Support not Separation: News bulletin 1
What we are winning, what we are doing, what’s in the news

IMPORTANT VICTORIES!

Landmark Supreme Court ruling: children who were abused in foster care can sue the local authority! Great is the movement for justice and we shall prevail. Make sure everyone in your network knows about this.

A grandmother who came to us for help has won: her grandchildren will be living with her and spending weekends with dad with weekly contact with mum – what they all wanted. And she’ll be getting Special Guardianship Allowances for the children!

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Women in Brighton have formed a group and are picketing the family court there to coincide with our London court picket onthe first Wednesday of every month.

Our workshop Another Handmaid’s Tale was packed and the speakers were great. It was held at The World Transformed (events organised concurrently with the Labour Party conference in Brighton). Emma Lewell-Buck MP (shadow minister for children and families) spoke strongly on the need to support children staying with their families, giving weight and credibility to our demands. You can watch it here.

Another three stunning workshops (with organisations based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre) also raised the impoverishment of mothers and the taking of children by the state. You can watch them here: Radical demands from the grassroots; Whose job is it anyway? Radical childcare; andLiving on the edge: claimants, asylum seekers, pensioners, zero-hour workers, sex workers . . . refusing Dickensian destitution and other social murder.

Friends, Families and Travellers invited us to speak at their meeting in Parliament raising concerns about discrimination by children services.

We wrote an open letter to CAFCASS and NSPCC protesting their speaking at a Families Need Fathers conference. Children charities which receive public money should not give credence to domestic violence deniers. We’ve had no response from them so far. We picketed the conference and you can watch the lively exchanges we had.

We are objecting to a news programme The Adoption which is part of The World At One every day this week. It claims to be a thorough look at one adoption case but so far it is just promoting adoption as the ‘gold standard’. It uncritically reports on social workers who took two young children who, by their own admission, were ‘loved and wanted’ by their birth parents and extended family. Write in and object too!

IN THE NEWS

The mass taking of children by the state is in the news like never before. Some recent examples:

·     Research by Lancaster University shows the very high number of mothers who have had more than one child taken away were themselves in care and got no support.

·     An exhibition by young mums (‘Taken: because love wasn’t enough’) whom we are hoping to be in touch with.

·     In the US, Disabled parents are suing New York City for discrimination in child removal.

·     A US for-profit foster contractor has been exposed after 86 children died while in their care. How many more have died at the hands of other foster contractors?

JOIN OUR COURT PICKETS

We continue to picket the court in Holborn and now also in Brighton the first Wednesday of every month. Join us or picket the court in your town or area!