New research published in The Sociological Review, claims that women who have had their children forcibly removed through child protection proceedings live in a constant and critical state of trauma, which creates further inequalities for families and society as a whole.
The study says that this unique form of trauma affects women in four ways: mothers are forever haunted by the loss of their children, forced into silence because of the stigma attached to non consensual adoption, unable to get back on their feet because support services are missing, and live in constant fear of future children being removed by the Family Court.
Researching Reform is hugely excited to see this new body of work emerging, which mirrors our own concerns exactly, as our readers will know. For clarity, we should explain that while Moriss does not explicitly call “state ordered court removal”, forced adoption, and she may have her reasons for this as the term is still considered controversial, in reality that is what court ordered removal amounts to, whether a child is placed within a care home, foster home or adoptive home.
The article, produced by Lisa Morriss, a social work academic at the University of Birmingham, was first published online in June under the title, “Haunted futures: The stigma of being a mother living apart from her child(ren) as a result of state-ordered court removal.”
Morriss explains why she chose to focus on the idea that mothers who had experienced forced adoption were haunted by the process:
“My engagement with ghosts began when the stories of the birth mothers and children began to haunt me…. but [this] enabled a transformative recognition that the mothers may also be understood as being haunted. .. women who have had their children removed exist in a state of haunted motherhood, suspended in the shadowlands where the living and the invisible coexist, and temporality is both disrupted and merged.”
“State-ordered removal disrupts the expected future for both the children and their birth mothers. For the mothers, this is a unique form of loss and trauma as their child has not died but is living elsewhere, often for the entirety of their childhood.”
Moriss also explains that mothers who have experienced forced adoption feel deep shame, as they believe the world sees them as unfit mothers. These mothers are unable to address the stigma itself due to court imposed restrictions which often forbid parents from saying anything about their cases, leaving them powerless and living in an ongoing state of trauma. Lisa argues that Family Court reporting restrictions gag parents, who then cannot express or process their feelings, as a result. She calls these restrictions ‘testimonial quieting’, or a stigma which mafinests itself as a “governmental form of classification and badging with the power to silence and constrain the (m)other.”
Moriss suggests that creating narrative spaces for mothers wanting to share their stories could help parents to heal. She says these spaces could also be viewed as, “a political act, countering the stigma caused by pathologising individual mothers and making visible how structural inequalities and governmental policies impact on the lives of the most vulnerable families in the UK.”
Another issue Moriss touches on is the lack of support available to mothers who lose their children to non consensual adoption. The article sums up this terrible oversight:
“Children’s Services do not remain involved as there is no longer a child of concern, and the Court does not monitor the provision of any of the services, be these mental health or drugs related services, recommended during the proceedings. The women involved in these cases tend not to meet the stringent criteria to access mainstream Community Mental Health services. Thus, they are left to deal with the trauma and loss of a child on their own, particularly as they may be ostracised by family and friends due to the stigma and shame of state-ordered removal.”
The article goes on to mention the impact of interventions at an early stage, which could bring future removal of children to an end, where support is timely and effective. It also outlines how the policy of state ordered child removal, which is actually forced adoption, heightens social inequality and leads to a greater burden on the state. Moriss explains:
“Once their child is removed from their care, the mothers also lose any child related benefits. Furthermore, women living in social housing are at risk of losing their home once their child or children are removed due to the under-occupancy penalty (also known as the ‘bedroom tax’) which was introduced as part of the Welfare Reform Act 2012. In these dire circumstances, it is perhaps understandable that the women (re)turn to drugs and alcohol, remain in violent relationships, or indeed, become pregnant again as a way to ameliorate their grief.”
