protecting our children

[thekidsrule]

carry on please

It is great that this programe has produced so much debate in the general public and has truely shown that SS are not the baddies as so often portrayed and that they most times have a very difficult task. We adopted two siblings aged 3yrs & 10mths and 18 mths, 7 years ago from similar if not worse conditions than Toby and his sister. They were 4 mths and 2yrs 3mths when taken into care.
Both our children have sever attachment disorder, ADHD and sever sensory problems. The sensory and attachment problems were environmerntal due to their neglect and the ADHD hereditory.
Mike and Tiff had attachment problems themselves thus had no idea how to bond with a child and give even any basic interaction in order that the child might thrive. A lot has been made of the physical problems in the home - the lack of bed the dog poo etc, but the main and often unquantifiable thing that the SS would be reporting on was the lack of bond(attachment) with Toby. Their lack of interest in improving the situation and making up his bed for instance were manifestations of their inability to attach to their child. There is no way Tiff would ever got Toby back even if she was on her own as she simply didn't have the ability to bond with him and was not capable of parenting him in a way that would improve his outcome. Eye contact and physical contact for instance are esential for a babie's bond to grow. It took near three years for our daughter to want to be cuddled or sit on my knee. Many adoptive parents and foster parents are trained in what is called theraputic parenting. Which is often a long process where the child maybe needs to be treated like a baby - wraped up in a blanket/shawl, spoon feed or drink from a sippy cup, are just some of the things that they have never had or may need to revisit.
Other things that may have to be done differently might be - setting of boundries, they will probably never have had any so won't know not to do something even if told, praise - only interaction was always negative, they don't believe they are good enough to deserve it so star charts don't work and they often smash their new toys.
The fact that Toby was reacting positively to the intervention of the fostercarer gave him a really good chance of a positive outcome. It would not surprise me if he is adopted quite quickly especially since he has been shown on the T.V. He was obviously a bright little boy. Both our children have had loads of problems, not least at school and were about 2 years behind in their school work. We decided to move them to an independent school with much smaller classes and our son has never had anything less than an A in his exams and is a star on the football field. This from a child who was eating rubbish he had tipped out on the bin onto the floor once when SS arrived at his birth mother's unanounced

Non-achievement is a huge problem in schools even for students not 'in-care'. Most children in the lowest income brackets who live at home with at least one parent do not do better that those in care. Income and gender make a significant difference to a child's educational outcome. In NI, Catholics boys, even from deprived areas, do better than protestant boys in the same circumstances.

Interesting posts from NanaNina and Corcory. I think that people often look at these children and think that taking them in, and loving them, solves the problems -but it is far more complex than that.
Sadly they do seem to change carers a lot. Firstly there is a lack of foster carers and then there is the complex chemistry of getting the right ones. It is rather like choosing a partner, I know that there are some children that I could help and some that I couldn't-just simply because we couldn't 'gel' in the right way. I know from teaching that there are some DCs that people find difficult and I can just get on the right wave length and equally others that are better with a different personality.
It is asking too much of SW to be able to place a DC correctly first time. There is disruption because the first placement is going to be an emergency one-a place of safety being the priority.
There are also the carers own DCs to put into the equation, or other foster DCs-they simply might not get on, or the new one is so needy that they take all the attention.
Even with lots of choice of foster parents it is never going to be easy-and to make it work they need back up and support-the sort of knowledge that Corcory has.

For goodness sake Nana is it entirelly neccessary to be quite so passive agressive when responding to my posts?

We disagree on some points but I do not understand why you insist on taking everything as a slur on your professional knowledge and experience.

We all have different ideas and views arising from our own personal experiences and backgrounds and they are all valid.

Personally I think we should be optimistic when working with families. The aternative is pessimism which would hardly be a fair starting point.

Self fufilling prophesies have no place in SW practice.

In my opinion of course. No disrespect to you of course.

You have to be optimistic or nothing would get done!

DH and I would like ti be foster carers when/if we ever get a big enough house and the kids are a bit older.

I've been told it will never happen though having a child with ASD which strikes me as strange because I have more parenting, knowledge and strategies than the average parent needs to have.

Does anyone know if this is true btw? And yes I do know that my home and life will then have SW crawling all over it.

