I wrote one blog post this week which I thought was about one thing – the irritating promotion of a dangerous untruth that the UK is the ‘only’ country in Europe or even the World that permits ‘forced adoption’.
Interestingly, the focus of my concerns soon shifted after it was pointed out to me that the author of the article in the Independent which made much of this ‘fact’ was in actually written by Caroline Selkirk, the Chief Executive of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).
This is clearly someone who will have an interest in adoption. Her identity should have been set out loud and clear before the article even got started. I didn’t know who she was until someone else told me, so what chance would a general member of the public have?
The response of the BAAF when I complained about this was disappointing and defensive. As I replied ‘not good enough’.
I then recalled an earlier article in the Independent ‘Adoption rates in freefall after court rulings leave children in unsuitable homes’ on 12th May by Emily Dugan who at least here is identified as ‘Social Affairs Editor’ – and according to Google is actually affiliated to the Independent and not to – for example – an organisation which is on the face of it about promoting adoption as a good thing.
At the time, I thought this May article a disappointing and clumsy attempt at creating some fear around the recent court decisions which highlighted the need for decisions made on proper evidence and recognition of the demands of Article 8 of the ECHR.
But in November 2013 the President of the Family Court, Sir James Munby, made a ruling that left many local authorities convinced they must try every extended family member before putting a child up for adoption. The judge said that six-month targets for adoptions should not be allowed to break up families unnecessarily and that grandparents and other extended family members should be considered before placing children for adoption.
It had been hoped that a second ruling last December from the same judge, clarifying he had not changed the law in the original judgment, would curb the freefall in adoption numbers. But instead further rulings from Sir James and other judges have exacerbated the problem.
What the judgments most certainly did not say was ‘they must try every extended family member before putting a child up for adoption’. This is, without very much respect, a stupidly inaccurate attempt to precis court rulings about the need to respect due process and investigation of all realistic options, given the draconian nature of an adoption order. If adoption rates are in ‘freefall’ just because the courts are insisting on the rule of law, it does rather make you wonder what was going on before these court decisions and just how many rulings were made about adoption that would not now survive more careful scrutiny.
But what really raised my eyebrows was the utterly bizarre attempt to garner sympathy for potential adopters who were ‘suffering’ given the recent fall in adoption rates and slowing down of the court process. We were given the utterly tragic tale of ‘Tim’ and ‘Sarah’ from the Home Counties who were distraught that their plans to collect a playmate for their birth child now had to be put on hold:
In January we went to panel and were successful and started looking for a child. You’re looking on websites and you can see the number of adopters going up and the number of children staying the same. It’s really frustrating. We’re looking for a child aged 0-3 because we have a six-year-old birth child. But only one or two have come up and they can’t be placed with another child.
It was a real eye-opener discovering about the court case. I can’t believe one person’s decision has had that much of an impact so quickly. In a year we’ve gone from thinking we’d have a child placed with us around now to thinking it could go on for months or years now.
Given that a large number of those who are critical of the current child protection system say it is social engineering, set up to ‘steal’ children from the poor working classes and to redistribute them among the middle classes, this was an unfortunate case study. There are certainly many other better examples of when the demands of fair process have collided with the interests of adoptive parents and no doubt enormous misery has ensued. See for example A and B v Rotherham MBC where a child was moved from a potential adoptive placement where he was settled, to live with his aunt.
Of course something needs to be done to counter the ridiculous and partial reporting of the likes of the Daily Mail and the Telegraph. But what on earth is going on here? Clumsy and cloth eared attempts at propaganda ‘for the other side’ are not going to do anything other than further obfuscate proper debate about what we need to do to help vulnerable children, who are part of vulnerable families.
There is clearly now some considerable tension between what the government plainly wants – more adoptions and more quickly – and what the courts will demand in terms of due process. This mix is even more toxic given the current climate of austerity and decreasing support available for those who are struggling. We desperately need adult, informed, honest debate about what we are doing.
