Clear Purpose – It’s a definition only a sleepy civil servant with no life experience or perhaps less common sense could have made up, but an excellent article in Community Care today explains how the government’s recent decision to end all contact for birth parents after adoption has been revoked, and in its place, a plethora of regulations have been outlined, designed to keep families bouncing in and out of court for decades.
Having written about the decision (which has now been reversed) with more than a little concern, we’re glad to see that the starting point for this type of contact has shifted, but we are still worried about the implications of the new regulations, which have been outlined in the Children and Families Bill.
The article in Community Care goes on to explain that social workers will now need to ensure that any contact arrangements have “a clear purpose” (which we think is a little awkward given that contact is quite obviously a purpose in itself and where children are involved is self-explanatory), and that they will also be able to ask the court for a “no contact order” when they apply for an adoption order (which would become effective once the adoption order has been made). Birth parents will then need to go back to court to apply for an order, but will have to meet tough criteria to ensure a contact order in their favour.
This latest measure has been designed to tackle what is being termed ‘unregulated contact’, through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. The article is a very interesting read, not least of all for Director of policy, research and development at the British Association of Adoption and Fostering’s John Simmonds’ comments, on how this kind of activity can be monitored.
A must read. Thought-provoking and quite one of the most explicit examples today of why these dilemmas should really be tackled from the inside out, and not the other way around.
Researching Reform 
The UNCRC provides the child the right to maintain contact with their biological parents. Since ratifying this document, it’s good intentions have been undermined by mealy mouthed weaselcrats.
Rather than placing the burden of proof upon parents and forcing them to make applications to court why not simply get the local authorities to state their best evidence based case for the parents not having contact or the children not enjoying an open adoption? Any such applications by the local authority that do not meet the required level of proof, which I suggest to be at least 90%, should be considered as malicious.
Any such for no contact application in a contested application where the parents plead innocence and have not been convicted but the children are adopted anyway should automatically go to open and revokeable adoption or foster care.
So, there is now no presumption of contact to a separated parent in private law and the same in public law after adoption. Progress.
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The UN also provides with Britain being the first signatory, that all, child or adult would receive free, fair and OPEN justice which the secret star chambers known as family courts are in a direct violation of.
Britain is in direct breach of international law in a great many tenets of the original UN treaties written to protect citizens and/or children, certainly the current forced adoption agenda and trend is illegal under international law but most people who suffer it are from areas where they have not the funds nor the access to the right people to champion it for them.
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The single biggest problem with family law is Whitehall’s laziness. It refuses to treat children of divorce separately and in a separate Act or category than children from ‘homes’ where adoption is a possibity ( eg SMH and/or drug addiction) or where the local authority is involved. IMO the same courts with the same judges administering the same Act can’t help but be influenced in their dealings with children of divorce.
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So very soon the “SS” can ask the court at the time the adoption order is made to legally prevent a loving mother who (like most) has committed no crime from contacting her child for the rest of it’s life or her’s !Does that sound a nice thing to do? Will the judge enjoy telling her and will the social workers clap and cheer (as often happens)? Will that miserable buch get a thrill out of jailing her if she responds to a desperate email or facebook enquiry from a desparate child? Do you know I really think they will !!
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In my court judgement the Judge ordered for me post adoption contact at least once a year, social services admitted that I was the most significant person in the childs life (my grandson) and agreed they would look for adoptive parents willing to do this.
However, the speed of the finding of adoptive parents was incredibly fast, I was also told by a SWA that social services told adoptive parents I was a risk and all sorts of things and instructed them to IGNORE the court order which I have in black and white in a letter from social services themselves stating as such.
Whilst the child was under my care he positively thrived, his learning and growth was exemplary… since being adopted I have been advised by my secret squirrel at the SSD that he has become a sad little boy, he is now missing his developmental milestones by over six months and there is only one conclusion one can make from this that taking the one person out of his life he really adored and felt safe with has traumatised him immensely but social services are steadfastly refusing to accept this because it would mean admitting fault rather than doing what is necessary for the best interests of the child.
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I’m sorry this has happened. I genuinely hope that these sorts of things happen less in the future and that you do get to see your grandson soon.
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Thank you Natasha, what this does highlight too is the courts almost blind unwillingness to enforce court orders against adoptive parents which makes basically everything decided not a matter of adherence to an order but the whim of the adoptive parents which is wrong.
Closed adoptions which even the BAAF will admit are most likely to fail or to lead to later life issues such as mental illness, drug dependence or social deviance but the bleeding hearts in the LA’s refuse whatsoever to accept that allowing birth or familial contact could only work to the best interests of a child.
