getting together information and support for EVERYONE in the child protection system

[Spero]

I am posting here, mainly because I am not sure what I am doing and I don't want to do anything against the rules or contrary to the site ethos.

In a nutshell, a lot of us have been contributing to various threads since before Christmas about the child protection system in the UK and all the controversy that has arisen since the case of Alessandra Pacchieri and the issue of 'forced adoption'.

We have perspectives from every part of the child protection system - there are birth parents, adoptive parents, social workers, lawyers etc and we think it could be a good idea to try to do something to bring us all together, to help people get access to information that is balanced and useful, particularly if they are facing care proceedings or worried they might be.

At the moment, we are thinking a blog could help, with different people providing short posts about their experiences and providing links to other sources that we know are credible and reliable. This could be very valuable for all of us - I am a lawyer for e.g. but I would love to know more about what doctors working in child protection are looking out for, and I would like to get more perspectives from birth parents about what they think is good or bad about the system.

We are also wondering if there could be a separate topic in 'Parenting' - Dealing with child Protection issues or similar, which could link to the blog, once we get if off the ground.

So sorry quite a lot of info there. Trying to précis

1. We have a lot of untapped knowledge and experience and would like to pull it altogether to provide a good source of reliable and balanced advice
2. We would like to start a blog, does anyone want to contribute or can think of snappy name?
3. We would like to use the power of mumsnet to steer people towards our information and provide another platform for discussion and debate

4.What's the best way of going about this?

Any comments, thoughts welcomed.

Spero a thousand apologies for the late coming posts. They are on their way but ds has taken longer to peek up after his op than I thought. So it's still in head not on page. I will do it though and I really do want to.

Don't apologise - you and all other contributors are doing US the favour.

Sorry to hear about DS and hope he is more perky today.

Written something but damned government have changed the guidelines for disabled care and have an interim doc preparing the way for the care act 2015. Grrrr.

Oh how frustrating Misc. Grrr indeed.

Spero/Sausage is possible to adjust links on the website to open in a new tab or window? I keep losing my way back to the site!

yes i may make that my task for today

Thanks!

I am still amazed by the whole thing - it was/is a great idea.

There is a Finnish group of people working in child protection who want to meet us in May! we are going global!

Wow!

Fantastic

I'm also surprised at the (lack of) reaction from the forced adoption brigade! Mind you, it must be nice not having more arguments every day

I'm really sorry I haven't written my piece yet Spero having trouble at home atm, but I'll get around to it as soon as i can

Don't worry! anything anyone can do at any time is welcome. This isn't an exercise in guilt. I am happy with the content we have up at the moment, but there is always room for more good stuff.

It is quite odd that the response from the forced adoption lot has been so muted. After some of the threads on here I had been expecting rather more of an effort.

I pride myself that it is our robust commenter containment policy! We are collecting all the really 'interesting' comments and trying to answer them sensibly in a separate section. This has had an interesting chilling effect on their repetition.

The 'style' of the forced adoption lot is to make some astonishing assertion, then disappear, never having offered all the 'proof' and the 'links' that they claim to have. So I don't think they want AT ALL to engage in any sensible discussion.

Agree always room for more good stuff and a no pressure gig. I think it's good to have a steady pace to putting things up as well - it's very emotive for many people, I could imagine possibly being overwhelming if the pace was ramped up.

Just a quickie. The social worker team manager in charge of my case got caught out in a lie by my barrister, the fathers barrister and the guardian and his barrister. Knew shed show her true colours soon enough. Shame they have obviously damaged individuals working with familes