The sad irony about Caroline Selkirk’s article was it that if only she had bothered to ask a lawyer (but perhaps not Mostyn J) she could have learned that the UK is very far from the ‘only’ European country to permit ‘forced adoption’ and she wouldn’t have had to try to shoehorn her argument into a very odd assertion that the UK is the ‘only’ country to force through its adoptions, because we are the ‘only’ country that really cares about children.
One of the reasons that contested adoption is legal here and illegal elsewhere is because UK law puts the welfare and rights of the child first, above those of parents and any associated relatives. It’s not always in the child’s best interests to stay with their birth family.
BAAF sets out its role as ‘supporting, advising and campaigning for better outcomes for children in care for over 30 years’. And that’s great. Who wouldn’t want that? What a real shame and pity therefore if BAAF are allowing themselves to be used as the monkeys set to dance by some government organ grinder with an agenda, at the expense of honest and open debate.
I really hope this isn’t happening. But if that isn’t the explanation for these articles, what is?
In the interests of transparency, I popped out of an LA for a time, to run Adoption Activity Days for BAAF. (AADs are aimed at the children who are hardest to place. These are children for whom the court has decided there is no alternative other than adoption and usually for whom their extended family are as unsafe as parents).
There is a huge mismatch between adopters and children waiting, activity days are aimed at demystifying those children, and put chemistry back into the heart of the process. I know I risk censure by declaring all that here but children who have been removed from traumatic and abusive homes deserve stability and security and normal family life. That some children are harder to place is because they are not 0 – 3 year old white British girls but are boys, older, siblings, BAME etc., those children benefit from adopters meeting them. That boys are harder to place for adoption than girls makes my head hurt, let alone my heart.
I didn’t read the case study but does appear to be an unfortunate example of a family looking for a child to fit in with them rather than meeting the needs of a child. There is a lot to say about adopters, and the trauma of the journey they take, but children are at the heart of adoption. The perspective of adopters which is illustrated is also the outcome of the headlines around adoption reform and the the DfE’s perpetual claims that either SW or their legal are to blame for the fall in numbers. Adopters are confused and distressed by numbers falling but also because the message they are getting is deliberately being spun.
It is very unfortunate that Caroline wasn’t credited, BAAF usually are, they also have excellent in house lawyers. My experience of BAAF is that it is an organisation which supports fostering as much as it does adoption, shares concerns about kinship carers who aren’t supported sufficiently, and I think that the inference we care for our children more than other countries is the work of a sub. I am interested in the raft of articles which set out ‘the other side’ to the ‘forced adoption’ discussions but this is not a monkey performing for the government, my take on the organisation is that it is a critical friend to the government and that certainly there are other agencies which are more simpatico with the DfE.
As I have commented elsewhere on this blog and others, there is a debate to be held about non consensual adoption, and this is the time to have it. Over simplistic dialogue on either ‘side’ is not helpful. Adoption is the best way to secure permanency, security and stability for children who are unable to remain at home, the breakdown rate is 3%. Other forms of permanency are less secure and we should also be looking at why, social work often looks globally for national solutions.
I know I risk censure by declaring all that here but children who have been removed from traumatic and abusive homes deserve stability and security and normal family life.
Why do you think you risk censure for declaring that, on a blog set up and run by people who believe in transparency and open and honest debate? I think its true. But I don’t think the truth of that justifies what is happening now. The quality of debate and consideration of such important issues is embarrassingly woeful. It does seem we risk being out of step with the rest of Europe and we need to ask ourselves why and what we are going to do about it.
Anyone who deliberately tries to ‘spin’ any issue of such fundamental importance is a fool because ultimately it will come back to bite them. We need an open honest debate about why the UK maintains ‘adoption is best’ but other countries don’t – and have ways of working to show this.
I refer you to my recent visit to Finland.
http://www.childprotectionresource.org.uk/how-you-do-anything-is-how-you-do-everything-the-view-from-finland-nordic2015/
I meant I risk censure by talking about adoption activity days and was thinking about others who read your blog rather than just you.
sorry, that did occur to me – but only after I hit ‘reply’.
