Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

This promoting of the idea that SS want to steal babies makes me very uneasy...

Ourvye..I had precisely the same attitude as you had before our personal experience changed that attitude irreversibly. Far from looking out for the interests of our children we have had to fight the negativity, disbelief and questioning that our daughter was also on the autistic spectrum by social work staff and other health professionals who said our daughter was reserved in new settings because she was traumatised. We now have that diagnosis that she is on the spectrum as we were confident of all along but we had to fight all the way to get it to be taken seriously by every health professional we encountered. My wife is a brilliant and loving parent who has worked in a number of childcare settings with some degree of responsibility and we often have strangers coming up to us in public and saying how lovely our children are. However none of this stopped social workers from threatening from taking away our children with no medical or other expert opinion. I think the paranoia of some parents is welll justified based on my experience. And I was just a disinterested observer of the system before this all happened.

Nobody refers them.

They project a giant bat in the sky!!!

Hi Beyond :)... I just googled the programme after watching it so I could find somewhere to discuss the issues and hear others opinions and its been very informative.

Where have we heard that claim to have the skin of a rhino before?

So how do all these people find you, wizard, and why do they come to you rather than a lawyer or the numerous charities that are around for them?

It amazes me how polarised debates over ss/ forced adoptions get.

I think ss are getting an unfair hard time over the programme. In their position if a dr told me a fracture in a young child had been caused by abuse then I would remove the child- can you imagine the uproar if they didn't and a child died.

Wizardpc Over the course of debates on this site I have been quite supportive of ss ( even though I have an innate fear of them) but I would be very interested in seeing things from the other side. Would it be possible to shadow you for a day in your work with these families?

@wannab..... I do not work with these people Im afraid!!! Have said that a few times

And the award for baffling non sequitur of the week goes to...

And that was directed at the comment about having blond, blue eyed middle class boys who went to grammar school.

Happycat, I'm sorry you've had such an horrendous journey, regarding getting a diagnosis. I know you're not alone in that respect - it's something that really does appear to be a bit of a postcode lottery. I'm fortunate that my boys have had their respective diagnoses since the ages of 3 and 2 respectively and that any negative dealings with professionals have been the exception, rather than the rule (and more a matter of being talked down to, rather than ignored, so I wasn't being disagreed with, merely patronised. Only my pride suffered, in that case.)

That said, I do question the purpose of every interaction the boys have with a professional - for no other reason than sometimes it's rather a lot and that can be rather counter-productive. I need to know that we can gain something positive from the interaction and that i's not likely to create as many problems as it solves - which is why we've not invited SS into our lives at this point and not asked for respite.

Apologies wizard I mistook your active online campaigning with you actually working with the families

yes well - I think you'll find certain 'types' of children are more adoptable than others #justsaying

Oh, please, not that nonsense about blonde blue-eyed babies being targeted by evil social services child-snatchers.

It is true that some children are more 'adoptable' than others.

Adopters will understandably prefer younger children with no family history of mental illness for eg. Little girls are more popular than little boys. Sibling groups are hard to place, for obvious reasons.

But to make a leap from that to 'LAs steal blue eyed baby girls to order' is a bit of a leap too far.

I didnt say that.

I, like you, believe also that blonde haired, blue haired girls between about 1-5 are pretty popular. However you spin it, it's true.

I don't need to 'spin' a fact.

But what is the POINT of this fact to this debate?

So you don't agree that babies are snatched to earn a bonus?

Or do you?

I am confused.

And who refers people to you for help and advice? Or do you just advertise on line?

I hear Monaco is very charming this time of year.

Speaking as a prospective adopter, I can genuinely say hair colour and eye colour wouldn't occur to me when weighing up my suitability to parent a particular child, since ummm... they have no bearing whatsoever on whether i'll be able to parent that particular child.

Where on earth do people get these ideas from?

To support the conspiracy theory.

So they don't have to say to themselves - maybe I shouldn't have burnt my child with a hot iron when I was angry. Maybe I shouldn't have taken my violent boyfriend back over and over again so my children could watch as he beat me up. Maybe I should have tried to deal with my drinking when the SW first said it was a problem...

So it can be someone else's fault.

Excuse me if I'm being a bit dense but if mental illness affects a child's suitability for adoption then why is it that people who have had mild depression or depression in their teens are being targeted to have their children adopted to hit targets?

All of the "evil ss" posters seem to have disappeared, coincidentally, at the end of the office day.

Goodness Wannabe, don't cloud the debate with rationality and interesting questions.

Why are there so many children stuck in care that no one wants? Why is such a minuscule proportion of children in care babies?

Presumably because the Gov has sub contracted this conspiracy to G4 or whoever.

People I know who have adopted haven't had the choice of picking out the prettiest from a shop window of snatched babies, nor would it have occurred to them to specify anything of the sort.

@Wannabestepfordwife - the cycle goes abuse, care, abuse, mental illness, have children etc

personally I dont think numbers are targeted - certain groups of people are picked on.

Ok. so WHY.

What is in it for the LA to 'pick on' certain groups of people?

What benefit is it to a LA to start care proceedings, spend money on assessments and expert reports etc and then be landed with massive bill for foster care.

What none of the conspiracists can ever explain is WHY ON EARTH ANYONE WOULD DO THIS.

Sorry for shouting, but its a question I have been asking since 2011 so I am getting a bit impatient for an answer.

Will someone somewhere PLEASE give me an answer?

I just don't understand WHO is supposed to benefit from this.

The answers i have been given over the years are:
a) to provide children to be passed around by high ranking paedophile judges
b) to allow private firms to make huge profits setting up and selling on children's homes (never further explained)
c) er, that's it.