Tag Archives: children’s rights

Dec: Labour MPs oppose push for adoption.

Jan: Opposing privatisation – write & call MPs.

Launch of our evidence – Wed 18 Jan

Dear Friends,

Warm greetings for the holiday and the New Year!  SOME GOOD NEWS in these troubled times:

At the CSW Bill Committee meeting last Thursday, Labour MP for South Shields, Emma Lewell-Buck, put forward our proposed amendment to DELETE CLAUSE 9from the Children & Social Work Bill. Drawing on our briefing, she made an excellent speech, opposing this clause on the grounds that it prioritises prospective adopters over relatives or other carers and could lead to children being prematurely placed with prospective adopters which could pre-judge the outcome of legal proceedings, causing unnecessary pain and distress to all concerned.

For the first time during the passage of this Bill, the devastating consequences of the push for adoption was highlighted. She attacked austerity and pointed to the latest research by Dr Andy Bilson, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, which shows that prioritising adoption results in MORE, NOT FEWER, children taken into care, so that there are now more children in care than in the past 30 years, with shocking implications for their health and well-being.

The government minister defended Clause 9, saying that “Where the making of an adoption order is being considered, in most cases the child will already have been living with their prospective adopters for between six to 12 months.”   This confirms the inherent bias in favour of adoption and against a child being returned to their parents or other relatives.  We must continue to oppose it.  The Committee voted 8 to 5 against Mrs Lewell-Buck’s amendment (the government has a majority on the committee).  But the push for adoption, which has been policy for decades, was challenged for the first time and this is a significant victory for all of us.  See her speech below as reported in Hansard.

In JANUARY (Tues 10, Thur 12 and Tues 17), the Committee will discuss the government’s plan to allow local authorities to “OPT OUT” of their statutory duties, opening the way for PRIVATISING CHILD PROTECTION – profiteering from taking our children away from us.

It is urgent to make your voices heard against this.  Many mums and other carers have already written in to members of the Committee – one member told us privately she had been “bombarded” – but MORE IS NEEDED.  We need MPs to get many more letters from concerned mothers and other carers, social workers, and anyone who objects to this profiteering from our children’s pain and trauma.

We are continuing to press for a new clause demanding that SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN SHOULD INCLUDE SUPPORT FOR MOTHERS AND FAMILIES.

As we said to the MPs, 80% of women in the UK have children.  We do our best to support and protect them, often in difficult circumstances and with little or no help.  Many of us are struggling with benefit cuts and sanctions, zero hour contracts, cuts in wages and services, escalating rents . . .  The cost of looking after a child in care is estimated at £35,000 a year. Yet, children who have been in care are four times more likely to attempt suicide and experience mental health difficulties.  If that money was made available to impoverished mothers and families, many fewer children would be taken into care.  The Bill should include provisions to support loving mothers and families who are struggling so children can be spared the tragedy and trauma of separation.

Please see our evidence from five women’s organisations to the Committee with our objections.  Women Against Rape have also submitted evidence about victims of domestic violence and their children.

If you haven’t already, please write your own letters to MPs and make a submission to the Committee – see here for how to do it or phone the MPs offices if you are short of time.

Please do this early in the New Year, and NO LATER than Monday 9 January so the Committee hears your evidence when it starts meeting again.

Here is a list of the MPs on the Committee to email and/or call.  We suggest starting with Labour, the SNP and the MPs on the Committee.  Let us know what responses you get.  See our Model letter here.

STOP PRESS: 18 January 2017, 6pm, Committee Room 11, House of Commons –LAUNCH of Legal Action for Women’s Suffer the Little Children Dossier documenting cases of children unjustifiably separated from their mother or kinship carer, adopted by strangers, put into care or in the hands of violent fathers.

For more information contact: Anne Neale or Kim Sparrow

LAW@allwomencount.net; SMSD@allwomencount.net

Tel: 0207 482 2496

Use your own experience and the points below to make your case.

Dear …MP,

I am (a mother/grandmother/dad/teacher/carer…) writing to raise my grave concerns about the Children and Social Work Bill with you as you are sitting on this Committee.