Moriss also mentions the controversial Pause project, which the government has chosen to roll out nationwide, and we share her views here too. In her article, she talks about the requirement by Pause that all women engaging in its counselling programme must agree to having a Long Acting Reversible Contraceptive (LARC) implanted inside them for the 18 months in order to take part. Of the requirement, Lisa says:
“[Mothers] cannot access the well-funded resources without consenting to the LARC as this is deemed necessary to the ‘success’ of the project, which is predicated on working with women at a time when they do not have a child in their care or are not pregnant. Here the implication is that ‘it is not deprivation and inequality which need to be “reduced”, but the poor themselves’… For Pause, success is measured in the numbers of babies not born and these calculated numbers of unborn babies are awarded a monetary value, and are used as a primary measure of the success of the programme.”
There are some deeply moving quotes, and poems from mothers who have lost their children, within the article. Moriss shares this poem from a woman who was engaged in the Mothers Living Apart from their Children project:
We aren’t classed as mothers.
We have no rights.
We don’t feel we have a job as a mum anymore.
Our homes are dead…
Being a mum never goes away in our hearts and mind.
We have feelings.
We have a heart. Shock anger, emotion, crying, powerless…
Where are they now?
We have to let them know some way we’re still here for them.
This poem, from another mother explains the deep pain forced adoption causes:
in the stillness we listen
her words splintered with tears…
they hold each other laugh cry
they use ordinary magic
to keep the room safe
strong and clever women
who understand what it is
to be broken.
And these mothers express their hopes and dreams about seeing their children :
“She told me she looks like the princess from Disney’s Tangle. She can write her own name, knows her colours, can ride a bike. Now when I’m out, I find myself searching for a little girl with blond hair. Social Services wouldn’t let me have the photo the foster carers took of her.”
“I dreamed of getting my girls back. … But in my dreams it was always my four year old and two year old I got back. Last year after letter box contact with my girls, I finally got a photograph. … They were babies and now they are beaming young mothers themselves. So, that makes me a grandma and I can only hope I will be able to play a big part in their lives as I couldn’t with my girls.”
The material for the research was gathered during an 18 month period, whilst Moriss was working as a research associate on two national projects focusing on child protection cases in the UK. She was tasked with reading legal bundles and Family Court case files. The data collected was then placed into a series of boxes and catalogued. Whilst she was not able to quote directly from the files she read, she has added thoughts from mothers engaged in a selection of programmes and also features one mother whom we suspect many of us will be familiar with, who she describes as, “‘Annie’, a birth mother who writes and presents on her experiences of being subject to the child protection and Family Court process.”
This is an astounding piece of research, both for its depth of insight and its courage. Moments like this are what have motivated us to keep campaigning for over a decade. Forcibly removing children from parents prevents closure and causes severe trauma for parents, and children. It also negatively impacts society in profound and lasting ways. It’s time the government looked at changing how it structures its adoption policy, and, crucially, replacing forced removal of children with consensual adoption, providing proper support for vulnerable parents, and where possible protecting those connections and bonds, rather than breaking them.
Many thanks to Dana for alerting us to this development.

“Glorious March of Authorities”. Painting by Albina Kourmirova.
Sounds an excellent piece of work b ut unless I am mistaken it concentrates only on the parents and not on the babies.Ababy can be just as severely traumatised as the mother when forcibly removed from breastfeeding with a mother it already recognises and loves to be force fed with synthetic milk by complete strangers who often don’t give a damn about it !
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Hi Ian, there are some thoughts about how this process affects children, but yes, the researcher is looking specifically about how this process affects mothers and the way this plays out across a wide range of areas. It would be good to have research like this developed, and strands added like the effect of the process on children, and of course fathers too.
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I don’t think much research is needed to show that mothers and newborn babies both get terribly upset/traumatised when forcibly separated especially if the babies are then given away to complete strangers;
I also think that it does not need much research to say that legislation is necessary to forbid any person from forcibly removing babies from mothers who have never been convicted of or charged with any crime involving children.and worse still forcibly adopted by selfish persons indifferent to the plight of both mothers and babies! !