As for my grandsons, I doubt if I will ever see them again whilst I am alive, I have all but given up hope now
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I very much hope that’s not the case.
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what you write is so true of untold numbers of grandparents stating the same, please don’t ever give up because many kids adopted or fostered one day when they are free come looking for their families, have you seen the TV program of long lost families, as for the Judges they just pass the buck back to the SS it is the judges who are so corrupt, as in just one case of thousands a judge spoke to a teenager in court agreed with their wishes and wants and stated this in the statement only to say she hopes that the SS will also agree with the child’s wishes and wants, its passing the buck back to the SS. But all families must keep fighting as they have the voice and kids are the ones screaming to be heard
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Why is it that we all TALK about the cruelties of the SS. I have been writing to MPs for five years and told LOTS of them of the cruelty being done in the name of SOCIAL: SERVICES. I am not alone in writing to MPs. I cannot help but think that there is something sinister going on in the background. Landed people get an investigation like Levinson. People like us just get ignored. MPs of three parties have KNOWLEDGE of the CALUMNY that has been done to my Family. People in the highest office of the land.
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There are lots of reasons I expect, firstly the poor quality of staff at the “frontline” would be a major contributor and I for one have called for psychological testing as we test soldiers and police officers for social workers but to add too an in depth study of their upbringing and history too.
We could also examine a very similar policy that existed in Nazi Germany, where Hitler decided his officer classes should be family men and suddenly there was a huge movement of children from the lower classes to the officer caste through forced adoption on very spurious terms, the added difference of course was to object as a parent was a matter of treason for the German parents which kind of reminds me how parents who protest too much or go to the press end up in prison in these modern times as chillingly sinister in comparison.
But in addition to this, we are beginning to get and gain a very sordid picture of what is very organised abuse rings in higher circles, we are not talking tens or even hundreds but possibly thousands of children abused by powerful organised paedophile rings, it is not lost on me either that the people at the top giving edicts are likely to be the users and participants too of such as so have a vested interest in keeping this continuing.
Yet mostly it comes down to money, pure and simple, adoptive parents earn 500 pounds a week for as long as social services say they can have it, the adoption agencies are turning over millions in pure profit, the councils are receiving millions in targets money as well, strong evidence is also emerging how council workers such as social workers, team managers and even directors are instrumental in setting up “foster farms” where for an assurance of keeping these “farms” stocked, they in return get under the counter payments through bogus means, councils have become immensely corrupt systems and they protect their own as anyone who has been through the shambolic complaints process will attest, what is surprising is the LGO does little to investigate true corruption at every level and dismiss complaints as much as they can.
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Afterthought. Reading above I noticed a semi-colon ?. I have forgotten if that is the right name for that symbol. Just an idea, what about CRINKLIES like myself going back to school with the current curricular using calculators( which we never had)(log books at that time). Literally to help Dementia before it happens. A few years ago I went to Plants Brook School Sutton Colfield and learned to play the Keyboards. I now have about 50 books of music and my own Technics 720. I record all my efforts and play them in the morning to laughter at my mistakes and pleasure when I play a particular song correctly. The Days of Wine and Roses is very special to me. I have reread this and will send it for a laugh. NO NEED to send if not suitable. BUT if there were such a school nearby, I would go.
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I agree with Angry Grandparent after extensive, exhaustive research and personal experience the corruption is at every level, government ministers, social workers, judges, barristers, police etc. all turn a blind eye to this evil social engineering and abuse that our ‘stolen’ children are subjected to in the name of child protection. It is all about money, profit, meeting targets, tramping on the less well off, and child abuse rings in high places, it is holy disgrace and we must all unite to stop it, somehow.
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I REPEAT. We are talking among ourselves of what has been done to us. WHAT is stopping ALL of PARLIAMENT from LISTENING to our Pleas of the INJUSTICE that has happened to many Families. Parliament can discuss ANY proposition and enact any of their proposals. NONE of their proposals have HUMANITY. Regarding the current pretence of a guideline in the Family Courts, A GREAT MAN once said in Parliament ” I hereby make a resolution that X should pass a motion”. Like this pretence at Justice in the Family Courts it is full of C***. BTW, the only decent thing is the proposal of MEDIATION and not CONFRONTATION. NORGROVE got that from myself Philip Thompson at the meeting in Birmingham. I have said before. ONLY Lawyers, Magistrates and social workers attended that meeting. HOW could their views be representative of those who have suffered the cruelty of social services. I REPEAT that it is ONLY MEDIATION that will solve in the FUTURE the concerns of the ETHOS of social services(we WILL ADOPT)
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I actually through a lot of hard work forced myself onto one of these parliamentary committees as a stakeholder, sitting there with the likes of Harman, Douglas, Hughes et al, there was little point as everything I said or suggested was ignored and they started making “subcommittee” meetings which I was not invited to so told them quite plainly to stuff it as this was not democracy, this was ensuring the gravy train and status quo continued.