I am deeply worried about this Bill which aims to privatise child protection – a huge financial incentive for more working class children to be taken into care.  Under the Children Act, children and families have the fundamental right to have their feelings and wishes taken into account in decisions that affect them.  This is increasingly being ignored in favour of speedy adoptions.

The law says that: “No court should deprive a child of contact unless wholly satisfied that it is in the interests of the child that contact should cease and that is a conclusion at which a court should be extremely slow to arrive.”But instead the number of children in care continues to rise – over 70,000 children are being raised away from their families and communities.  This is shocking and not in children’s interest.

Families need urgent help and support so that children can remain with those who love them, not private companies profiteering from breaking up families causing lifelong trauma to both children and their mothers.

The cost of looking after a child in care is estimated at £35,000 a year so we know there is plenty of money for children.  Despite recent exposure of multi-national companies like Serco and G4S having to withdraw from providing children’s services because of dangerous and violent practices under their watch, the government is pushing hard for this legislation to be passed. They also know that children who have been in care are four times more likely to attempt suicide and experience mental health problems.  If money was made available to support impoverished mothers and families, many fewer children would be taken into care.

This Bill is being debated as the government lowers the benefit cap threatening the survival of tens of thousands of families; 500,000 children may be facing homelessness. Many families are struggling with benefit cuts and sanctions, zero hour contracts, cuts in wages and services, escalating rents and debt. The children in any family experiencing financial and other difficulties are vulnerable to being taken into care and put up for adoption as parents are accused of “neglect” if they are unable to keep a roof over their heads!

We ask MPs to defeat government attempts to privatise children’s services and to demand financial support to keep families together rather than spending millions tearing them apart. We ask MPs to defend children, the mothers and families who love them. There is condemnation of the ongoing trauma inflicted on children who were taken from their mothers in the 50s, 60s and 70s. But the same is happening now and will get much worse with this Bill. We hope that you will represent our concerns by opposing this Bill.

Your name, address etc

Dear Friends,

GOOD NEWS: Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck is putting forward our proposed amendment to DELETE Clause 9 from the Children & Social Work Bill!  She will be speaking on this at the Committee meeting TOMORROW THURSDAY 15 DEC at 11.30 am.  If you are in London and want to join us, please come to Committee Room 12 in the House of Commons by 11.30 prompt (allow 30 mins to go through security).  We want to be there to support Mrs Lewell-Buck when she speaks and to let MPs know how strongly opposed mothers and other carers are to the brutal and traumatic separation of children from their loving families.

We are delighted that we’ve finally got the issue of adoption to be discussed as part of this dangerous Bill, which not only aims to privatise child protection services but to speed up forced adoptions.   We are continuing to press for our proposal for a new clause for resources to try to stop so many children being taken into care.

Please see evidence from five women’s organisations to the Committee with our objections.  Women Against Rape have also submitted evidence about the situation faced by victims of domestic violence and their children.

If you haven’t already, please write your own letters to MPs and make a submission to the Committee – see here for how to do it or phone the MPs offices if you are short of time.  Please do this as soon as possible, ideally this week but before MPs break for Christmas (20 Dec) so they hear from you and get your evidence while the Committee is still meeting.

The Committee will meet again on Tuesday 10 January, Thursday 12 January and Tuesday 17 January.  We will be attending when we can so if you’d like to join us, let us know.

Here is a list of the MPs on the Committee to email and/or call. We suggest starting with Labour and the SNP.  Let us know what responses you get.  See our Model letter below.

Please share this on your facebook.

See MODEL LETTER in previous post.

CHILDREN & SOCIAL WORK BILL, 2^nd reading

Briefing by: Black Women’s Rape Action Project,
Global Women’s Strike, Legal Action for Women,
Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, Women Against Rape

For more information contact: Anne Neale or Kim Sparrow
LAW@allwomencount.net; SMSD@allwomencount.net
Tel: 0207 482 2496

We are five women’s organisations based at the Crossroads Women’s Centre founded on self-help. For years now we have been working with mothers whose children have been taken from their care or are under threat of being taken on varying grounds.

