FORCED
FAST-TRACK ADOPTION
by
Charles Pragnell
5th September
2005
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
http://www.fassit.co.uk/charles_pragnell_adoption.htm
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:
-
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.
-
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 behaviourally 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 :
-
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;
-
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.
-
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. http://www.fassit.co.uk/
