The government’s acting Children’s Minister, Michelle Donelan, made a dramatic U-turn on Wednesday over a policy pushing adoptions for children in care after this site published a post explaining the proposal was illegal.
Donelan had asked all councils in a letter sent on January 16, to prioritise adoptions in every child protection case, and to ignore court judgments which approved alternative forms of care.
The proposal was met with strong resistance by several key stakeholders inside the child welfare sector, including fostering agencies who were concerned that the policy would lead to a reduction in business.
Children’s charities and child welfare professionals with no vested interest in fostering or adoption also expressed concerns that the minister’s demand was out of touch with reality, and overly simplistic.
But on January 22, Donelan released a video statement through the Department of Education’s (DfE) Twitter feed, expressing a different view.
In the video, the acting Children’s Minister, who is filling in for Kemi Badenoch while she is on maternity leave, said that all forms of care should be considered, including kinship care.
Donelan also unveiled a new project in an answer she gave to a written question sent to the House of Commons on January 23, which asked what recent assessment the DfE had made on the effectiveness of contextual safeguarding.
Answering the query, Donelan announced that the government had been looking at this issue in a pilot to test “contextual safeguarding theory”. Contextual safeguarding examines the way councils respond to vulnerable children who may be being exploited outside of a family setting. She confirmed that the DfE had given Hackney Council up to £2 million to work on the project.
The pilot has been running since 2017, and focuses on phenomena like county lines exploitation and is led by Professor Michelle Lefevre at the University of Sussex, Dr Carlene Firmin from the UoB Contextual Safeguarding team, as well as Professor Gillian Ruch and Dr Kristie Hickle from the University of Sussex.
Researching Reform 
Yes you urge people because you have took that many children from loving families that theres is not enough fosters to help you make your profit on our kids you’ve ripped away from their loving families that are suffering with this corrupt system.
You give us no time to fight yes hurry up it’s for the best interests of the children to kidnap them from innocent parents and extended families
You have broken us,and for these children you have caused the beyond emotional harm,its ridiculous,inhumane ,against the human rights of these children who have no voice and that are used to fill your pockets.
Hope you are proud of yourselves.
Well done.
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So they choose to ignore the research that is clear, children fare much better whilst kept out of care & in their own homes or if in care, in contact with their birth families. Its really quite despicable.
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Kinship care?we have no chance, you can guarantee a failed assessment,and that’s with no criminal record,never on drugs,dont drink etc,just normal families that love their children,we fail.PUNISHMENT WITHOUT CRIME,you loose your kids forever once they grip you into their corruption.
The social worker told us before we started getting assessed that they dont expect perfect parents,lies,you will still fail perfect or not because that their plan.
They use government money to pay for a waste of time assessing us for what?they already know they have to fail us,its all planned.
They build our Hope’s up and lie their way through the whole lot.
They just want more fosterers and adopters and that’s it! Why lie they want more kinship carers when we all know that’s not true.
Give me my grandchildren back that shouldn’t be in care and help the poor children that are genuinely damaged by their parents,oh they arnt good enough they’re damaged goods,they are not adoptable and too hardwork for foster carers because they have been through trauma.,or they are ignored or left to die with abusers.,you will never rid of them because nobody want traumatized kids,they wont sell.
Courts,social services uk are childsnatchers and the whole world needs to wake up and believe it!
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Donelan,the SS and family courts can do pretty much whatever they like to innocent parents because they know the public can do nothing about it.Nobody is Policing this Corruption and its Damn well time somebody did.
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She is ignorant of all on going investigations into Child abuse past and present within the care system across Britain.. One must question her reasons of not acting on the evidence that sits before her and government that children in state care are at such high risks of abuse by the state parenting than at home with birth parents or kinship carers. Why would a person in such a high position of control work towards more foster carers more adoptions meaning children are even at greater risk of being psychically and mentally abused rather than shift the pendulom towards keeping families together.. A much cheaper option. So I’ll ask the question again why is she pushing a more expensive agenda?
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Because she,s probably involved in it all,MONEY.
They don’t care about these kids,it’s about making money for all involved.
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She doesn’t seem like a bad person as she doesn’t have that look of evil in her eyes. She seems like someone who is naive and very out of touch with reality. She’s lived in an ivory tower all her life and has only ever seen rainbows and unicorns. She probably buys the propaganda that adoption is this sparkly, fairytale ending and only happens to children whose mothers and fathers lovingly and happily relinquish their children in the name of God or are nasty, dangerous people who batter, molest and starve their children. She’s never really suffered a day in her life and has lived a life of elevated social status and privilege. She only knows motherhood as a high status, upper middle class white woman who automatically falls into the category of idealized motherhood. She has no concept of what it’s like to be marginalised or turned into an anathema. She’s only ever floated through life, a life full of superficial praise, small talk and pleasantries. She’s probably a nice lady, however she doesn’t know enough about real life to be a politician.
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