We are extremely concerned that the Children and Social Work Bill, which promotes adoption as the ‘gold standard’ and reflects the government’s determination to privatise child protection, will result in more children being unjustly taken from their biological families at great cost to their safety and welfare.

STATUTORY PROTECTIONS MUST REMAIN

Following objections from the Together for Children Coalition (which some of us are part of), ourselves and concerned individuals, a number of peers spoke out against the Bill in the House of Lords. They opposed the government arrogating to itself ‘draconian powers’ through regulations outside parliamentary scrutiny; removing ‘hard-won safeguards for very vulnerable children’; and allowing local authorities to ‘opt out’ of statutory child protection measures so that it could be outsourced and eventually ‘run for profit’. Led by Lord Ramsbotham, they voted to delete Clause 29 – the main provision which would have enabled this.

The Children’s social care: increasing capacity and diversity report published after a two-year delay by the Department for Education (DfE), provides clear evidence that the Bill’s opt out has nothing to do with ‘innovation’ as the government claims, but with lowering corporate liability.

The large, broad‐based outsourcing companies we spoke with said they were highly averse to reputational risk and would be unlikely to be early entrants to this market. In order to address this, government would need to be clear about the levels of responsibility, liability and accountability they would require from companies taking on the delivery of children’s services.

Children in difficulty will be put on the market. As we said in a letter to the Guardian (25 October):

The national child abuse inquiry was set up in response to a massive survivors’ movement to examine how and why local authorities and others failed to protect children.
Even before it started, the government wanted to exempt these institutions from public scrutiny… removing statutory protections from the most vulnerable – children in custody and in care. Given the history, this amounts to a rapists’ charter.

We urge you to oppose any attempt by the government to bring back the ‘opt out’ provisions.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

Private companies are behind this Bill. Isabelle Trowler, chief social worker for children and families is among its chief promoters. She co-founded Morning Lane, a private company working with 25 local authorities. KPMG, which partners Morning Lane, has been awarded a £2m government contract. When questioned, Trowler dismissed it as ‘peanuts’. But the children’s social work budget is estimated at £6.5bn, and Credit Suisse and others are behind private companies like Frontline, which are already training social workers. The DfE has admitted that there were ‘errors’ in handling Trowler’s conflict of interest.

THE GOVERNMENT KNOWS THAT PRIVATISATION PUTS CHILDREN AT RISK

Companies like G4S, Serco and others can take on contracts to undertake child protection assessments and investigations, manage child protection plans, decide whether to initiate care proceedings, and determine where and with whom children should live. All these companies need to do is set up a not-for-profit subsidiary. Then the parent company can charge its subsidiary whatever it likes for the services it provides to the subsidiary, which is how a profit is made.

Earlier this year, G4S withdrew from the provision of children’s services. This followed the cancellation of its contract for managing Rainsbrook Secure Training Centre in Northamptonshire in 2015, and an undercover BBC investigation into its management of Medway Secure Training Centre in Rochester which exposed the mistreatment and abuse of children.

We have documented sexual and racist violence by guards against vulnerable women at Yarl’s Wood Detention and Removal Centre which is run by Serco.

Privatisation must be not only stopped but reversed.

UNWARRANTED FAMILY SEPARATION WILL RISE WITH THIS BILL

During the Lords debate, Baroness Armstrong of Hill Top raised that:

As of 31 March 2016, there were over 70,000 looked after children in England, which is the highest figure since 1985. If this does not tell us that we have to think again about what we are doing, I don’t know what will.