Let’s say what these days really are shall we! Open adoption days (fetes) someone professional was sat in my living room and couldn’t believe what he had been told. A mother lost 3 children to a very eager adoption process (another one) and was taken from Wales to attend the fete (fate) with a social worker and would be having to meet couples. That’s child exploitation,and indeed trafficking children. From wales to England,as many say it’s like another country. However in may apparently not enough foster cares and the papers printed 136 children taken to England as not enough foster parents in wales. (That’s legally trafficking children) . I wish the right numbers were published as these are far from accurate and a lot of the children taken are in fact newborn-3 years and girls. Often taken at birth (sometimes the first child born) then 23 months later you find the truth that local authorities transferred the child to another hospital,kept alone for 5 days.. no criminal convictions,no drugs ever or even a glass of wine! Big adopters can be suffering anxiety issues and stress etc etc etc, and the accelerator is put on and the time frame is kept not exploring the father and families. It’s a propaganda ,to fill the homes of the rich with children from parents who are poor. And maybe if you want to be looked at more seriously then maybe you should be asking these questions and trying to help what the government is doing. There’s not a few children for adoption there’s thousands and removed on future harm that don’t exist in some cases as said by police authorities themselves. We’ve complained to many in England and Wales and Also the amount of private companies involved. If the adopters want to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the child (where there’s no medical history etc etc) there’s over 900 tests available for the child to have at a cost. This is child abuse in the worst possible way. Basically if the shoe doesn’t fit (if the child doesn’t fit in to what people want) and people are not going to bite the hand that feeds them in a multi million pound industry if you want to go nationwide children are also available… so please save it for someone who you can convince. And by your article you wrote this was very untrue and misleading information and disgraceful. As for so called professionals e.g. Social services I’d be a hypocrite if I said all were bad but in fact the genuine ones are fed up with how things are being done,I’ve spoken to a few myself very pleasant and genuine with there concerns about how different social workers are taking over the cases often agencies on only a 6 month temp job (26 weeks time frame) and saying they never signed up to remove children. This is why there’s currently 6625 jobs for social workers alone in councils as most are leaving because of what’s going on and sworn to secrecy of what’s been witnessed) “worse than mi5 I would imagine ” these private companies also go into hundreds online. Then you come across where some haven’t registered and in fact have criminal records but failed to declare it,and ceos moving across the country after being found out he was suspended from the board of panels..(no criminal prosecution) and the more you read the cases in depth how child A-I all them children were put at risk as couldn’t be bothered to report things.. but the children were removed after the person was reported. You couldn’t make this up if you tried.. in one case in a viability assessment apparently the DAD gave birth to 7 children? 303 mistakes were made and that poor child was adopted.. no fault of the parents it was the incompetence of the local authorities and placed the children with potential adopters and the cafcass worker didn’t have a clue and submitted a report to court saying something completely different. Another baby was born (sibling) soon after and didn’t try keeping them together she was adopted separately the other dad couldn’t fight 2 babies gone in a space of 4 months apart. In the lac review they kept referring to her as a boy? So questions and answers are not justified or acceptable and social workers with one agenda you find them to not have any children of there own,but have experience in removing innocent children from loving family and there parents. The last resort is the only resort and it’s quick and money engendered.
You are absolutely right that the quality of debate is woeful. There is definitely grassroots support for a more robust discussion but we actually need a really good challenge to Narey who seems to be sweeping our Chief Social Worker along with him. I have no idea why a man with so little expertise is being given such a remit, I have no idea why the CP Task Force contains no SW or service user representation, except that this government’s ideology is to fast track to privatisation. The mixed economy has not done fostering any favours and it won’t adoption.
If I were cynical – thank goodness I am not – I might suggest it has something to do with the hope that once a child is adopted, the adopted family will become the advocate for that child and ensure his/her access to medical treatment, education, therapy etc,etc, rather than asking the State to foot the bill. So its massively cheaper – particularly if you provide only patchy post adoption support and rely upon the adoptive parents’ emotional attachment to the child to keep them plugging away when others might give up.
But I am not cynical so I won’t suggest that.