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I think if we hope for a government response, the research would need to be developed further to show how much forced adoption costs the government in both the short and long terms and the obvious benefits of consensual adoption. This research lays the groundwork for this, but I do agree with you that it wouldn’t take much to show the damage forced adoption causes.
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i think the idea of this Research is mainly to raise awareness and get Govt officials to stand up and Listen to whats happening.
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‘….to forbid any person from forcibly removing babies from mothers who have never been convicted of or charged with any crime involving children.and worse still forcibly adopted by selfish persons indifferent to the plight of both mothers and babies! !’
Totally agree xx
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thats all so true its so hard to explain itslike your grieving but for someone whose alive it certainly does ruin the mothers usually they ard young and vunerable and have a life time to get through but unlike grieving a death it really doesnt get any easier with time in fact probably harder.The thing my daughter whose dauggter was forcefully adopted a year ago she was 3 when she was taken nearly 4 and my daughter says shes got no purpose in life without her daughter and she cant bear to be indoors because the silence is torture.She also cut her arms with a serated kitchen knife so badly not to kill herself she said but to cause herself pain for the pain her daughter must be feeling was what she said when i got to the hospital.I still to this day cant talk about it with out sobbing.My daughter will constantly look at the same photos of them or just her daughter over and over i never knew what heartache was until this and my heart actually hurts when i think of where my granddaughter is,and wondering what will become of my daughter seeing the pain shes suffering kills me like nothing ive known im as a mum meant to take her hurt away but theres nothing i can do or say to help ease her pain
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Such a Tragic situation. I hope you and your daughter find a positive way to cope with life until one day her little girl returns to her Family. she may be 18,she may be 28 but one day she will come looking for her real Family. it would be good to see someone like Jeremy Kyle launch a program dedicated to this kind of Loss. i think it would be well received by the Viewers even if very upsetting to watch.
Best Wishes.
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Thank you for sharing your story, and I’m so sorry to hear about your family’s experience xxx
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“Once their child is removed from their care, the mothers also lose any child related benefits. Furthermore, women living in social housing are at risk of losing their home once their child or children are removed due to the under-occupancy penalty”
So true, i know a young woman who lost 5 children inc a 8 mth old baby who was Adopted. all because she had a bad experience with a
caesarean section which rendered her unable to cope for a little while so the SS took advantage. she then lost her home and was living on the streets till a friend took her in. such a harrowing story.
“Social Services wouldn’t let me have the photo the foster carers took of her.”
This is sheer Cruelty and Psychological abuse.
“They were babies and now they are beaming young mothers themselves. So, that makes me a grandma and I can only hope I will be able to play a big part in their lives as I couldn’t with my girls.”
i Hope her dream comes true.
“This is an astounding piece of research, both for its depth of insight and its courage. Moments like this are what have motivated us to keep campaigning for over a decade.”
Well done Natasha for covering this story.Govt ministers are simply too desensitized to understand what it feels like to have children removed. most of them are from a Silver spoon background and have never encountered such things in their own family Circle. thats why they can impose such horrors on Society without batting and eyelid or even contemplating the aftermath these parents and children Suffer.
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Click on the relevant link below to go straight to a particular company:See for your selves who makes the millions of £s out of the fostering and adoption rackets !
Foster Care Associates; National Fostering Agency, The Foster Care Agency; Acorn Care and Education, Fostering Solutions, Pathway Care Fostering and Heath Farm Fostering; Partnerships in Children’s Services, Orange Grove, ISP, Fosterplus and Clifford House; Swiis Foster Care; Capstone Foster Care; Compass Fostering, The Fostering Partnership, Eden Foster Care and Seafields Fostering; Caretech
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Reblogged this on | truthaholics and commented:
Traumatised mothers, fathers and children prove the hidden costs of the non-consensual adoption and fostering racket are too high for any civilised society to tolerate.
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Unfortunately there are those who experience the most intense pleasure from inflicting pain and suffering on others…………
.They are called”Social Workers” ………………….
