ByCharles Pragnell 5 September 2005
Response to the letter by Felicity Collier Chief Executive of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering to Members of Parliament – 22 August 2005. BAAF Press Release
On 22 February 2005, Felicity Collier, Chief Executive of the BAAF wrote to all members of Parliament regarding reporting by the Daily Mail newspaper on events concerning the Forced Fast-Track Adoption of children and the often flimsy reasons why social workers are removing children from their natural parents and rushing them immediately into adoption, which permanently separates those children from their families.
The first question which must be asked is why Collier, representing a charitable organization, has mounted such a steadfast defence of social workers and their managers when there are national organizations which more than adequately represent and defend those groups. E.g. the Association of Directors of Social Services and the British Association of Social Workers.? A further question arises as to whether such an action is within the constitution and aims of BAAF as a registered charity?.
Why has Collier become the mouthpiece for social workers and their managers?. It is notable that two senior managers of Essex C.C. Learning and Social Care Department are on the BAAF Board.
Collier claims that “vulnerable children who are only able to stay with their families because of the care and support they receive from social workers.”. This is partially true but there is a significant group of social workers in the U.K. and their local authority managers who do not provide such care and support for families in need and follow the good practices set by a minority of their fellow professionals. So Collier uses the good practices set by a minority to exonerate the misdeeds of a majority. Collier mentions a number of 388,200 children who are referred to social workers (annually and not weekly as she implies) but gives no information as to what, if any, help and support these children received. Evidence from parents suggests very little, if any.
In 1996 the publication of the DoH Research Document `Messages From Research – Child Protection highlighted the fact that local authority social workers and their managers were expending a disproportionate amount of resources into child protection work and the removal of children rather than to provide “care and support to families” and the then Conservative government urged local authorities to re-focus their resources into supporting families. There is no evidence that this has occurred and in fact on the contrary, even more resources have been vested in child protection and the removal of children from their families and the directive to `Re-Focus Services’ has largely been ignored.
Collier claims that the adverse publicity attracted by social workers will mean that “they (parents) will be less likely to approach social services for help”. The major reasons for parents not seeking the help of social workers are because:
1. When parents (particularly those of disabled children) have sought such help they have had to undergo a long and tedious assessment process at the end of which there has been no help and support forthcoming. Some parents even reported that at the beginning of the assessment process that the social workers have made statements to the effect that, “Really there’s no point in going through the assessment as there are no resources to provide any services but we’ll fill in the forms anyway”. Not unnaturally this has not been a comfort to parents seeking help and support in the care of their disabled or needy children.
2. Parents have presented their desperately sick and suffering children at hospitals or doctor’s surgeries and within a short period have found themselves accused of fabricating or inducing their child’s illness because the doctor hasn’t been able to diagnose the child’s illness. i.e. child abuse. Often such illnesses are linked to the earlier administration of vaccines or prescribed medications. This has happened even where other doctors have made a diagnosis or where the child has been diagnosed as autistic or is similarly disabled. The case of Megan Armstrong in Northumberland where doctors failed to diagnose a brain tumour and recommended she be taken into care is a classic illustration.
So it is social workers and doctors themselves who are making parents “less likely to approach social services for help” because they know they will not receive the help they need or are at serious risk of being falsely and wrongfully accused of child abuse accused. Collier however prefers to `Blame the messenger’, the media, using neat distortions and misrepresentations.
Collier contradicts herself when she states on the one hand that, “Social workers are required to make every effort to enable children to live with their (natural) families, even when there are concerns justifying an application for a Care Order” and later states, “targets had an important role in helping to concentrate minds on the importance of minimizing delay and drift for children who Courts had deemed could not return to their birth (natural) parents.” It is not Courts which `deem’ that children should not return to their parents – such decisions are made by social workers and are merely rubber stamped by Courts or social workers make those decisions after the Court Hearings and then return to Courts to confirm the decisions, usually claiming that the children have been separated from the parents for so long (by the social workers) that it would not be `in the child’s best interests’ to return to the natural parents.
How can social workers “make every effort” and on the other hand be “minimizing delays”. Helping and supporting parents to look after their children takes a lot of time and resources and plainly this is not happening when the policy is to “minimize delays”.
Collier attempts to place all responsibility for decision making on the Courts but Courts have become little more than rubber stamps for social work decisions with a system that totally disempowers and disadvantages parents from defending themselves when ranged against the mighty resources and legal powers of a local authority. Research has shown (Prosser and Lewis 1992/1995) that once an allegation of child abuse is made, that social workers begin with an assumption that the abuse has occurred and their investigations are skewed toward providing evidence to support the allegation and not to take an objective, impartial, even-handed, or open-minded approach. Parents report in many cases that evidence which can exonerate them is often disregarded or ignored or withheld, or in some instances the evidence against them is distorted, embellished, and in some cases, fabricated.
