Response to the letter by
Felicity Collier Chief Executive of the British Association for Adoption and
Fostering to Members of Parliament – 22 August 2005.
BAAF Press
Release
On 22 February 2005, Felicity
Collier, Chief Executive of the BAAF wrote to all members of Parliament
regarding reporting by the Daily Mail newspaper on events concerning the
Forced Fast-Track Adoption of children and the often flimsy reasons why
social workers are removing children from their natural parents and rushing
them immediately into adoption, which permanently separates those children
from their families.
The first question which must
be asked is why Collier, representing a charitable organization, has mounted
such a steadfast defence of social workers and their managers when there are
national organizations which more than adequately represent and defend those
groups. E.g. the Association of Directors of Social Services and the British
Association of Social Workers.? A further question arises as to whether such
an action is within the constitution and aims of BAAF as a registered
charity?.
Why has Collier become the
mouthpiece for social workers and their managers?. It is notable that two
senior managers of Essex C.C. Learning and Social Care Department are on the
BAAF Board.
Collier claims that “vulnerable
children who are only able to stay with their families because of the care
and support they receive from social workers.”. This is partially true but
there is a significant group of social workers in the U.K. and their local
authority managers who do not provide such care and support for families in
need and follow the good practices set by a minority of their fellow
professionals. So Collier uses the good practices set by a minority to
exonerate the misdeeds of a majority. Collier mentions a number of 388,200
children who are referred to social workers (annually and not weekly as she
implies) but gives no information as to what, if any, help and support these
children received. Evidence from parents suggests very little, if any.
In 1996 the publication of the
DoH Research Document `Messages From Research – Child Protection highlighted
the fact that local authority social workers and their managers were
expending a disproportionate amount of resources into child protection work
and the removal of children rather than to provide “care and support to
families” and the then Conservative government urged local authorities to
re-focus their resources into supporting families. There is no evidence that
this has occurred and in fact on the contrary, even more resources have been
vested in child protection and the removal of children from their families
and the directive to `Re-Focus Services’ has largely been ignored.
Collier claims that the adverse
publicity attracted by social workers will mean that “they (parents) will be
less likely to approach social services for help”. The major reasons for
parents not seeking the help of social workers are because:
1.
When parents (particularly those of disabled children) have sought such
help they have had to undergo a long and tedious assessment process at the
end of which there has been no help and support forthcoming. Some parents
even reported that at the beginning of the assessment process that the
social workers have made statements to the effect that, “Really there’s no
point in going through the assessment as there are no resources to provide
any services but we’ll fill in the forms anyway”. Not unnaturally
this has not been a comfort to parents seeking help and support in the
care of their disabled or needy children.
2. Parents have presented their desperately sick and suffering children
at hospitals or doctor’s surgeries and within a short period have found
themselves accused of fabricating or inducing their child’s illness
because the doctor hasn’t been able to diagnose the child’s illness. i.e.
child abuse. Often such illnesses are linked to the earlier administration
of vaccines or prescribed medications. This has happened even where other
doctors have made a diagnosis or where the child has been diagnosed as
autistic or is similarly disabled. The case of Megan Armstrong in
Northumberland where doctors failed to diagnose a brain tumour and
recommended she be taken into care is a classic illustration.
So it is social workers and
doctors themselves who are making parents “less likely to approach social
services for help” because they know they will not receive the help they
need or are at serious risk of being falsely and wrongfully accused of child
abuse accused. Collier however prefers to `Blame the messenger’, the media,
using neat distortions and misrepresentations.
Collier contradicts herself
when she states on the one hand that, “Social workers are required to make
every effort to enable children to live with their (natural) families, even
when there are concerns justifying an application for a Care Order” and
later states, “targets had an important role in helping to concentrate minds
on the importance of minimizing delay and drift for children who Courts had
deemed could not return to their birth (natural) parents.” It is not Courts
which `deem’ that children should not return to their parents – such
decisions are made by social workers and are merely rubber stamped by Courts
or social workers make those decisions after the Court Hearings and then
return to Courts to confirm the decisions, usually claiming that the
children have been separated from the parents for so long (by the social
workers) that it would not be `in the child’s best interests’ to return to
the natural parents.
How can social workers “make
every effort” and on the other hand be “minimizing delays”. Helping and
supporting parents to look after their children takes a lot of time and
resources and plainly this is not happening when the policy is to “minimize
delays”.
Collier attempts to place all
responsibility for decision making on the Courts but Courts have become
little more than rubber stamps for social work decisions with a system that
totally disempowers and disadvantages parents from defending themselves when
ranged against the mighty resources and legal powers of a local authority.
Research has shown (Prosser and Lewis 1992/1995) that once an allegation of
child abuse is made, that social workers begin with an assumption that the
abuse has occurred and their investigations are skewed toward providing
evidence to support the allegation and not to take an objective, impartial,
even-handed, or open-minded approach. Parents report in many cases that
evidence which can exonerate them is often disregarded or ignored or
withheld, or in some instances the evidence against them is distorted,
embellished, and in some cases, fabricated.
Sally Clark, Angela Cannings,
Trupti Patel and other parents wrongly imprisoned are just the tip of am
enormous iceberg of false accusations of child abuse.
