Member News
By Tim Yeo - 25th November 2009
Tim Yeo MP writes for ePolitix.com ahead of tonight's adjournment debate on the adoption and custody of children in Suffolk.
I have deep concerns about the actions of Suffolk county council in cases where the birth parents do not wish to give up newly born babies for adoption
Based on a growing postbag from parents seeking my help, I have formed the impression that some social workers now actively seek opportunities to remove babies from their parents in a manner which in my view is sometimes tantamount to child kidnapping.
In the cases that have been brought to me, no fault is found in the actual physical care provided by parents, nor are there any allegations of violent or sexual abuse.
The reasons given by social services to justify adoption continually change, with the initial diagnosis overturned and replaced with others. Invariably these cases involve newborns.
Ultimately mothers are often decreed to have a personality disorder which implies they could potentially emotionally abuse their child in the future, by sometimes putting their own needs above a child’s.
The many months of counselling required to address these concerns is declared to be too long for the baby to wait, so they are permanently adopted instead.
This pattern can be repeated, even with subsequent pregnancies, with no help or counselling being offered at any point.
Parents are unable to see the extensive and detailed notes which are regularly taken after various meetings with a handful of social workers and staff from the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass).
These notes are used to make up a case against them, but parents are prevented from challenging their veracity or the judgments they contain.
This would not be permitted if they were facing even minor criminal charges.
It is clear that greater accountability and scrutiny is required of social workers, Cafcass officials and their expert witnesses.
The appalling lack of scrutiny in the social care and family court system is made worse by the fact that Members of Parliament are prevented from having proper information from councils in relation to “child protection” cases.
Like all MPs, every day I support constituents who have been failed by some branch of the state.
Uniquely in the area of child protection I am expected to trust that public officials are doing everything correctly.
I am not allowed to make an informed judgement of this myself.
Lastly, tens of thousands of pounds are spent on court action by social services and in legal aid for loving parents fighting against the odds to keep their children.
These huge sums could have been used to provide all manner of supportive parenting help much earlier on.
Tim Yeo is MP for Suffolk South.
Article Comments
I work in post adoption services and feel that a review of social services and the family court system should be carried out impartially and thoroughly given the complexities,and the profound outcomes i.e birth parents losing children/children in unsafe situations.It is important to get it right and protect all those who may be vulnerable to inaccuracies.
J.Jones
14th Feb 2010 at 1:08 am
Tim Yeo MP is hitting the nail on the head and I have written about this subject myself after also being contacted by so many parents subjected to this line of attack by social workers. If the parent tries to alert anyone to the wrong doings, social workers do without a doubt slap injunctions on them via the courts, hunt them down on facebook and social networks to copy what the desperate parents have written and its used against them in courts and thats a fact. Anything to stop the social workers being questioned about their practices. The parents are silenced by the very people they complain about. <br>
I have seen the documentation to support the parents and the fact their children have been adopted in what can only be described as the most underhanded tactics by social workers, courts, cafcass and psychiatrists.<br>
Social workers are misusing the mental health or so called personality disorder to remove children on the maybe, possibly,might and fully backed by many psychiatrists who I might add make a huge amount of money in those evaluations. <br>
Jane Wiffin, complaints procedure? Is that the same complaints procedure that's investigated by the social workers and their bosses whom the complaints are about?
T Cooper
7th Dec 2009 at 3:12 pm
As a social work educator and trainer it is hard not to response to these comments. I obviously do not know the full details of the cases in question, but Tim Yeo does not acknowledge in his article the current debate about social workers not responding quickly enough as in the case of Baby Peter. Is this another case of damned if you do and dammed if you don't? There is a clear complaints procedure that could be followed in these cases and there is also the issue of how on earth we keep attracting good quality staff if an MP feels able to accuse a whole department, agencies such as CAFCASS and ultimately the court system who will have sanctioned the decision, of child kidnapping. Does the Conservative party want us to keep children safe or not. Neither departments nor individuals make these decision they are sanctioned by a body of legislation and by the courts.
JANE WIFFIN
2nd Dec 2009 at 12:19 pm
This was an excellent statement and exactly how MP's should support their constituents - that the seats in the Commons were empty only emphasises the public despair about the representative nature of the House of Commons.
Keith Budden
25th Nov 2009 at 8:22 pm
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