Sunday 21 February 2010

Tomorrow's Manufactured Crisis Today!

The headline screams ''Invisible' children at risk from unofficial fostering'.

Sounds bad, right? Well, this is what is classed as 'unofficial fostering':
One in 10 children surveyed claimed to have been looked after by someone other than a parent or close relative for at least four consecutive weeks, yet only a tiny fraction of this number were registered with local authorities.
The people claiming this is a bad thing? Step forward, the British Association for Adoption & Fostering.

Yeah. They aren't likely to be impartial in this, are they?
BAAF estimates that up to one million "invisible" children could have spent weeks – or even years – living with family friends, neighbours, distant relatives or unregulated nannies without the knowledge of child protection experts.
Oh, noes! How could we let this happen? Wake up, people!
Six per cent of those affected said they weren't well looked after by private foster carers...
That never happens if you have a certificate, though, right?

Wrong. Very, very wrong.
...while a half experienced anxiety and loneliness.
Which children should never, ever experience. And official child fosterers guarantee they never will, right?
The Children's minister, Delyth Morgan, said: "We must do more to ensure local authorities are always notified about these arrangements."
*sigh*

I can't read any more. There's the usual case history of awful things happening, taken as representative of all these arrangements, and absolutely no mention whatsover of the official fostering horrors I managed to find with one Google search.

This is journalism? I think not...

13 comments:

JPT said...

Journalism? Bunk.

Brian, follower of Deornoth said...

It is disgraceful that children are exposed to the risk of unofficial childcare.

If they are cared for by unofficial people there is a risk that they won't be fucked up the arse by the public sector (see http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.co
) and public-sector employees would be would have to find something useful to do.

Mark Wadsworth said...

It's terrible that something as normal as this should be seen as abnormal. Of course kids who get fobbed off with relatives might feel a bit loney, but nowhere near as bad as being in a home or with a succession of strangers.

To sum up, the government really doesn't like this idea of people looking out for each other, do they?

(As it happens, my first wife basically fobbed off our kids onto her parents (which was a bit of a cheek, bearing in mind I'd have happily kept them) but hey, life is complicated sometimes, and all in all they did their best.)

Joe Public said...

"Six per cent of those affected said they weren't well looked after by private foster carers..."

So the private sector seems to do better than BAAF.

KenS said...

So using the extended family to help bring up children is now regarded (in certain quarters) as "bad". How long before children being brought up by their parents without interference by officialdom is frowned upon?

Surreptitious Evil said...

When we are both out of the country or, more normally, Mrs S-E is out of the country and I'm in London, young Master S-E is often looked after by our next-door neighbours. Who, it has to be said, are both certificated up past their arm-pits, both being primary school teachers but ...

It's none of the government's effing business.

Weekend Yachtsman said...

Of course it's not journalism; it's the beginning of another campaign by the Righteous. Surely you recognise the signs?

There are still some things that people can do on their own initiative, without the involvement of the state.

This will never do, so the bansturbators want another outing.

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Tomorrow's Manufactured Crisis Today!
<-- that's what i was looking for