What angered me most from this period is a lot of us were approached by Theresa May via Eric Pickles as many will remember Eric used to help some ppl fight the system, all the promises we were given by May if they got into power just turned into dust, when upon tasking her upon these given promises of fair trials, improvements such as raising the evidence bar, placing less weight on opinions, enforcing the presumption of innocence before guilt proven etc, all promises that I remember sitting in a hotel after a conference with some of the ladies and May all looking smug, they just never happened and now with removing safeguards from adoptive parents, streamlining the process to speed it up, we the people have again been duped and mishandled by these so called representatives.
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Only when child cruelty becomes a police matter dealt with in the criminal courts and nothing to do with social workers or family courts will the present injustices finally be brought to a halt.Social workers should either be abolished or detailed only to help and support people but never to give them orders or take away their children !
No judge should ever have the power to jail mothers or fathers for contacting their own children by phone,email,or facebook ! !
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A little swaying off topic but can anyone else add their thoughts about the convicted and imprisoned police officer in the last week who was in the last stages of adoption why they are allowing this adoption to continue? She is obviously a criminal serving at least 9 months inside and my understanding is that having a criminal record was a bar to adopting but Sir Martin Narey seems to think this is not the case.
Again this is another smack in the teeth to those of us who have lost children to the fantasy prediction case of “possible” risk where likely and definite risk seems to be ignored, this woman is 53, 50 years older than the child in question, is a proven liar, a former bankrupt, you name it she has probably done it but yet the adoption is going ahead even though she is in prison right now…
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Angry Grandparent, can this story be found somewhere online? I am not questioning the story but just feel interested to read.
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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/reporter-attacks-news-corps-role-as-corrupt-police-officer-is-jailed-8476414.html
She was given a lighter sentence because of the adoption said the Judge in the summing up as she was supposed to get three years and from what I can gather the adoption is STILL going ahead whilst she is in prison which I find a very big kick in the teeth to us that lose when we have done nothing except be accused by social workers.
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Thank you, angry grandparent, for providing the interesting link!
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Many many thousands of people losing children, go on to face book talking just like the politicians and talking and talking, then writing letters to MPs who dont give a dam, on the odd child abuse marches, we are lucky if 50 people turn up, for nearly two years I have been the help line, no need for me to write of the cases reported to me, it is getting worse far worse then people know, and yet most are talking and talking on face book and other, until the people who have lost their children to
THE BRITISH CHILDRENS INDUSTRY
JOBS FOR ALL IN THE EU
COME TO THE UK RENT A FLAT WITH A SPARE BEDROOM, BECOME A FOSTER CARER, £400/500 A WEEK TAX FREE, WHEN YOU WANT A REST ITS CALLED (REPITE) YES A PAID REST, FROM THE KIDS WHO ARE MAKING YOU RICH,ALSO AVAILABLE YEARLY HOLIDAYS ALL PAID FOR, WANT TO GO TO THE MOON OH YES THE TAX PAYERS WILL PAY FOR FOSTER CARERS TO GO WHERE EVER. AT A LATER DATE WITH ALL OF THE MONEY THE FOSTER CARERS HAVE MADE FROM THE KIDS, THEY BUY A PROPERTY AND NOW CAN GET GRANTS UP TO £50.000 TO EXTEND THEIR HOMES I WONDER WHY? YES TO FOSTER MORE KIDS, WHEN THE PEOPLE OF THE UK GET ONTO THE STREETS AND MARCH TOGETHER THEN WE WILL BE THE VOICES FOR THE
SILENT WITNESSES THE STOLEN CHILDREN HERE LIES THE TRUTH.
http://www.childrenscreamingtobeheard.com
please sign the petition for the monument so that the abused kids abused in the system can be remember.
