I wrote recently that we now have 83,840 children in care – a disastrously high figure. Many are on a conveyor belt to prison if experience is any guide. A lot of social workers will spend a lot of time holding meetings and conducting assessments and writing long reports into each of these children. These social workers are usually well-intentioned, hard-working and have considerable expertise and professionalism. Yet often the decisions they make have the most appalling consequences. This is partly due to the ideological skew of social work training. It is also about the system producing bad outcomes even when good people are working in it – a familiar aspect of the public sector. Councillors are supposed to be part of the system – all those in upper-tier authorities are “corporate parents”, if you please. How many of these “corporate parents” have even met any of “their” “corporate children” – those languishing in care? Of those who try to take their responsibilities seriously, how many are soon befuddled by all the jargon and don’t pursue their queries too far?
There is also supposed to be some legal protection. “The child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration,” states the Children Act of 1989. Yet that law is not upheld in practice. If it was then the overwhelming majority of children in care would be placed for adoption. But they are not. Most languish in care. What makes matters worse is that some are sent back to the home they were rescued from. Usually, it will be a single mother. Perhaps a heroin addict who abused and/or her child. Then she comes off heroin. The child is returned. Then there is more abuse and/or neglect. Then the child is taken back into care – with the further disruption of being with different foster carers.
These are children where adoption is rejected. Where it is claimed there is a risk the placement would break down, that the child would be difficult to cope with. One response is that the delay in securing adoption might make this a self-fulfilling prophecy. The process of being shunted around the care system could well make the child more “difficult” and the task for adopters more challenging. But if the welfare of the child is “paramount” then the risk of adoption going badly would have to be balanced against the (very high) risk of poor outcomes remaining in care. If the risk of an adoption placement breaking down is highlighted then how does it compare to the risk of the placement back with the birth mother breaking down?
To find out I asked, via Freedom of Information requests, for the percentage of children in care who had re-entered care “after reunification with their birth parent(s) and/or a special guardianship with another relative.” Here are the responses from the ones where it was over ten per cent. I also asked, by comparison, for the percentage of the children they had currently in care “who have re–entered care after adoption.”
- Angus. 18.3 per cent of “children currently in care who have re-entered care after reunification with their birth parent(s) and/or a special guardianship with another relative.” No children currently in care who have re-entered care after adoption.
- Scottish Borders 17.5 per cent v “We have taken the decision not to release information where numbers are 5 or below.”
- York 17.5 per cent v 0 per cent
- Aberdeenshire 17 per cent v “Information not held.”
- Sefton 17 per cent v 0 per cent
- Blackpool 16.7 per cent v 0 per cent
- Sunderland 16.1 per cent v “The number is very low (less than 5), therefore the information cannot be disclosed.”
- North Lanarkshire 16 per cent v “Less than 1 per cent.”
- East Lothian 15.57 per cent v 0 per cent.
- Brighton and Hove 14.2 per cent v “Less than five children.”
- Cheshire East 14 per cent v 2 per cent
- Barking and Dagenham 14 per cent v 0 per cent
- Bracknell Forest 14 per cent v “Less than five per cent.”
- Haringey 14 per cent v 0 per cent
- Glasgow 14 per cent v “Information not held.”
- Brent 13.5 per cent v “Under five per cent.”
- East Dunbarton 13 per cent v 4 per cent
- Slough 13 per cent v 0 per cent
- Cornwall 12.87 per cent v 0 per cent
- Coventry 12.6 per cent v 0.15 per cent
- Greenwich 12.4 per cent v 0.2 per cent
- Salford 12.4 per cent v 0 per cent
- Derby 12.3 per cent v 0 per cent
- South Tyneside 12.2 per cent v 0 per cent
- Enfield 12 per cent v 0.49 per cent
- Sutton 12 per cent v 0 per cent
- Highland 12 per cent v “We are unable to disclose the percentage due to the low numbers involved.”
- Hackney 12 per cent v 0 per cent
- Hampshire 11.2 per cent v 0 per cent
- Oxfordshire 11 per cent v 0.4 per cent.
- Middlesbrough 10.9 per cent v 1.2 per cent
- Gateshead 10.89 per cent v 0 per cent
- East Sussex 10.7 per cent v 1.6 per cent
- Plymouth 10.7 per cent v 0 per cent.
- Kensington and Chelsea 10.65 per cent v 0 per cent
- Camden 10.6 per cent v 0 per cent
- Warwickshire 10.3 per cent v 0.2 per cent
- Southampton 10.2 per cent v 0 per cent
- Bury 10 per cent v 0 per cent
- Croydon 10 per cent v 0 per cent
- Wiltshire 10 per cent v 0 per cent
- Hull 10 per cent v 0 per cent
Those figures show a consistent and extreme bias against adoption. It is not possible to eliminate risk. While adoption is overwhelmingly successful it is not always so. But if the welfare of the child is “paramount” then a proportionate approach would be taken. The decision would be to minimise the risk of further abuse and neglect and to maximise the chance of a permanent, stable loving home.
Around 30,000 children enter care each year. Only around 3,000 children leave care each year for adoption despite its very high success rate. Adoption should become the norm rather than the exception. There should be a presumption in favour of it for children in care – a strong presumption for children in mainstream education. Social workers might argue that a big increase in the number adopted might say an increased breakdown rate. It might. But it might also cause an even lower breakdown rate if children were placed for adoption with less delay.
Another consideration is where the breakdown does occur it is likely to be due to the adoptive parents being unable to cope despite their best endeavours – not due to abuse and neglect. That would still be disruptive for the child – as it is being moved from one foster carer to another. But not on the same scale as the harm the system currently inflicts of further abuse and neglect – something down routinely to thousands of children across the country despite the high risks being obvious. The figures in the table below from Glasgow City Council give a sense of the fate of the children sent back to their birth parents before they re-entered care:
Unfortunately it will continue to sometimes be necessay for children to be taken from their parents and put into care. That is due to such social afflictions as drug addiction, alcoholism and mental illness. Not to mention pure evil. It is not in the interest of the child to be sent back to endure more of what they were rescued from. Nor is it in the interest of the child to be stuck in institutional care.
It is blindingly obvious that the law is being ignored and that thousands of children and being betrayed.