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Commodification of children for corporate profit by over-zealous target-driven social workers surmising RISK in false, misleading and inaccurate reports at Court, and selectively blind judges who rubber-stamp them – with apparent impunity – each mark serious breaches of the social contract and must be abolished as incompatible with
accountability, proper rule of law and established family life in democratic society. In a time of austerity and swingeing cuts, funding corporate greed is a TOTAL WASTE of taxpayers money!
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I am a haunted mother of 8 children aged 17,16,15,14,11,10, 7 and 4.
My eldest 3 (17,16 and 15) are in long term foster care. I see them alone for 90 minutes each a year and together for 5 more “contact” 5 times a year, always for 90 minutes, although the court approved order says 3 hours a time for ALL contacts.
My 4th child (14) went to stay with his father for 3 months, 6 years ago – i have seen him ONCE in 6 years. That was 4 years ago, despite a contact order for direct contact being in place.
My 5th and 6th children (11 and 10) live with their paternal grand mother in the week, and father at weekend. I have 2 supervised contacts a month. Minimum of 3 hours. The court order says Grandmother can decide when I see them unsupervised., yet grandmother will not allow unsupervised contact. When the supervision order ended a year ago, the local authority made it clear if they found out I was having unsupervised contact they would go straight to court for removal of the girls.
It WAS agreed I would see them supervised for 6 months and if that was going well then I could have unsupervised for 6 months with an assessment deciding if I could move to unsupervised at the end of this the supervision order, progressing to overnight contacts 2 weekends a month. Obviously, this never happened because threats were made. My children are saddened by this as the local authority had told them the plan was to build it up to overnight stays.
My 2 youngest children (7 and 4) were 5 and 2 when removed at the end of care proceedings for non consensual adoption. I have not seen them in 15 months, although they were only placed 51 weeks ago.
The court order for my elder child said the local authority only had 28 weeks to place him.
So the local authority broke the order.
I then met the prospective adopters and the local authority said my children would be moved soon. I made them aware I was making an application to court that very day to REVOKE, they then placed my children, knowing officially I was putting an application in to revoke the placement orders the very next day. I believe that local authorities cannot place children If an application to revoke is placed before the court.
The judge was not aware of the law surrounding the revoke application and to the word of the C.A.F.C.A.S.S guardian that the placement took priority even though the application was made the day the children were placed.
I note the judge never asked for any proof as to WHEN my children were placed.
I now have secured legal aid to oppose the adoption. I hold out NO hope of passing the welfare test at all…. Will a judge ever return children to birth parents? The law says they can< as yet there has NEVER been a successful application where the children are returned.
When I lost my children. I lost our 4 bed home.
I couldn't stay in the area I had lived, every body knew my children and I.
Like most ghost mother's I was placed in a 1 bed flat, well away from the main city, on a run down estate many inhabited by societies other "ghost" alcoholics and addicts. I get pitying looks from the families that live round here… Why would a woman in her late 30's that obviously has had children live alone in a place like this. They draw their own conclusions and are usually correct.
I can no longer go to the local supermarket as many of the parents I know also go there. The first few times people would stop me and ask about my children. Instant tears sprang to my eyes and i turned and walked away. It it too painful.
I don't have a photo of my youngest child up on display anywhere.. I have one of my elder 7 children taken 6 years ago.
I cannot bear the thought of photo's of them, at a time when we were happy, knowing that those photo's will never change. Like photo's of deceased family members.
My children are gone, they are not forgotten, I, however, have been.
I want to give up, I am so tired of this fight, but I cannot do it.
I want a better brighter tomorrow for my children, and I am doing EVERYTHING I can do to be a part of their lives going forward.
Facing demons in psychotherapy, the freedom programme, living alone.
All the things the psychologist said I could not do because I was at the "pre contemplative stage" therefore unable or unwilling to see that I was part of the abuse of my children.
