, this or that should or could have happened because its difficult to sometimes say the truth. I think sometimes its a desire or fantasy to believe things like this are preventable. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

So the petitiion isnt just flawed, it simply doesnt recognise the processes that occur for all adoptions anyway, the safeguarding is already in place, but its not foolproof. Nothing is foolproof.

As an adopter, I would absolutely sign this IF I were guaranteed visits to my home by qualified psychologists / trauma experts. This would make my life a whole lot easier. So, rather than it taking four years for me to secure an EHCNA by an educational psychologist for my AD1 who is blind/ADHD/ASD/PDA/FASD/NAS, I would have the pleasure of an instant expert in my home to help me secure an EHCP for AD2 who is ADHD/ASD/PDA/sleep disordered. I shall look forward to all of these experts knocking on my door instead of me battering down theirs.

Don’t worry, I’ve been working as a child protection social worker for the past 13 years, I am really trying my best to do my bit 👍🏻 I’d dare say it’s had more impact than you signing one petition.

More children are harmed by their parents and step parents. Who have gone through no screening whatsoever. Perhaps all new parents should be subjected to this scrutiny?

No, thank you, we adoptive parents want all the psychologists and psychiatrists coming to our houses. Because privilege.