A dying woman whose children are in foster care has been told that her contact with them will be cut to 90 minutes a fortnight because of her failing health.Doesn’t that give you a warm feeling inside? It does me.
Of rage, mind you…
Her son and daughter were taken into care because of an allegation — dismissed after an investigation — that a friend had sexually abused one of them.So why are they still in care?
Mrs Brown’s large and supportive family have made numerous attempts to bring the children back into their care.Oh, where to start..?
Her father, George, 72, a former BBC executive, was judged too old to look after the children, although he has regularly taken them on holidays. Anne offered to buy a bigger house to accommodate them, but was told that her job as a journalist would make it impossible for her to parent them.
Mrs Brown’s son Sam, who is 23, was assessed as not having a sufficiently stable relationship with his girlfriend.
It seems that having taken the children, they are now pulling excuses out of their collective arse in order to hang onto them. Too old at 72? Journalism not an ‘approved’ job?
And not having a ‘sufficiently stable’ relationship? Are you kidding me? Since when have the SS worried about that?
Pretty nearly all their recent screw-ups have involved the kind of ‘families’ where an attempt to chart the relationships would look like a drunken spider had gotten into someone’s Etch-A-Sketch…
Then in March 2006 Mrs Brown arrived at the children’s school to find that they had been taken into care. Louise had told her teacher that a friend of her mother had abused her.Quite. They’ll be turned out onto the street, along with all the other young people irrevocably damaged by being condemned to the ‘care’ of the State.
Mrs Brown recalled packing her children’s clothes as they waited outside in the social worker’s car. They left that afternoon.
After a police investigation and medical examination, the allegation was dismissed.
Louise retracted her statement to the family. But social services became concerned about Mrs Brown’s ability to protect her children.
“The social workers say they have got new families. But we are their family,” Anne said. “When they’re 16 social services won’t want to know them.”
Which, as always, isn’t exactly bucking the trend in this case:
On the brink of adolescence, the children are not likely candidates for adoption and the family says their behaviour has deteriorated significantly. Both hover on the edge of exclusion from school. Their family concedes that they are now difficult to handle together.Which is not to say that such deterioration is inevitable. But it’d take a very, very strong character to survive such upheaval and uncertainty.
Their grandfather believes that this is because of the disruptions: “They have been knocked off a normal way of life with their mother and among family and they have been isolated and pitched into an alien atmosphere.”
In 2007 a judge emphasised the importance of retaining the children’s strong family bonds. Anne believes that depriving a dying woman of her children goes against this direction. As her relatives spoke, Mrs Brown faintly echoed their feelings. “Angry,” she muttered. “Angry and sad.”There’s nothing more to add, really, is there?
Again one is forced to ask, why does the State have these powers?
ReplyDeleteIt is way past time something serious was done about this.
here are links to organisations and individuals trying to keep families together.
ReplyDeletehttp://citizensandneighbours.blogspot.com/2009/01/marriage-and-family.html
What they need is a big dollop of oil money or a lottery grant.
Don't hold your breath..
Interesting that the family in this case appear to be media insiders: BBC executive, journalist.
ReplyDeleteThe Guardian reading elite frequently remind us that certain problems are invisible because they happen to "excluded" people - it's easy to ignore a problem when it occurs to "other" people. This case, being closer to home, raises the possibility of our rulers actually being shocked into action.
Sorry, I'm being naive again.
I was in a reasonably good mood until I read your post. Don´t you just want to take someone by the neck and choke them to death?
ReplyDeleteI always imagine if that had been me they´d have done that to... I´d have been suicidal if they had taken my kids.
You don´t want to even know how many waifs and strays I´ve had staying with me (at the bequest of my sweet daughters) who had been thrown out of care at 16 with nowhere to go!
Kafka would have given up. Case after case like this.
ReplyDeleteDid you notice they got NightJack?
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6509677.ece
"But social services became concerned about Mrs Brown’s ability to protect her children. "
ReplyDeleteWell, she hasn't been able to protect them from the SS, so they have a point. As for journalism not being suitable for raising children, WTF? Will there be dawn raids on the homes of Guardian columnists tomorrow? Is there a list of "suitable occupations" which the SS could publish?
"why does the State have these powers?"
ReplyDeleteBecause the State granted itself them.
Alert!Alert!
ReplyDeleteGo to Bea Campbell's piece on CIF immediately! Everyone!
"It is way past time something serious was done about this."
ReplyDeleteAgreed.
"What they need is a big dollop of oil money or a lottery grant."
They never seem to go to deserving causes, do they?
"Interesting that the family in this case appear to be media insiders: BBC executive, journalist."
I'd like to hope, too, that that will make a difference. But the left are adept at eating their own, when necessary for 'the greater good'...
"Don´t you just want to take someone by the neck and choke them to death?"
ReplyDeleteFrequently!
"Did you notice they got NightJack?"
Yup! And looking at the reasons given in the judgement, how long before they go gunning for 'NHS Blog Doctor' or 'Bystander'?
"As for journalism not being suitable for raising children, WTF? Will there be dawn raids on the homes of Guardian columnists tomorrow?"
I'd like to think so!
"Go to Bea Campbell's piece on CIF immediately! "
Oooh! Mods, get ready on the 'delete' button, here I come! ;)
I fired a round on the Bea "Me! Me! Me!" Campbell article.
ReplyDeleteShe really is horrible.
At the risk of sounding too reasonable, why not have points system? Draw up a master list of risk factors and assign a points value to each one. Then when assessing a child, tick off each risk factor, total them up and take the child into care if the number goes over a threshold.
ReplyDeleteThis would serve two purposes. It would eliminate variability, and it would allow a measure of protection to social workers themselves in justifying their actions.
Too sensible?
"I´d have been suicidal if they had taken my kids."
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't have been suicidal - it wouldn't have been necessary, because they would have had to kill me before taking them.
At the risk of sounding too reasonable, why not have points system? Draw up a master list of risk factors and assign a points value to each one. Then when assessing a child, tick off each risk factor, total them up and take the child into care if the number goes over a threshold.
ReplyDeleteShockingly enough, they do do just that, they also call them "threshold criteria". They're used to ascertain risk to a child before a decision is made as to whether or not to issue an EPO (Emergency Protection Order).
So there you go.
The problem with protocol-based practises like this, though, is the removal of initiative from the bod in the front line, with variable results.
"At the risk of sounding too reasonable, why not have points system? Draw up a master list of risk factors and assign a points value to each one."
ReplyDeleteAs Salted Slug points out, this is pretty much what they do. The 'risk factors', however, are probably a lot dissimilar to the risk factors normal people would draw up!
"The problem with protocol-based practises like this, though, is the removal of initiative from the bod in the front line, with variable results."
It's the 'targets culture' all over again. With the wrong targets...
Or -without being too knee-jerk over here- the targets are quite rational and look good on paper, but the social worker is bereft of the common sense that god gave goats.
ReplyDeleteThe effect is often the same, however.