The local authority were right to remove my children, However, had they been removed at the beginning of proceedings I would have forced myself to do whatever was needed to get them home.
I sit alone and wish for quiet. Not silence…silence is the loudest of all.
I go without food and clothes to provide my children with little gifts for birthdays and Christmas.
I am still alive, so are they, yet the local authority treats me as a bad mother, a danger to my children, yet they still expect me to be present at meetings although they do not take anything into account. Their decisions are made before I even enter that room.
They want me to "let my children go". If i loved them I would let them be adopted. If i loved them I would not oppose the adoption. I am selfish for opposing it.
What do I have left to live for?
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Dear Kitt, sharing your story was an incredible act of bravery, and it tells me you have spirit and the will to stay strong. Your children may not be with you at the moment, but they will want to come and find you when they are able to, and so you have much to live for. As painful as it must be for you to endure this awful experience, it will also be deeply painful for your children if you let go. Please don’t. We are all here for you. If you need anything, support, advice, please post here and people will help. If you want to message me via email, you can reach me on Sobk13 at gmail dot com and I will do my best to find you what you need xxx
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Kitt,you say,
“I then met the prospective adopters and the local authority said my children would be moved soon. I made them aware I was making an application to court that very day to REVOKE, they then placed my children, knowing officially I was putting an application in to revoke the placement orders the very next day. I believe that local authorities cannot place children If an application to revoke is placed before the court. ”
Oh Kitt !! After all that has happened to you have you not learned tha tthe last people you should “make aware”of your plans are your bitter enemies the adopters and the social workers??If you had not told them they would not have rushed back to court so soon and you would have had a chance.
It astounds me and saddens me how many parents fighting for their kids in court still discuss things with social workers and their solicitors and actually believe that the advice they are given will help them when obviously the “SS” want to win their case and ensure that the parents lose !
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I was led to believe if local authority were aware of the application they could not place my son”s.
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You have the right to speak if you sack your bent solicitor and represent yourself .If you sit with your mouth bolted shut you are bound to lose !
You say you were “led to believe” the”SS” could not act; that day and I suppose you were led by your enemies once again ! (solicitors or social worker !)
Your teenage children are old enough to testify so call them as your witnesses to say you are a good mum and that they want to stay with you !
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Kitt you say “What do I have left to live for?”
The answer is Simple.
You have 8 very good reasons to live for. remember that even after all that has transpired Via the SS and Family courts your children only have one true Birth Mother. no Adoptive parents or the SS can ever take that away from them or from you and one day your Children will gravitate back to who created them.You and their Father.
as long as you keep that in mind it will help you through the years of darkness and guide you towards the Light. thats where your Children will be waiting for you and they will be so Happy that you are there to meet them and make up for all the Lost time.
Kitt if you havnt seen it already theres a great Film entitled
“Missing Children A Mother’s Story 1982”
A young mother hands her children into what she thinks is a childcare center while she finds a new home, but returns to find that they have been adopted out without her knowledge.
its on Youtube here.
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I’ve been on holiday for a few days and just catching up! Agree with almost everything here written. May I just mention that mothers and fathers who lose their child/ren because of splitting up and on orders from the Family Court suffer in an identical way. It’s like a living bereavement. It’s hard not to hate the people who do this, but you should try not to because it only makes matters worse for everyone including yourself. And if it’s your ex your hating, you’re hating half your child. But it’s hard. . . .so hard.
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The trauma never leaves us. This much is true. What is even harder is being considered both an unfit parent, yet a fit parent for the children who remain/ed in our care. It causes some kind of conflict in our head . Are we good enough parents, arent we. Then get pregnant years later, to be told you can keep your baby this time, makes you think with all the rest said- Why couldnt i keep my other baby. What message does it give my child who was eventually taken, because i only asked for help temporarily.
The children who remained at home, must feel a sense of if i was good enough to live with my parent/s, then why couldnt my sibling return back home to live like we could. We can have had one or two children remain in our full time care all throughout proceedings. We can have been allowed to see them and phone them anytime we chose. So, why couldnt they all come home.