I assume it would depend on the needs of your own child allowing you time/energy to fulfil the needs of a foster child ( and proving it!). I don't see how they can generalise against a child with disabilities as all have such different needs.

i would like to do baby fostering. i didn't know you could do this (kept looking into fostering but being put off by concerns about my own son and the impact of older children and their behaviour/experiences upon my own son) until i met a woman on holiday who does it. you just take care of the baby until an adoption is arranged.

very emotional obviously and hard to say goodbye (one baby she'd had from 3 days old through to being 18months old and it's obviously heartbreaking in a way to let them go but you know they're going to a good home and you've done a great thing giving them love and security at a key time).

i just feel i could do that and i wouldn't be worried by the impact on my son of it. in my mind bringing older children in would always involves an element of risk and difficulty for my son that i don't feel willing to take.

i've always assumed though that as a single parent with health issues i wouldn't be allowed to adopt.

or foster i meant to say.

the people i met on holiday (random aside sorry) were really interesting. it was two adult sisters away together. one was the lady who now specialised just in babies and the other had an adult with her with severe sn and now only did that kind of adult fostering. their mother had been a foster parent so they had grown up with it and remembered the old days of coming down in the morning to find two extra children had turned up in the night and were at the breakfast table. they spoke realistically but very positively about growing up in that situation (it was their birth mother btw) and had both eventually gone on to be fosterers themselves. it was clear they were massively committed to what they did and had provided a fantastic service to many people's lives over the years.

i wonder how frequently it runs in families like this?

it was interesting to find that there were many routes in fostering and you could have quite a lot of control over what sort of fostering you do. think we'd benefit from a lot more public awareness about this sort of thing. i didn't even know that adult 'fostering' existed.

The adult fostering is not fostering in the same sence as for children, it is often called "adult placement" or "shared lives". It tends to be an alternative to residential care for adults with sn who require an element of support and can not live fully indipendently. Many adults still have a great relationship and input from their own families. It is often an option for adults who lived at home all their lives and maybe their own parents are elderly and unable to continue to care for them.

There is a sever lack of adult carers or shared lives carers.

corcory - really interesting post from someone who has actually adopted children from an abusive background. No sure if any other adoptors have posted, but could be wrong as it's a long thread. You must be remarkably patient, loving and resilient parents to be able to help these children work through some of the trauma of their pre placement experiences. I think it is really interesting that you say it took nearly 3 years for your daughter to want to be cuddled. I think that really demonstrates the length of time it can take a child to feel safe and loved by an adoptor, after the trauma they endured in the the most important years of their lives 0 - 3. I was interested in "therapeutic fostering" and think the LA that i worked for did give adoptors the opportunity of learning to care for the hurt child, but it wasn't called that.

We had a brilliant clinical psychologist who helped foster carers and adoptors to care for these hurt children. She encouraged the same things that you are doing really, allowing the child to regress as so many abused children will have a much younger emotional age than their chronological age and this is really important isn't it.

One foster care I knew took on a child (boy aged 8) with very very complex needs and a traumatic past. She was a single carer and never had children so we were all a bit concerned. However she turned out to brilliant and I remember her telling me one day that the boy was drinking water from one f those sports bottles, lying on the sofa with his head on her lap watching TV and he handed her the bottle and snuggled up, and she realised that he actually wanted her to feed him the water from the bottle, and she did.
I think that demonstrates the emotional age of this boy and him knowing what he needed, which I thought was extraordinary. He loved videos that a 3 year old would like (Bob the Builder) etc and she was happy to let him watch them. However he did go out to play with children (they lived in a very safe cul-de-sac and she had bought him a bike as all the other kids had one.
So wheh it was his birthday he wanted a BobtheBuilder cake, but the carer knew this was not on because of the other 8 yr old kids, so he had 2 cakes, one BtheB (just with the carer and her mom) and a Monster cake for the birthday with the other kids. How sensitive is that! She kept him long term and he absolutely thrived, as he had one-to-one attention and was not in competition with other children.

Sorry that was abit longer than I intended.

Oh dear mrsdevere - I think you post says more about you than me. Do ye know I had never heard the term "passive/agressive" until I came on MN and I still don't really know what it means. Maybe you can enlighten me?

I think your comment that "I insist on taking everything you say as a slur onmy professional knowledge and experience." I think this is classic projection and that this is what you think when challenged. It is certaibly not what I think.