In our experience many children are removed without just cause. There are many reasons for this: the lifelong consequences of separating children from their biological primary carer (usually the mother, often a single mother) and their family environment (other parent, siblings, grandparents) are not given the weight they deserve; the importance of bonding is disregarded despite overwhelming evidence; mothers are judged harshly and denied financial and other support which would enable the family to stay together; domestic violence victims are blamed for ‘failing to protect their children’ rather than given help; and the risk of children suffering abuse in care is not considered despite the many scandals showing that it is widespread. Increasingly children are taken not because they suffer ‘harm’ but because their birth family – usually a low income and/or teenage mother, or a mother with learning difficulties – is accused of ‘neglect’, a term open to interpretation and prejudice. In our experience, many are families of colour, immigrant and/or disabled, who are discriminated against on that basis too. In fact, figures show that children of colour are disproportionately taken into care.

There is another major reason: pressure on social workers to remove children rather than help those families which could stay safely together. Further privatisation will increase that pressure as profits become the main motive to take children in care and have them adopted.

Despite the recent condemnation of religious institutions during the 40s, 50s and 60s forcing many thousands of teenage and single mothers to give up their children, politicians continue to recommend that children should be taken away from mothers and families whose only ‘crime’ is to be young and poor.

Many children who have been in care continue to be victimised as adults. Baroness Armstrong:

Six out of 10 mothers who had children sequentially removed were teenagers when they had the first child. Of these, 40% were in care, or had been looked after in the care system, during their own childhood.

END THIS POLICY OF DESTITUTION AND REMOVING CHILDREN

 This Bill is being debated as the benefit cap is lowered. 116,000 families are threatened who may no longer be able to pay their rent, and 500,000 children could be affected. No one knows how many will then be taken into care or adopted as parents are accused of ‘neglect’ for no longer being able to keep a roof over their heads!

Baroness Armstrong pointed out:

“Children who are removed and placed in care are overwhelmingly from economically and socially deprived backgrounds . . . the role of family members – of grandparents, siblings and friendship networks in supporting children – is too often neither recognised nor supported effectively.”

In 2012, then Education Minister Michael Gove said:

” I firmly believe more children should be taken into care more quickly . . . I want social workers to be more assertive with dysfunctional parents, courts to be less indulgent of poor parents, and the care system to expand to deal with the consequences. ”

 Gove is no longer in government, but this Bill indicates that other ministers have similar views and interests.

In 2000 the British Association of Social Workers (BASWA) warned that having targets for adoption would result in children not returning to their birth families. Evidence shows this is what has happened. The government has set performance targets for local authorities to increase the number of children adopted with the justification that adoption reduces the number of children drifting in long term care. However, an analysis of government statistics by Professor Andy Bilson, University of Central Lancashire, shows that over the last five years (2011-12 to 2015-16) 22,580 children were adopted, a 40% increase over the previous five-year period. Despite the extra children adopted, the number of children in care went up by 5% to 70,440. The rate of children leaving care to adoption varies across the country from 30.5% in Bolton to under 3% in Kensington and Chelsea. Professor Bilson’s analysis shows that the third of local authorities with the highest adoption rates over the last five years had the largest increases in children in care whilst in the third with the lowest rate of adoption the number of children in care actually fell. In other words, prioritising adoption results in more, not less, children taken into care.

We are not the only ones concerned with the lack of support for birth families and its effect on all involved in the adoption process. Amanda Boorman, who adopted a child and founded The Open Nest says:

Millions have been spent over the last few years on recruiting adopters . . . Every adoption is a result of loss. Even whipping them out when they are young does not make that fact go away . . . adopted people are often left with an uncomfortable legacy that nobody wants to hear about . . . Adopters have . . . been afforded a loud public voice . . . Adopted people and families who lose children have not been afforded the same privileges.

SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN MUST INCLUDE SUPPORT FOR MOTHERS AND FAMILIES

80% of women in the UK have children. We do our best to support and protect them, often in difficult circumstances and with little or no help. Many of us are struggling with benefit cuts and sanctions, zero hour contracts, cuts in wages and services, escalating rents . . .  The cost of looking after a child in care is estimated at £35,000 a year. Yet, children who have been in care are four times more likely to attempt suicide and experience mental health difficulties. If that money was made available to support impoverished mothers and families, many fewer children would be taken into care.

The Bill should include provisions to support loving mothers and families who are struggling so children can be spared the tragedy and trauma of separation.