Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

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

d) to be sent to lizard farms in the sky

I reckon that's it. We can all stop asking now. < phew >

I dont have a solid answer for you but, Im sure, they are expected to achieve a certain amount of 'work' each quarter. I could go on about self-perpetuating cash for assessments, placements, expert witnesses, foster carers etc. Without food, man dies no?

One of the reasons, Im sure, you get very very strange discrepancies is due to geographics. Pretty sure a case in kent or surrey looks different to a case in glasgow.

If you really believe poor work doesnt go on in abundance and that there is no smoke without fire - just google the linda lewis case. Its only been going on 15 years.

Of course! the scales have fallen from my eyes.

Geddit?

So wizard, which one do you offer - a), b), or d)? Or none of the above?

I really do want to know. this is important. I don't want to be part of a corrupt and awful system. If anyone can explain why LA would take babies for no good reason, I can understand better what is going on and maybe do something about it.

Because at the moment, I just don't see it.

Wannabestepford

I had depression in my early twenties.

It's not stopping me from adopting.

Why would a birth parent suffering from 'mild depression in their teens' - in isolation with no other causes for concern cause a child to be removed from its birth parents to be placed with someone like me?

sorry wizard, cross posted. thanks for your answer.

So what about this.

Vast majority of my care cases, I am not thinking - this child has been snatched wrongly.

I am thinking, as I read through another ten page chronology - WHY wasn't something done sooner to either help this family or to get this child out of a horrible situation.

And the reason there is sometimes delay in acting is that it is very expensive for LA to take children into care.

So how does this fit with your answer?

Why is adoption so final? Surely if a child has not been adopted for too long and the birth parents are exonerated, the child should be returned? Clearly the child's welfare takes priority but that only seems to apply to the removal rather than potential return.

No one mentioned David Icke!!

You'll be saying that two prominent MPs werent in that video next or that kids from care homes weren't shipped in to London to a guest house.

It's none of those. I get your point. However, no person in any role does not have targets. People have bills to pay and mouths to feed - medical people, social workers, councillors, foster carers.

Social workers are snowed under with work, why would they need to make for by snatching babies for the purposes of what will undoubtedly be very expensive contested care proceedings?

Why would social workers want to make money for people like expert witnesses and foster carers?

I wish you wouldn't keep suggesting that people on here don't believe that social services make mistakes. It has been made clear over and over again that everyone accepts that they are fallible, and probably more so than ever given the pressures caused by funding cuts. The point is that that that doesn't make them evil baby-snatching forced adoption conspirators.

Sorry, first paragraph should have read:

Social workers are snowed under with work, why would they need to make more work by snatching babies ...

the Linda Lewis case is a very very unique case - pretty sure that the truth will out this year and it should (God willing) result in prison terms for several high ranking officials and NHS staff. It could even bring down the welsh assembly (or those in it)

You will have to help me with the Linda Lewis reference, unless you are referring to the singer/songwriter.

Adoption is final because usually it takes so long for a child to be adopted. A child really needs to settle in an adoptive placement by the time they are 3, any older and it gets increasingly difficult.

Parents are given time over the currency of care proceedings to sort out their difficulties. Sadly, some have difficulties which are too great to overcome in even a couple of years. Children can't wait.

You also have to balance the harm caused to a child who has settled in a placement being removed and placed back with birth parents who are by now strangers. This is what happened to the Websters. It is very hard. But the focus has to be on what is best for the child. It may not be for the best to remove a child from a settled placement.

wizard, LA have more than enough work to do without chasing fictitious allegations to make up care proceedings.

In fact the biggest problem with the child protection system in my view is that social workers are grossly overworked, with case loads that mean they can't give proper attention to individual cases.

I am afraid your reason just doesn't accord with reality.

Can you offer some more identifying details for Linda Lewis? All google will tell me is that she is a singer/songwriter.

sorry cross post nennypops.

Larrygrylls, what looks like a relatively short time in the context of an adult can be massively important in the context of a child. A baby will bond with its carer within a few weeks at most. A birth parent will problems will need at least a year to demonstrate that they have fully turned their lives round and won't slip back into whatever was putting the baby in danger. To take a child away from a loved and loving adoptive parent after a year to place her with someone who is a stranger to her would inevitably cause long-lasting and profound damage.

the cases arent expensive for those that work in them - they are very lucrative. Our radiologist friend from the documentary last night clearly does very well from it despite clearly not understanding as much as he or she thought. Shame he wasn't named as it might a new radiologist next time is used.

Surely if adoption wasn't so final then that would put potential adoptive parents off, meaning that even more children would be languishing in the care system with no hope of a family of their own? Rightly or wrongly if I was thinking of adopting I'd be put off by the chance that my much wanted child could be taken back off me again?

Which actually sounds massively selfish. It wasn't meant to.

Spero,

I get that it is a balance. This programme, however, was not about birth parents with problems. It was about incorrect assumptions, some of which were disproved. Of course change is disruptive to a child. However there is a balance. If they have only been with adoptive parents a matter of months, their long term interest is surely better served by returning them to their genetic parents. At least it ought to be considered?

You'll be saying that two prominent MPs werent in that video next

What video, what MPs?

You are aware of the massive cuts to legal aid? That expert witnesses now get paid a fraction of what they used to? That the pool of people prepared to come to court to give expert evidence is drying up as they just can't afford to take time off work to write reports and attend to give evidence at legal aid rates?

Just who is finding this a lucrative gravy train?

the cases arent expensive for those that work in them - they are very lucrative.

Possibly, but what interest could social workers conceivably have in enriching medical experts, foster parents, barristers and the like?

larry, I think the way the system operates means that is highly unlikely to happen.

Care proceedings take on average between a year and 2 years to complete. The gov is telling us now this is unacceptable ( I agree) and we now have six months maximum. the LA won't look for an adoptive family until final care and placement orders are made.

Depending on how 'adoptable' a child is it could be another six months to a year before a placement is found.

So once a child is adopted, that is very final. Becauase of the importance to the child of a permanent home, for which he or she may now have been wating for, for years.

@spero - you would need a whole weekend to read the linda lewis case (linda lewis is the mother). The child goes by the name Bonnie (Real name Ntah*). The child was kidnapped illegally from the US after misdiagnosis in the UK (false passport issued to social services) to prevent a medical negligence claim - they fabricated a suicide pact note by the mother to take the child (confirmed as fake by another social worker).

Mother hasnt seen her daughter since. 'Child' is now 26 (12 sat the time). Weirdest and murkiest story I have ever seen'

Google 'justice for linda lewis'

I am a legal aid lawyer and I think - unlike the criminal bar - I get a fair wage for what I do, which involves long hours, lots of travel and no pension or sickness pay etc.

But it is certainly not 'lucrative'.

And why should a LA want to put any money into MY pocket to represent parents in care proceedings?

how should we organise a child protection system? Are you saying the State shouldn't intervene? because this just generally leads to corruption and inertia?

my 'friend' is also a legal aid lawyer