Sally Clark, Angela Cannings, Trupti Patel and other parents wrongly imprisoned are just the tip of am enormous iceberg of false accusations of child abuse.
Parents are shut out of the initial secret meetings of the professionals involved (Strategy meetings) and at Child Protection Conferences they are not allowed representation, no matter how limited they may be in intellect and knowledge of the system, and lack articulacy or don’t understand the professional jargon which is used on these occasions. Grandparents and other family members are totally excluded from the child protection procedures and from Court proceedings.
Collier correctly states in an indictment of social workers that, “The worst scenario for any child in long term care is ‘drifting’ between foster carers and residential care, without any clear plan for their long term future”. In referring to `drifting’ of children in care, she is referring to the research by Jane Rowe in 1980 (Children who Wait). Eight years later Jane Rowe declared that the problem of children drifting was no longer an issue. So why has this situation been allowed to develop again within 17 years or does the situation not now exist but is a figment of Collier’s imagination based on the earlier research. If it does exist again then why are these children in long term care?. Are no efforts being made by social workers to re-unite them with their natural families?. These are the children who ostensibly spend years in residential and foster care and who the Blair government intended should be adopted but who continue to be ignored by social workers and adoption agencies in favour of procuring younger children directly from families.
The truth is that the vast majority of children in care are older children who are emotionally and behaviorally disordered and are not suitable for or don’t wish to be adopted and do not wish to return to their families. Blair was misled into believing there were large numbers of children in local authority care who could be adopted and now no-one will tell him the truth but seek to meet his adoption targets by procuring children to meet those targets.
Collier states that, “..local authorities are now required to have a `permanence plan’ in place by the time the child has been looked after for as long as four months”. How can parents in difficulties be helped and supported by social workers in a period of four months if this is, as Collier claims, “the First Option”.?. This again contradicts what Collier states earlier that a `Care Plan’ has to be submitted to the Court at the time of the application for the Care Order. And where does this sit with the current practice of social workers of seeking a Freeing For Adoption Order from the Court at the same time as they are seeking a Care Order on children?. The evidence of parents is that adoption is the first and often the only option submitted to the Court as shown in the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights [P,C, and S v UK government] when such actions were described by the ECHR as draconian.
Collier implies that there is no redemption for parents who are drug abusers but even children born to drug addicts can be successfully rehabilitated as has been shown in Australia and the U.S.A. In Australia the parent has to be able to show to the Court that they have been drug-free for six months before consideration can be given to returning the children but it is often successfully done. Obviously in the scenario described by Collier, drug abusing parents could never achieve the return of their children in the four month period.
Collier claims “there are no financial incentives whatsoever in removing children from home to local authority care”. This is untrue. It costs many hundreds of thousands of pounds to keep children in care and placing children for adoption removes this financial burden for local authorities, although in some cases they continue to pay allowances to adopters after adoptions are granted albeit the child is then legally the responsibility of the adopters. Adoption agencies make many thousands of pounds from finding and preparing adoptive parents and then placing children for adoption and a small industry has grown to carry out this work. This is the industry which Collier represents and therefore where her vested interests lie.
If this money and the costs of bringing court proceedings was diverted into helping and supporting families in difficulties then many more children could be maintained within their natural families. Of course this would mean a great many job losses among the adoption industry workers.
Social workers in many European countries and other countries across the world are astounded by the practices of British social workers in so readily removing children from their parents and wider families and which they view as punitive and oppressive. Social workers in those other countries concentrate their efforts in maintaining family unity and re-uniting children with their families. This has been and remains the fundamental precept of child care legislation in Britain since 1963 but has been disregarded or discounted by social work agencies in Britain for over a decade.
The amendments which are urgently needed in British adoption laws are :
1. Adoption must be relegated to being the last, rather than the first, resort if children have to be removed from their parents and re-unification with parents must be the primary goal, with placement with an extended family member as the next option;
2. Before an Adoption Order is granted by the Courts it must be made incumbent on social workers that they have made every effort and all possible resources have been devoted to bringing about the re-unification of the child with the natural family or an extended family member. i.e. the Genetic Imperative.
3. Open Adoption Orders must be the first option for Courts where parents and other extended family members can retain contact with the child after adoption, as in New Zealand for example, and social workers must be required to prove to Courts that such an arrangement would be measurably and demonstrably placing the child at risk before a Closed Adoption Order can be granted.
And finally, the requirements of current child care legislation that social workers work in partnership with parents and consult with them on all decisions and take into account the wishes and feelings of the child should be stringently enforced. Added to this should be the requirement that grandparents and other family members are given the right to be involved when children are at risk of abuse or may be taken into State Care.