It wouldn’t be cynical it would be accurate to say that adoption is a lower cost option. It costs a fortune to to intervene in family life (hence reductions in services) or to keep a child in care. Adoption is also the most stable option for children living outside their family of origin and it does provide them with a ‘normal family life’, without SW intervention. They are valid reasons for adoption being a positive outcome for some children. There is of course an argument for creating more stability in foster carer, as other countries do, so that the Fostering Network doesn’t have to campaign for foster carers for teenagers for example, because the foster carers who took have the capacity to parent those children at 7 can continue to do so. Supporting those foster carers is as important as supporting adopters. I am in several minds about state support for adopters, whilst I want those placements to be stable and those people supported, I am not altogether sure it should be state funded.
I was very impressed with the Finnish approach of co-working with parents and children, recognising the importance for children of the key people in their lives and providing mentors for parents.
I do wish for every child a safe and stable home. But I think we have to be more open to discussing a variety of options which could achieve that.
Would you like to write a guest post for the CPR site about the issues you have raised? All very interesting and thought provoking; I would like to start a more general and useful discussion to counter the current simplistic propaganda from both sides.
I would be very happy to, I have my own much neglected blog that nobody visits so am blowing in the wind there! I have a week where that probably isn’t possible but next weekend very possible.
Helen, do you think much of the demand for support for adopted children is part of the general problem with access to therapy and CAMHS? While parenting by foster carers is ‘public’ and parenting by birth parents, kinship carers, SGs and adopters is ‘private’ – it’s a false division for children.
Hi Julia, I think the waiting lists I hear about for services generally for children in care or the community (whoever they are living with) have shockingly long waiting lists. I heard a year the other day for a diagnosis for autism which is a year in school for a child with inadequate support potentially. There is a specialism within CAMHS teams for children in care which is relevant but those services are constantly under threat or cut so there is a kind of false dichotomy in regard to the public/private spheres you refer to. Having any access would be good.
My dilemma re adoption support is several fold and I don’t have it all thought out. Adoption for altruistic reasons is rare, most adopters are heterosexual couples who have tried other ways to form their family, I have a lot of empathy with that. I also think it is a massive journey to make from wanting your own children, the grief and loss experienced when not able to, and looking after not only someone else’s child but someone else’s traumatised child.
Without minimising any of the very real issues or holding a view that adopters don’t need support, they do, I don’t altogether hold the view that an adoption team or an LA should be the service providers. Parents who don’t adopt have to navigate finding the right source of support for their children and foster carers etc. don’t actually get services any quicker. The only place children in care are effectively prioritised is education. So signposting is fine, supporting with what the issues are (adopters quite understandably have emotional barriers to hearing these during the adoption process sometimes) but not state funding and provision of services.
This is where I am at for the moment, but undecided and bound to fetch the wrath of adopters, but the priority for me would be spending money on services everyone can access and making sure that those children who live at home/in the community also have access to specialist services when they experience separation anxiety etc.
I had experience with CAMHS years ago. But I find the adopters are not much help when saying I quote from their message on line: why is it we have to pick up the damage caused by BP ? I’m sick of being in the firing line,they have no respect and don’t respect me when I disapline them..I’m sick of being treated like this in my own house, one wants to kill me and the other hates me:-( . This is word for word what the adopter wrote which gave great concern as I never had this with my child,and adhd don’t spell bounds for actions and comments like that. I’ve heard that the local authorities pay and help but if with a private agency then it’s private obviously. After all they signed saying they were financially stable and could look after these children. But I suppose if like it was also said Barnardos hasn’t got a good reputation we all know why from the 1940s , an so called public apology. But back to CAMHS I suppose if the child also didn’t have to have a new name “drummed ” in to him after first intro he might not have so many problems. The words said was one from adopters website where on about name changing.. but that’s abuse there, we supported adoption whole heartedly 2 years ago until we seen what was really happening. Yes children deserve to be happy and loved and stability and yes some do need adoption,but people are bitter and trying to bring change is a big thing reform of family courts. But help should be available for children attending CAMHS most definitely and more tend to grow out of stuff and grow to be fine young adults medication free.