I agree that we need to have some optimism when working with disadvanted and deprived families, but we need to be realistic too, which I think is actually more important.

However I am interested in thoughts on breaking the cycle of deprivation and you claimed that it was possible and knew how it could be done. This is very different from talking about being optimistic in our work with families. I was merely commenting that I found your post on this issue a bit vague and overly optimistic, nothing more, nothing less.

I really don't think there is a way of breaking into this cycle - it has been the case since time immomorial(sp?) and successive govts have had notions of how to do this and at best they have been ill thought out and at worst nonsensical.

Just remembered we clashed on another thread (something about christmas I think) can we move on from there........

swallowedafly - being a single parent would certainly not rule you out as a foster carer, though it would depend what thehealth issue that you mentioned is and how it would affect your ability to care. You mention fostering babies. The thing is most LAs have many carers on their books who are approved to foster 0 -2 for example. The carers where I worked used to fight for the babies! The really pressing need is for older children and sibling groups and children with disabilities. You could always have a talk with someone from the Fostering team of your LA and talk this through. Some LAs will not take on someone who only wants babies, as they have enough carers on their books. But nothing ventured, nothing gained.

starlight - I am surprised that you want to foster as you seem to have a real dislike of social workers, so why would you want them "crawling all over your house" as you put it. The issue of your child with ASD would not necessarily rule you out, but clearly is an issue that would need to be fully discussed during any assessment.

Guess we are coming to the end of this thread as there is another episode on tomorrow night - wonder if that gets as many posts.

Nan, you're taking it far too perosonally and being defensive. Where have I ever said I don't like social workers?

I worked alongside them for 16 years and the majority were fantastic, it is just that the service I saw being delivered, was not the service I received, or many of my 'friends' on the receiving end.

I don't know why this is. Although the majority of SW I worked with were in the private sector so perhaps the better ones go there = who knows.

Sorry Starlight I must be mixing you up with someone else - it was only an impression I had. I wasn't taking it personally or being defensive - I was just making an observation. It was just an impression I got and if you are the person I was thinking of, of course I can't say when you said you disliked social workers and sorry you feel offended. It is quite possible for me to mix up posters.

Not all children who enter the care system come out damaged.

I read a very enlightening book last night (stayed up all night as I was so engrossed!) about a 10 year old girl who had been severely abused and then was placed in care. The foster carer she initially placed her with had no idea what she was dealing with but after a lot of time, care and patience she brought her on considerably over 14 months. As the girl had issues with her skin colour (part of the abuse she'd suffered with her mother), it was decided after those 14 months that she'd move to live with a permanent foster carer who was from a similar heritage although she kept in touch with the other carer she'd been with. The girl thrived. At the end of the book it was lovely to see that this girl was now 19, developed a lovely, warm and caring personality, still living with that foster carer and in training to become a nurse.

The girl had 2 younger brothers who were also taken into care, later adopted and thrived. However, she had an older sister who remained at home (through choice - she was too old to force into the system apparently) and she became pregnant at 15, her own babby suffered some severe abuse and was placed in the care system and it ended with her still not doing very well.

So, in this particular case it was very clear that 'a life in the care system' (no matter how messy it can appear) was a million times better for all these children than it was to remain with their parents.

It was called 'The Saddest Girl in the World' by Cathy Glass. Makes for some very interesting reading into the way the system works for these children who are placed in care and the extensive work that goes into helping the families of these children to be able to parent. I believe she has written several books about her work (I read one a while ago called 'The night the angels came' which was equally as heart rendering and offered great insight) and will most definitely be buying some more.

Sorry that should have said baby and not babby - a word I detest!!! :)

Also adding to that - there was a part in the book where this foster carer said something along the lines of they hoped the cycle of abuse had been broken with these children because they had received help and experienced how a normal, loving family operates. They had received many years of love, affection, attention, patience and they hoped they'd then be able to transfer that onto their own children.

Their older sister, unfortunately had not experienced that and would possibly never be able to parent effectively because she simply would not know how. She's experienced nothing but abuse her entire life. As she was old enough and couldn't be forced (only encouraged) to receive help, it was likely she'd never understand and accept the help (as she didn't in this book which lead to her own baby being removed). Even with help though, it'd take many years of extensive work to undo the damage that has been done.