ByCharles Pragnell
5 September 2005
Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care
Expert Witness – Child Protection and Social Care Consultant.
ByCharles Pragnell August 8, 2006
Are Child Protection Conferences lawful proceedings? Charles Pragnell argues
that there are serious concerns regarding their legal basis and the procedures
and processes involved and whether they are conducted in a just and fair manner
in accordance with the principles of natural justice.
The statistics published by the Department of Education and Skills indicate that
in the year ending March 2004 there were 37,400 children and their families who
were subjected to Child Protection Case Conferences. These were cases in which a
social work assessment of 68,500 children had arrived at a supposition that the
allegation of abuse was ‘substantiated’. The fact that the cases of 31,100
children were unsubstantiated indicates a very high level of over-reporting of
child abuse and false allegations of abuse. It must also be considered that
`Substantiation’ by a social worker is a very low level of standard of
evidential proof.
General definitions of `substantiations’ and `Not substantiated’ are:
• `Substantiation’ – where there was reasonable cause to believe that the child
has been, was being, or was likely to be abused, neglected, or otherwise harmed.
Substantiation does not necessarily require sufficient evidence for a successful
prosecution and does not imply that treatment or case management was provided:
• `Not substantiated’ - where an investigation concluded that there was no
reasonable cause to suspect prior, current, or future abuse, neglect, or harm to
the child.
Note there is no mention in these definitions of obtaining factual evidence to
support the contention or otherwise of abuse or neglect or whether the
`evidence’ should meet standards of evidentiary proof of `a balance of
probabilities’ or being `clear and convincing’. There is also no requirement to
investigate the credibility of the person making the allegation of child abuse
or the veracity of the accusation or whether the accusations have been made for
mistaken, mischievous, malicious, or monetary reasons.
Following such `substantiations’ the next stage in the child protection process
is to hold a Child Protection Conference. Testamentary reports and statements by
parents and some professionals attending such Conferences, indicate that they
may in fact be little more than Kangaroo Courts.
Usually the principal professionals involved have held a secretive previous
meeting known as a `Strategy Meeting’ where the evidence they propose to submit
to the CP Conference is discussed and no doubt collusion and confirmatory bias
must be suspected. Parents are not invited to attend these Strategy Meetings and
are rarely informed about them or are able to obtain information regarding their
content or who attended.
Confirmatory bias can often occur and be merely based on delusional or extremist
religious beliefs or personal value judgements by individual professionals, such
as occurred in the Orkneys, Rochdale, Nottingham, the Isles of Lewis, where
allegations of Satanic Ritual Abuse of children gained general acceptance
without factual proof and in Cleveland where a unproven medical theory of sexual
abuse of children was similarly given general acceptance with out challenge or
query. This confirmatory bias can often be seen in cases of False and Induced
Illness in Children [FII] which has no basis in scientifically-conducted medical
research but is widely accepted as a form of child abuse by many professionals,
despite their claims to `evidence-based practices’. Often the suggestion of FII
begins with a mere whisper by an inexperienced professional or para-professional
and then expands and grows exponentially and without being contested or
challenged as to its veracity or authenticity. This can be without malice or
intent by the professionals involved but they are unwittingly able to reinforce
each others incorrect suspicions, which then result in all the professionals
involved sincerely believing they have uncovered child abuse. This process of
confirmatory bias often involves initial hysteria, counter-transference,
transference, folie a deux, and groupthink. Where it involves a number of
families in a specific geographic area it leads to mass delusion and societal
hysteria particularly if the media are persuaded into accepting the versions of
events of the professionals involved.
Parents report that they often only receive the agenda and reports about an hour
before the commencement of the Conference, if at all. They are not permitted
legal representation or any form of advocacy on their behalf, even though they
are in an unfamiliar environment, they may lack skills of self-advocacy and
articulation or how to present their evidence. They report overt and covert
hostility by those present towards them, with little attempt to make them feel
they have a place in the Conference.
Often they are told that the `meeting’ is merely to hold a strictly confidential
discussion to explore the issues and that they will have an open-minded forum in
which to present their views. One parent was told the meeting was only and
`administrative’ meeting to discuss funding to support and assist the family but
found that they were ambushed and were faced with a barrage of pre-prepared
accusations of child abuse and the meeting ended with a judgement of abuse
against the parents and that the parents name would be `listed’ resulting in the
loss of a teaching career and permanent termination of contact by the parent
with the children and permanent denial of any information concerning the
education, health, and welfare of the children.
