Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

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

However, that doesn't mean social workers do not have targets or that they do not target certain groups. There doesn't need to be a link

So what targets do you claim social workers have in relation to adoption, and what is their incentive and that of their employers for meeting those targets?

I once saw a discussion by racists about adoption

Twas not pretty. I felt unclean for having looked at the words

- these children which are being disputed should not be allowed to be adopted but only long-term fostering

LoveSewingBee, don't you think the children should be entitled to some stability and certainty? They aren't adopted until the council has gone through a long and arduous process of putting together a case to convince a judge that it is the only solution, and there is plenty of opportunity for parents to contest the council's case during that process. To address another of your points, they automatically get legal aid to help them in contesting the case.

I have no idea.

You can dismiss the Linda Lewis case if you wish - strangely I did too to begin with. It is not a fabricated story. ITV was doing a documentary on it but came under pressure.

This is the woman who had her child taken at hospital

www.parentdish.co.uk/2013/12/06/social-workers-took-my-baby-away-at-birth-mum-tells-this-morning/

It doesn't cause you any disquiet at all, the kinds of people who are on the Linda Lewis bandwagon?

If you have good eyes and a tolerance for lack of formatting...
justiceforfamilies.freeforums.org/kidnapped-by-the-state-t1884.html

I dont think anyone else has championed the Linda Lewis case

Please feel free to post the details of what really happened if it is not the truth. There is an injunction 15 years later on this case - I wonder why!!

As Social Services get power to section parents as mentally ill - why every parent in Britain should
be fighting for the safety of their children and Child Courts that are open to the full Public scrutiny.
Sick, in constant pain, and frightened after months of medical incompetence, 12 year old Bonnie
Lewis was deliberately and deceitfully taken from her mother by Port Talbot Social Services.
Their aim? Probably to meet government fostering and adoption targets, which reward Councils

So there are fostering targets now? Presumably because even the maddest conspiracy theorists can't claim there is a huge market to adopt 12 year old girls.

Well this has been interesting but also deeply, deeply depressing.

I can now see the massive extent of the distrust and fear of all state institutions and the lengths to which people will go to construct a conspiracy theory which chimes with what they want to believe.

I had high hopes this morning. I thought I could get a constructive debate going on Twitter.

All I have to show for it is being called a 'sicko' who is 'mates' with people who murder children and I am now getting emails from Mr Randall Joliffe. Google him if you can be arsed.

No surprise that people like him are jumping on the conspiracy bandwagon.

So am now depressed because I don't think we can actually do anything to make things better for the children, not in the face of all this frothing madness.

Glad you are trying though Spero, someone needs to be the voice of reason.

I have been horrified by what I have read, written in many cases by people who have no factual information about the system they are criticising (and certainly no knowledge of attachment theory).

what you have to accept is that somewhere, in between, is the truth. Most cases of child protection are conducted thoroughly and properly. Thousands of children are rightly taken away, rightly. However for every thousand or so taken correctly, 50 or so aren't. In this 50 lies those taken for the future emotional harm risk - often without much evidence or often with social workers committing perjury or falsifying reports - or perhaps having a bad day - who knows. Some get found out and struck off, some don't. It can be following an accusation from a neighbour, a report from a school, past mental health issues/care or an incident in the street.

Some people are just plain unlucky. While these bad luck stories persist the (sometimes) exaggerated stories will exist.

Social networking is breaking down secret courts though - and it will get worse!!!

Personally, I dont want to live in a society where you can be sent to jail without a jury or access to a solicitor as in wanda maddocks case.

Oh gawd Spero

If you carry on arguing on twitter, I can come back you up. Bring it on trolls...

You are amazing IMHO for putting yourself out there real name and all to be attacked time and time again and STILL not giving up

Heck, Spero, the amount of alternative "therapy" in medicine is disconcerting enough, but alternative law?

I no longer post on mumsnet but I'll make an exception to try and get some balance back here. Spero your vehement attempts to attack anything is counter-productive. The Linda Lewis case has clearly attracted some oddballs. Equally it smells strongly of fish and people do try to cover up their mistakes.

I have, thankfully, no first hand experience of social services but wish to cite a case where social services went to some lengths to keep a child with a fracture with its family. Two young people with a young baby - unmarried, child has a fracture and is not immediately taken to a&e. Parents have no satisfactory explanation. Quite rightly the child is taken into care. Parents are fighting for return of the child but split up. Both parents then accuse the other of violent behaviour. One parent is eventually awarded custody despite possibly being responsible and probably knowing the child was in pain and not taking them to hospital. The other has supervised visits. A lot of effort went into studying both parents and then supervising the one who got custody.

If your child is taken by social services the advice linked to earlier is good but your best chance of keeping your child is to blame your partner and split up from them. If you are a relative you may have to agree not to see the parents - grandparents may not want to agree not to see their child to keep their grandchild.

Social services have a difficult job but the job itself encourages feelings of superiority that can lead to refusal to attempt to having made mistakes. We need more openness in the courts to expose the mistakes.

I wouldn't disagree with much of that.

However, where it breaks down for me is the insistence by some - including an elected MP - that the children 'wrongly' taken are taken 'wrongly' in a malicious and deliberate way for cash bonus.

this is simply untrue and causes fear and panic. children suffer.