Parents are shut out of the
initial secret meetings of the professionals involved (Strategy meetings)
and at Child Protection Conferences they are not allowed representation, no
matter how limited they may be in intellect and knowledge of the system, and
lack articulacy or don’t understand the professional jargon which is used on
these occasions. Grandparents and other family members are totally excluded
from the child protection procedures and from Court proceedings.
Collier correctly states in an
indictment of social workers that, “The worst scenario for any child in long
term care is ‘drifting’ between foster carers and residential care, without
any clear plan for their long term future”. In referring to `drifting’ of
children in care, she is referring to the research by Jane Rowe in 1980
(Children who Wait). Eight years later Jane Rowe declared that the problem
of children drifting was no longer an issue. So why has this situation been
allowed to develop again within 17 years or does the situation not now exist
but is a figment of Collier’s imagination based on the earlier research. If
it does exist again then why are these children in long term care?. Are no
efforts being made by social workers to re-unite them with their natural
families?. These are the children who ostensibly spend years in residential
and foster care and who the Blair government intended should be adopted but
who continue to be ignored by social workers and adoption agencies in favour
of procuring younger children directly from families.
The truth is that the vast
majority of children in care are older children who are emotionally and
behaviorally disordered and are not suitable for or don’t wish to be
adopted and do not wish to return to their families. Blair was misled into
believing there were large numbers of children in local authority care who
could be adopted and now no-one will tell him the truth but seek to meet his
adoption targets by procuring children to meet those targets.
Collier states that, “..local
authorities are now required to have a `permanence plan’ in place by the
time the child has been looked after for as long as four months”. How can
parents in difficulties be helped and supported by social workers in a
period of four months if this is, as Collier claims, “the First Option”.?.
This again contradicts what Collier states earlier that a `Care Plan’ has to
be submitted to the Court at the time of the application for the Care
Order. And where does this sit with the current practice of social workers
of seeking a Freeing For Adoption Order from the Court at the same time as
they are seeking a Care Order on children?. The evidence of parents is that
adoption is the first and often the only option submitted to the Court as
shown in the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights [P,C, and S v UK
government] when such actions were described by the ECHR as draconian.
Collier implies that there is
no redemption for parents who are drug abusers but even children born to
drug addicts can be successfully rehabilitated as has been shown in
Australia and the U.S.A. In Australia the parent has to be able to show to
the Court that they have been drug-free for six months before consideration
can be given to returning the children but it is often successfully done.
Obviously in the scenario described by Collier, drug abusing parents could
never achieve the return of their children in the four month period.
Collier claims “there are no
financial incentives whatsoever in removing children from home to local
authority care”. This is untrue. It costs many hundreds of thousands of
pounds to keep children in care and placing children for adoption removes
this financial burden for local authorities, although in some cases they
continue to pay allowances to adopters after adoptions are granted albeit
the child is then legally the responsibility of the adopters. Adoption
agencies make many thousands of pounds from finding and preparing adoptive
parents and then placing children for adoption and a small industry has
grown to carry out this work. This is the industry which Collier represents
and therefore where her vested interests lie.
If this money and the costs of
bringing court proceedings was diverted into helping and supporting families
in difficulties then many more children could be maintained within their
natural families. Of course this would mean a great many job losses among
the adoption industry workers.
Social workers in many European
countries and other countries across the world are astounded by the
practices of British social workers in so readily removing children from
their parents and wider families and which they view as punitive and
oppressive. Social workers in those other countries concentrate their
efforts in maintaining family unity and re-uniting children with their
families. This has been and remains the fundamental precept of child care
legislation in Britain since 1963 but has been disregarded or discounted by
social work agencies in Britain for over a decade.
The amendments which are
urgently needed in British adoption laws are :
1. Adoption must be relegated
to being the last, rather than the first, resort if children have to be
removed from their parents and re-unification with parents must be the
primary goal, with placement with an extended family member as the next
option;
2. Before an Adoption Order is
granted by the Courts it must be made incumbent on social workers that they
have made every effort and all possible resources have been devoted to
bringing about the re-unification of the child with the natural family or an
extended family member. i.e. the Genetic Imperative.
3.
Open Adoption Orders must be
the first option for Courts where parents and other extended family members
can retain contact with the child after adoption, as in New Zealand for
example, and social workers must be required to prove to Courts that such an
arrangement would be measurably and demonstrably placing the child at risk
before a Closed Adoption Order can be granted.
And finally, the requirements
of current child care legislation that social workers work in partnership
with parents and consult with them on all decisions and take into account
the wishes and feelings of the child should be stringently enforced. Added
to this should be the requirement that grandparents and other family members
are given the right to be involved when children are at risk of abuse or may
be taken into State Care.
ByCharles
Pragnell
5 September 2005
Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care
Expert Witness – Child Protection
and Social Care Consultant
and Child/Family Advocate.
Please read...
The Silence of the Media Lambs!
Doctors in a Dilemma
Are you an `Appropriate’ person?
Childrens Plan
State Terrorism
The Seriously Unhealthy State of Paediatrics
RAD – the Return of a Nightmare
Persecution of Children and Families
Why I am Petitioning the Prime Minister
Vaccines and Child Abuse Accusations
Why did Sally Clark Suffer and Die?
Perverse Reversal of Child Custody
Child Protection in Kangaroo Courts
Fabricated and induced illness in Children
A History of Man’s Inhumanity
A System out of Control
Forced Adoption