Years go by, no longer able to hold down or even contemplate looking for work because its still raw, still feels like yesterday. Was it all just a bad dream we ask ourselves. Then the reality kicks in when we re-look over the paperwork and are astonished what new evidence keeps coming to light where we realise we were ‘screwed over’ and we see how much we were ‘misled’ which believe me, creates even more trauma on top. Its also a sense of numbness that never ever leaves us. Then anything new we find is like we are being administered a high dose of electric shock treatment, that only serves to make us feel incredibly numb all over again.
Then, the child taken grows up and becomes an adult. No consideration or services or barely any research has been put in place consistently enough over the years, to show just how difficult it is and its so very hard to process, seeing how much your small child has changed from a child into a young man/woman. You feel as though youve got your child back in your life, but as a man/woman. Nothing in between helped your head process such a huge change. You still search in your mind for your little boy/girl. You still dream they are little, with you rescuing them from SS evil clutches. Still dream you saw even a small glimpse of your child or how you ran away with them, lifting them off the ground you run so fast. You still try to protect them in your dreams and worry each ambulance you hear pass by. You still look out for them in the waking world best you can because they’re such a big part of you regardless of a piece of paper which seperates you.
You are still the biggest star in the sky to them to try and help bring them some comfort, yet the same child grows up to suffer a big loss of identity not really sure who all their family are, even where they have been told about them.
I am a parent whose eldest 3 children became to live in my care, one got to stay all throughout. One didnt. Now going through reunification helping said young adult to fill in many many gaps.
I am on a 12 month waiting list for intensive therapy, and they will be looking at PTSD.
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Thank you for sharing your experience, deeply touching and insightful xxx
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Reblogged this on tummum's Blog and commented:
Spot on xx
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Pingback: Haunted Motherhood: How Britain’s Forced Adoption Policy Deepens Family Trauma And Social Inequality | tummum's Blog
https://punishmentwithoutcrime.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/new-dissertation-contested-adoption-the-social-engineering-of-families-negotiating-stigma-and-social-exclusion/ xx
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It is becoming an increasing problem because of the courts direction of all children’s care cases finished in 26 weeks and final plans being in place
There are some cases when it is apparent that the parents (and yes fathers feel it as well) can not care for the immediate future. However given the right help and accepting that help they may be able to in the future.
There are also cases which unexplained injury’s occur and it is deemed to have caused by a parent and thus a final order is made on that basis.
Adoption is a draconian order, but in some cases it is the right one, others it is not.
The lack of follow up service for parents is also a concern because if the mother becomes pregnant again, the first question is what has changed. Without help it may be nothing has and another child is in the system.
The article is a good reflection on the effects of a final adoption order been made on a mother. Perhaps a way forward would be consideration into how the parent can be helped, rather than focus on proving they are unable to parent a child in the here and now, or in 26 weeks
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Sorry but I maintain that forced adoption of a baby or young child with law abiding parents can NEVER, NEVER ,NEVER ,be justified !!
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Ian its such a shame we dont have you as Minister for children and Social care.
Forced Adoption would be top of your Abolition List im shure.
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Boys adoption hearing….
Walked into court…solicitor says expect my application to oppose to be rejected.
Next thing the social worker that took my sister at birth introduces me to a new social worker….
I thought nothing of it.
Then solicitor says social are taking you seriously….
We move to the court room….
The boys were made party to proceedings. New guardian appointed new solicitor appointed (for boys) they are releasing the care proceedings to the new social worker and as they are happy with the work I have done and progress I have made they have decided to….
Give me a brand new 8 week assessment and final court date will be December 4th….if that pleases the judge…
I just sat there mouth bolted shut
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If you represent yourself nobody can bolt your mouth shut ! Call your kids as witnesses ,stop talking to social workers and solicitors and you can still win your case !
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