Sorry, my post was to wizard pic.

Of course I disagree that I simply 'vehemently attack' everything.

I vehemently attack people who make extremely serious allegations and never offer any proof. Those kind of people deserve a vehement attack.

@spero what you need to accept - because you are clearly wrong - is that there are many more cases than you are aware of of where children have been wrongly adopted.

And this is what has to change. I don't have the solution but unless there are changes - and fast - desperate people are going to do desperate things. And yes this will harm adoptive parents. I know of people who have managed to coerce private contact arrangements after adoptions where it has been wrong. I also know of people who have tracked down their children.

The system has to cater for all people and children. And people who have had their children wrongly taken have to be given consideration too.

On a brighter note I am absolutely delighted that Jill McCartan did - she did the right thing and full marks to the BBC and the Sunday Express for backing her and helping her. Hopefully that kept one more child out of care.

I don't accept it because I don't accept I am 'clearly wrong'.

No one can demonstrate how I am 'clearly wrong'.

I have worked in this system for 15 years. I don't accept large numbers of children are adopted for no other reason than it earns the LA a bonus.

And my exposure today to those who do believe that simply reinforces me.

I watched the Panorama program last night, and I have followed many stories in the news of children wrongly removed. The story that sticks in my mind is of a young lady named Fran Lyons.
I'm not sure why so many people attack John Hemming? Children being wrongly removed into a care system renowned for child abuse, without evidence that parents are abusive (based on hearsay, opinion, and accusations alone), is an alarming prospect.
In a poll, the majority of mothers said they would not seek help for post natal depression, for fear of losing their children.
With regards to borderline personality disorder, a predominant reason for removing children from parents, I would suggest people research the 'disorder', and whilst doing so, look at the following articles (written by leading clinical psychologists in the UK, on the subject of 'disorders', and 'psychiatric diagnoses':

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20986796

dcp.bps.org.uk/dcp/the_dcp/news/dcp-position-statement-on-classification.cfm

If a person is mistrusting of people, this may be because they have experienced a trauma, or abuse of trust. If a person is depressed, or anxious, the same applies. This can be addressed with therapy;Uunfortunately, such people are labelled with personality disorders, and classified as 'posed emotional risks'. Parents lose their children as a result of such diagnoses:

I think it is not just the family courts that need re-evaluating, but the mental health sector. The DCP (The Division of Clinical Psychology) a division of the British Psychological Society, is seeking a paradigm shift, for anxiety, depression, fear (all problems that are classed as 'disorders' that stem from social causes, and that can be treated with therapy), to no longer be classed as 'mental illnesses'.

If this happens, parents will not risk losing their children to mis-diagnosis's, and subjective opinions. Loving parents, who have in their past suffered trauma, or mistreatment, would no longer be labelled as mentally ill, and deemed 'posed emotional risks'. As a result, fewer children would be wrongly removed into care.

Perhaps something to think about?

@spero - I also think you can look back through my posts and I have not attacked anyone nor been unpleasant. I have merely tried to put over the views of some PARENTS who I ABSOLUTELY AM SURE HAVE BEEN WRONGED. Nothing more.

Being a social worker is a tough job. Unfortunately, at the bottom the pay isn't great - peanuts/monkeys - fact of life. I have an open mind always and like to see justice prevail.

I have never liked social workers since one gave my family lice when we were adopting my sister. Warning - never go near a social worker wearing a head scarf!! But hey, thats as personal as Im getting.

@spero - I did not say it was to earn a bonus (not in the majority of cases). I said it's down to many issues - mainly bad luck.

wizard pc - I will give you credit as the sanest and most reasonable sounding of the Conspiracy Brigade thus far.

But you have still put forward assertions that are simply dangerously wrong and that Linda Lewis stuff is chilling - but not in the way you think.

I'm coming rather late to the party on this one so I hope no one minds me butting in. :)

I watched it last night, I thought it was really interesting.

One thing that shocked me (perhaps unreasonably) was the family with the 4 year old boy who was eventually adopted. They seemed like excellent, stable, loving parents (obviously just a snapshot) and I wondered why it wouldn't be in the child's best interest to remain in contact with them?
Would that one incident have been enough to lose their child forever? Surely as they were going by balance of probabilities rather than beyond reasonable doubt then more investigations into the parent / child relationship needs to be done? Perhaps psyc assessments or observations?

There must be some other indicators of abuse? Or would the fractures be sufficient? I agree if there is suspicion that it is the parents then that is very serious and needs investigation but from what they were saying the child was immediately taken.

If more and regular supervised contact was allowed then it also wouldn't be so traumatic for the child to be returned home if that was possible.

I also think that a lot of errors come down to overworked and stressed social workers who don't have enough time to properly investigate. Because of this they probably do have to make "judgements" more often which to an extent will mean perhaps certain groups are more targeted. If you deal with 100 cases a week you might be less able to pick up on when one case isn't quite fitting with the norm and make a incorrect call?

and I shall ask just one question. None of us has the ultimate answer to how to improve the care system.

However, are we all agreed that Jill McCartan did the right thing in going abroad? For she would surely have had that child removed!!

Good luck to her - one brave, determined lady with wonderfully supportive parents - the kind of family unit that children will thrive in.