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Unless or until one has been involved with SS and had their children removed based on complete lies, twisting the facts and fabrication, or knows someone who has, very few people believe it happens, unless they can be convinced otherwise. I had had some involvement with SS whn my children were very young and I found the social worker to be honest and caring. This was the same with another a few years later. Following certain events beyond my control, SS twisted the facts and removed my children. I had never heard of such a situation before so didn’t know it happened and was quite shocked, believing up to then that I was the only one. I was even mor eshocked when I discovered through face book some time later that I was indeed not the only one but only one of many. My case was over years ago but I nevertheless wrote to my MP. These people are not really interest. The one one who was, John Hemming, along with the late Denise Robertson, was the only high-profile individual who cared about this and took active interest. None of thise involved, except the parent(s) cares about the children: in my case I was the only one. However, it later backfired and I got my children back. They truly deserve the SS title; the comparison’s the Hitler’s SS is so warranted.
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I quote Maggie Mellon the vice chair of the British Association of Social Workers !
who says:-
“I believe that suspicion of parents and of families has become corrosive, and is distorting the values of our profession.
For the last 20 plus years the number of investigations or assessments into families suspected of child abuse has climbed steadily upwards and now accounts for one in 20 families in England and Wales !!!
A recent analysis found that since the Children Act 1989 referrals have increased by 311%, from 160,000 per year to 657,800 per year, between 1991 and 2014.
Assessments have increased by 302% over the same period, from 120,000 to 483,800, while the number of cases of ‘core abuse’ have fallen. The figures show that the ratio of referrals to registrations have fallen year on year from 24.1% to 7.3%.
“The policy imperative towards more and quicker forced adoption means we may well look back at this period in horror as we do now to the forcible removal of thousands of children to Australia in the 1930s, forties and fifties without their parents’ knowledge and consent. That was done because it was felt it was the right thing but now we think how on earth could we possibly have done that ….”
And she should know……………………..!!
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I totally agree with Maggie Mellon and wiuld extend those comparisons to what is happening througout social services. However Maggie Mellon must know what social workers are taught and that what they are taught manifests itself in the taking of more children into care. That hasn’t climbed steadily upwards, more like rocketed up! The reason, to paraphrase, “There’s money in them there children!”
Take away the profits and children wouldn’t be taken from their homes!
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you are so corrected kids and money has rocketed to the
MULTIBILLIONPOUND INDUSTRIE
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In Forced Adoption’s quote of Maggie Mellon “I believe that suspicion of parents and of families has become corrosive, and is distorting the values of our profession”, based on my experiences of SS and that of many other parents over the last couple of years while I have been on FB, it is quite clear that the distortions of the values of social work are due to the social workers themselves by removing children from loving parents, who may perhaps simply need help for reasons beyond their control, by lying and fabricating evidence and using blackmail tactics. If they do not wish to be perceived in a negative manner then this needs to end; although this is somewhat of a contradiction as through their lies they are behaving in a negative manner. If SS do not like criticism then they shouldn’t do anything to deserve it. And yes, they do cover themselves when parents complain. And yes, no judge should ever have the power to jail mothers or fathers for contacting their own children by phone, email or facebook or talk to the press for example about their case in the secret family court. Being so secret means that the vast majority of the people in the country have no idea what is happening in their name.
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It all boils down to “punishment without crime”.Punishing law abiding parents by taking their children for risks of emotional abus that cannot be defined and that may never happen and punishing innocent children by depriving them of the loving care of such parents and often forbidding any kind of contact by letter ,phone,or email !
Anyone willingly involved should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity !
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I am in several Facebook groups for parents who have lost their children or who might lose their children to forced adoption. Look on you tube for Santiago, the baby of a Portugese mother and English father taken by Southampton SS and a phone call they recorded last month with a sw – but you probably know all about it. Disgusting how the sws involved twist situations and use them against the parents.
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what is amazing is that in the early hours this morning I was watching a program the heir hunters and the law states that any adoptive child or person cannot put claim to an inheritance, how sad and disgusting is that. so if an adoptive person cannot make a claim then the inheritance goes to bloody government, so they steal the kids then sell them via the agents change the names with many abused in every way then only to end up losing what is their inheritance, it is time the British people woke up to what the British governments have been doing for hundreds of years and that is
THE LAMBS TO THE SLAUGHTER even when your dead it costs a fortune to be buried leave a will it costs money and to buy a house you have to pay the governments then the taxes and the council tax, how can any British people allow governments to take all, and as for the National health well that we know of the millions who die from the health service, or was the national health set up for the Guinnie pigs after world war 2 so that Hitler’s scientist could continue with the experiments on people leading to cloning of the elite, and now poor little kids who lose all lose their inheritance, what a shit country,
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