So, I was thinking, chances are high that any children she has will now be taken into care as she would be unwilling to accept any help that would be offered and if she did, there's a high chance that help would be unsuccessful as she needs parenting all over again - something we simply cannot do with an adult. We then end up with another Mike and Tiffany case. However, hopefully the cycle will be stopped there as any babies she has will likely be adopted fairly quickly and not experience such abuse. It is such a shame for her, but we cannot use that as an excuse to put another child through the same.

I'm sure there are many, many more out there.

Look folks I am not saying that every child who has been abused or neglected will carry on and parent in the same way. Some (like the ones TL mentions) will have seen a different model of parenting than the one they had, and will resolve to parent in a different way. I have seen cases like this in my work. One stands out - a brother and sister and the girl had been sexually abused for several years. I know this is hard to believe but the girl's mother had been sexually abused by her father (girl's grandfather) and went to prison and got friendly with another paedophile in prison and sugested he go and live with his daughter and her children, as he was released first. The father/grandfather would know full well what would happen. The mother was rather a timid sort who could not stand up to anyone (and she had been sexually abused by her father) and of course her girls were sexually abused by this man released from prison. The eldest girl was 17 when it came to light and left home and we did not know where she had gone. The other 2 (girl aged 13 and boy 11) came into care, with mother's consent - only the girl had been sexually abused, though the older sister (I assume) and the younger brother had had a miserable time with this man and a mother who failed to protect.

Anyway the brother and sister were placed with some foster carers on a short term basis and everything went so well, they were approved to care for them on a permanent basis. Both did well - the girl went into social work and the boy into engineering with the male foster carer's business. Those kids were brilliant anc a real credit to their carers.

I think TL you are being overly optimistic about the girl you quite rightly describe as needing parenting all over again. You mention that any baby she has will likely be removed quickly and adopted and this will brake the cycle. Thing is these children are not always picked up and never come to the attention of social services, health visitors etc. We have no idea of course how many children are in this position, but much more than we think I reckon.

Then it can take a long time to remove a child - first thing will be to put in support etc (like baby P) and an enormous amount of damage can be done by the parents in those early months (and sometimes years). Yes some will be more resilient than others and will come through unscathed, but many will not.

So really I am looking at this statistically. We know that children who have been in the care system are over represented in prisons and homeless people, addictions to drugs and alcohol etc. The study of sociology deals with the way in which patterns of behaviour occur in society (not individuals) because there will always be the exceptions. I remember reading a sociology book called "Born to Fail" showing a ragged little boy on the front which demonstrated by research how the cycle of deprivation is perpetuated.

Hi, NN, just to point out that there are at least two other adopters on this thread: me and MrsDV.

A pity that having one child removed would not automatically flag someone next time round, or is this done?

I think it's down to health to refer if they've had a child removed but that relies on there being a disclosure/something on medical records. I've reported a parent who came to a supervised contact session. We were actually fairly confident she wouldn't be a risk this time but wanted to be sure. She still has the baby.

Loved your posts Renee - I didn't actually realise Mrs Devere was an adoptor - I thought she was a social worker.

mathanxiety I have seen a lot of your posts and have enjoyed reading them, but this is a very long thread isn't it. Having one child removed would definitely alert sws if this mother became pregnant again, and in such cases there is usually a pre-birth case conference and the next baby can be removed at birth IF the court grant an Emergency Protection Order. However, people move about, out of the area sometimes and so no-one knows their history and they are certainly not going to tell anyone.

Sometimes a mother's circumstances may be much changed and she is able to keep the 2nd baby, though this is rare. Then of course as I have already commented - there are many young mother's out there (and maybe older ones) who are neglecting and abusing their children and no-one ever gets to hear about it. Not a nice thought but I believe it to be true.

MrsDV is an adopter and also works in the field.

You DO know me, NN, but I have name-changed

IME having a child adopted is definitely a trigger for action with subsequent pregnancies. The youngest adopted children (like mine) were nearly all taken into care at birth - i.e. the birth mother was not 'given a chance' - because previous children are in care and there is no evidence to show anything has changed for the better.

There are families where only some siblings are adopted, for various reasons. I considered applying to adopt one child where all the other siblings (lots of them) were still in the family. I didn't get much information on the back story, but piecing it together and reading between the lines I think there was some strange scapegoating/ targeted abuse stuff going on. I imagine this is not rare, though presumably less common than a family where ALL the children are suffering abuse or neglect.