When the Conferences begin and individual representatives of the child
protection agencies present their reports – very often no attempt is made to
separate fact from opinion, innuendo or rumour and everything stated by agency
representatives is accepted as fact. There are no rules for the submission of
evidence, or careful examination as to its veracity, i.e. no rules and protocols
for the submission of evidence, no standards of evidential proof and
suspicion/opinion being paramount, evidence discussed and decided on by
pre-meetings of professionals (so-called Strategy meetings), parents denied
legal advice/representation, parents often denied sight of the evidence
presented against them, rules of conduct for CPC meetings completely ignored,
the evidence and views of opposing professionals disregarded, hearsay evidence
presented by some professionals who have no knowledge of the family, and final
decisions to place a child's name on the At Risk Register (and thereby labelling
the parent as an abuser with all of the social implications and stigmatisation)
taken by one legally untrained person. (Although euphemistically they are
claimed to be `the decision of the meeting').
One parent describes an Initial CPC Meeting and Review CPC Meetings as follows:
“The `Independent’ Chairman of the CPC was relatively scruffy, grumpy, quite
bullying off-record (there was a great deal more unminuted gloves off oral
boxing after the formal minuted meeting than in the formal part.) at which he
was prone to fly into an aggressive rage against me. In contrast the chairman of
the Review CPC’s was extremely controlling of content and always turned up
suave, clean shaven, immaculately dressed and completely unflappable and with an
initial unpublicised agenda of his own which he was clearly determined to force
through the meeting. He behaved exactly like a Welsh hellfire-and-brimstone
preacher and was totally domineering and completely unimpressed by any logical
argument whatsoever, and seemed obsessed with Satanic Ritual Abuse and sought to
distort innocent events into indications of abuse, including satanic ritual
abuse.
The CPC’s became totally dysfunctional. Some were boycotted by other
professionals and many of them broke up in disarray because of serious disputes
between this Chairman and the other professionals who were present. Some of the
professionals left the meetings in disgust and anger, as the Chairman was
constantly trying to over-rule the opinions and evidence of the professionals or
circumvent legal rulings. Eventually he had to de-list the children because he
could no longer get a quorum. All the attendees at the Review CPC’s refused to
disclose their names, merely stating their affiliations such as “Education”, or
“Health”. They could have been Ku Klux Klan in regalia or members of the Spanish
Inquisition for all I knew. Often the same professionals were replaced by others
from their agencies at subsequent meetings and they had little if any knowledge
of what had gone before and had no personal knowledge of the child or the
family.”
Many of the professionals and para-professionals attending CPC meetings seem
often not to understand what they are undertaking or its legal status or the
intense and widespread consequences for the child and family of a false positive
finding and that their decisions, can have immediate and devastating effects.
A parent reports that;
“They seemed more terrified about the remote possibility that the child might
die or come to serious harm if they did not place the child’s name on the At
Risk register with severe recriminations if they decided not to do so, rather
than consider the more likely probability that there had been no abuse nor risk
of it. The professionals attending were often not experts in their respective
fields and had little knowledge of risk assessment processes e.g. nursery nurse,
teacher, police constable, health visitor. They were prone to being
overwhelmingly influenced by the opinions of more expert professionals such as
paediatricians and senior social work managers. This abject fear and terror by
the professionals that they could not take any risk of being wrong and
subsequently being pilloried if they failed to place the child’s name on the
Register, pervaded every meeting”
In effect parents are convicted by these CPC’s and see themselves as such, yet
have not had the protections of a fair and just trial.
It is in these CPC meetings where the greatest harm and the most travesties of
natural justice are committed against children and parents which are then often
subsequently transferred into the civil and criminal court settings.
If a child is placed on the `At Risk’ Register by a Child Protection Conference
then one of the principal and most important outcomes is that a `Keyworker’ is
appointed (usually a social worker) and a Core Group. Their duties and
responsibilities are to provide support and assistance to the child and to the
family, marshalling and mobilising resources to provide support for the child
ands family, and in doing so to monitor the health and welfare of the child, but
parents report that this extremely rarely happens. Many parents report that even
where their child has been on the `At Risk’ Register for two years, they have
never seen or heard from neither a Keyworker nor any members of the Core Group.
Child Protection Case Conferences are administrative, and arguably quasi-legal,
proceedings and as such are subject to the principles of European law and to the
principles of `Natural Justice’ in British law.
Where in such CPC proceedings is there natural justice, when the evidence which
is submitted by the professionals and para-professionals involved, is not tested
and cannot be contested? As long as they continue to exist they are a serious
blight on the British system of justice and fair play.
And the final injustice for parents, whose lives are devastated by this chaotic
system, is that they are denied any redress in criminal or civil law against
those who falsely accuse them or whose decisions are seriously flawed.
ByCharles Pragnell
August 8, 2006
Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care
Expert Witness – Child Protection and Social Care Consultant
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