BAAF’s closure is probably because they aren’t the performing money the DfE would like them to be, but a critical friend, and maybe the article and lack of credits etc. were because they were all distracted. In SW we are all worried about the close relationship between the DfE, our Chief Social Worker for Children and Morning Lane Associates/KPMG. http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2015/03/26/plans-to-outsource-social-work-accreditation-met-with-concern-from-sector/
When I am ‘distracted’ I forget my keys or my mobile. I don’t sit down and write a seriously inaccurate article that misstates the law and its consequences. I am sad to hear that BAAF is closing, even more so because my last impression of them was so negative.
I like your typo Helen, think you mean Baaf was not the government’s ‘dancing monkey’! Quite, which is why the Independent article looks like an aberration. I attended a very good event organised by Baaf on SGOs only last month – it has always been an open minded organisation. They worked constructively with Family Rights Group, for example. June Thoburn put it well (on twitter) where Martin Narey is fully behind Coram – she said we need plurality in an area like this where knowledge is still contested.
The article definitely doesn’t represent the organisation. Now ex staff members are speechless about it. It was written without the knowledge of those who would normally be involved, accurate, and represent the range of the sector.
Normally an article like that would have actually been written by someone with a high level of sector knowledge in partnership with the press office & a lawyer. I don’t want to slander but seems that might not have been the case this time. Safe to say, if BAAF hadn’t closed, there were probably a lot of people who would have felt it made them look like idiots.
If it is a ‘dangerous untruth’ that the UK is the only country that practices ‘forced adoption’ what then is the truth? The article does not say and so does not help much to diffuse this falsehood. I was under the impression that some other jurisdictions have a similar approach – I think Portugal and Estonia have been mentioned – but surely this does not mean that only these jurisdictions base their child law on the child’s best interests?
The Council of Europe recently said, “England and Wales are really unique in Europe in placing so many children for adoption, in particular in the young age group which is ‘popular’ on the adoption market,” so clearly there is something different about the approach taken by the English/Welsh jurisdiction, perhaps in the way it regards adoption as a commercial opportunity.
Manifestly there is a need for more clarity in this area, and perhaps more honesty. Blair’s government got adoption very wrong, and it looks as if Cameron’s will, too, albeit for different reasons and under a different ideology. Successive Court of Appeal judgements show that local authorities have no more understanding of the legislation and concepts like threshold than the general public has.
The facts and figures are set out in my first post on this topic http://www.transparencyproject.org.uk/a-lie-can-get-round-the-world-before-the-truth-has-put-its-boots-on/. Where I also cite the passage you refer to in your comment.
The Council of Europe say that it is 22 countries – but even they are wrong as Dr Fenton Glynn points out. In fact, EVERY European county permits adoption without parental consent.
I have to agree with you there with everything you have said. Now I see this article is 2 years old and we’re now in 2017 and a new law for (India,USA,Canada and Ireland.) the uk as whole England and Wales are removing children like a foot on a accelerator,26 weeks isn’t enough,especially when parents are not partied in until the 19/21 weeks. By which they have orders and you were never notified. The local authorities are now in the line of scrutiny and so they should be. None of them keep to the law and legislation. And if papers were correct and not so many errors/mistakes you could try to make sense of what there saying.. the simple truth and fact is they couldn’t tell the truth if there own lives depended on it and there putting innocent children and saying we done it in the best interest of the child.. wrong again there doing it for the target of be met and Also money engendered which is actual abuse. We’re raising awareness of this and they can’t even keep up the legislation and the law and this is why 6 month temps are being brought in by private companies.
Samantha, Parents are made parties at the very start of a court case – unless for some reason they can’t be found. It would be very unusual for a parent not to be involved until week 19 or 21 as you suggest.
My Niece is an excellent Mum but had a few problems. Social services has recommended adoption after 6-8 weeks of knowing her.
She has done everything they required her to do.. They have rushed This through so fast.. It’s Cruel and Heartbreaking. They should be supporting people instead of stealing their Babies and Children