1. Summary

This document is a direct response to the questions raised by the committee and background to my family’s experience with social services in ***. We are writing after the experience of abuse suffered by our daughter and son-in-law and their children at the hands of the social workers in ***. The names of our grandchildren and children have been changed for legal reasons.
We are happy to meet with committee members to represent our feedback in person. We also have over 7Gb worth of data to back our claims and the experiences of our daughter and her family which can be provided to the committee in confidence and without causing us legal harm.
I ***, am a family member of ***.
I am a grandparent of children affected by this act.

2. To what extent has the Act improved the situation for the most vulnerable children, young people and families in England? To the extent that it has not, is this because of the Act itself, its implementation, or challenges which subsequently emerged, whether lasting or temporary?

The act and subsequent legislation since 2014 has created a crisis in the welfare of young families. It has deprived the liberties and safety of parents, children, and the support network that greater family members and friends provide.
This act had enabled an inconsistent approach to social care for families and children. Social services have a poor record of safeguarding and show a total lack of compassion. Furthermore, it has enabled the growth of private adoption agencies to profit from forced adoption and it is known there have been many reports of children forcibly adopted with financial gain received by both local authorities and social workers as well as the private adoption agencies.
Our personal experience has seen social workers unwilling to be honest and compassionate, become confrontational when questioned regarding their conduct and our experience has exposed us to how a county council’s complaints procedure has been manipulated by children’s services. By following the council’s own procedures, we have been criticized and abused by social workers and our legitimate complaints have been held against us. We have been threatened and bullied both by social workers, managers and in court by solicitors making unfounded and indecent comments. We have had no recourse to obtain justice only receiving indifferent and a lack of insight, not only by the social workers but also by legal professionals who all collectively used the Covid-19 pandemic as an excuse for unprofessionalism, sloppiness, abuse, and misconduct. We have clear evidence of all these claims in our complaint, court documents, audio recording and videos.
The ACT is obviously hastily written without thought for the consequences for families or consideration to make sure that when things go wrong that they are properly investigated.
How is it possible that the UK and Spain are only two countries to allow forced adoption? It is barbaric and destructive. Whilst we acknowledge that there is a need for good social care and sensible safeguarding of children, it should also be applied to families. It should also ensure that there is adequate training of new social workers, experienced social workers and managers need much more support. However, the aegis of social care for the young and families must be under the supervision of the NHS and clinical professionals must have supervisory roles. It should not be left to councils to be allowed to fast track forced adoptions with little to no clinical evidence, especially without there being an exhaustive exploration of the family support network that the grand parents and other family members and friends can provide.

3. If there were to be a Children and Families Act 2022, what should it include and what might be the barriers to implementation?

Establish a clear and consistent national framework for the protection of children AND the protection of the family. This should focus on the support of the family first with the wellbeing of children the central tenet but within the context of the birth family or if not possible the family at large. This must be evidence based. Not simply rely on the word of a social worker or vague concocted narratives. As has been the case of many, many cases that have failed in court.
Review and legally test what is to be considered to be a ‘Risk of Harm’ to children in the UK. There must be public, legal and professional consensus. At present the risk of harm perceived by social workers is at odds with both clinicians and the public. This should then carefully review the necessitation of forced adoption.
Children Services brought under the responsibility of the NHS but with the national framework for families and children clearly established.
Establishment of the legal rights of grandparents.
A transition plan for passing responsibility for social work teams and cases to the NHS
NHS Funding increased to enable the transition and for sustained work:

Provide better collaboration with community services and leaders
Work with faith groups and charities to provide family support services.
Research into the harm that adoption has on families and those forced into adoption.

Historical review of cases after 1980, in follow-on from the previous investigation regarding single mothers forced in giving their children up for adoption.
The regulation and strict control of private adoption agencies.
The removal of funding rewards to councils who have financially benefited from adoptions.
An investigation into the allegations of money and forced adoptions in the UK as highlighted by Sue Reid investigative journalist.
The abolition of payments to councils hitting ‘adoption targets’ of young children rather than looking to find families for difficult older children.
Consultation with faith-based and secular social charities such as Care for the Family.

Barriers to this are:

Cost. That the NHS is in crisis and that there is no more funding available for additional strain for the social care. This could be harmonised with many other family-based care initiatives carried out such as family planning, education, maternity, mental health and so on. The social care act for the families should be integrate throughout NHS services rather that being treated as a dysregulated and disparate underfunded strategy overseen by inexperienced and unsafe staff and councils looking for any means of funding.
Resistance to change – Councils would see this as undermining their authority. The last decade has seen just how many are unfit to properly operate an incredibly sensitive service. Policy makers would also find resistance in the changing of law by social worker leaders who want less regulation, legal processes, and speedier removal of children. One must ask for whose benefit this serves.
Time. Many would say it would take too long to transfer to the NHS. The first point should be that there has been more harm done in haste than good in more time. Research shows clearly that forced adoptions do not work and in most cases cause more harm to children than good.

4. Is the Act enabling faster, more secure and stable adoptions which are in the best interests of the child?

There seems to be little evidence that the act enables secure adoptions. The act has enabled a culture within Social Services and Family Courts of speedy adoptions that has led to it being openly abused. The legacy of this will be the continued erosion of the family within the UK.

5. What has been the effect of provisions on fostering to adopt?

Fostering is a more viable alternative where foster families can work with parents that are unable to look after their children for a variety of reasons. They should also involve the extended family. The act is not supporting this holistic approach to family and social group care. Instead it has initiated the rise of privately funded adoption agencies, mistrust between families and social services and a number of older children still in a care system that is not fit for purpose.

6. What has been the effect of the repeal of the requirement to consider ethnicity, religion, race, culture and language in England when placing a child for adoption? Are any further legislative or other measures needed to address disparities?

Devastating. Clearly Social Services lack the insight to understand the now wide ranging social and cultural issues of a modern multicultural society. What is more, it fails to understand traditional British family values and particularly undermines the values of Christian families. Putting children of faith-based families into secular families is an abuse of the human rights of both the child and the affected parents. This shows where the state conflicts with the idea of family and the rights of parents. Notwithstanding the reasons for adoption, the right of parents to decide the cultural and religious identity of their child should be considered. It can cause the adopted child psychological harm and distress for the rest of their life if they have been ethnically, culturally and religiously displaced.

7. What effect has the suspension of the Adoption and Children Act register had on the matching process?

Clearly this shows that this process is problematic. Adoption should only be considered as a last resort and Social Service agencies should have to demonstrate this through evidence of need and that they have exhausted all options with the extended family. If every option has been exhausted and adoption is the only solution, then a register is vital to also help with safeguarding and enable children to reunite with their families, something that drives most adoptees and can be a difficult struggle both finding out they are adopted and finding their birth parents.

8. Are families receiving the right information, budgets and support to assist them post-adoption?

Unlikely as nothing else is properly funded. Adoption processes need to focus on family who would not have the same financial concerns as family related adopters. Budgets will be wrong. With inflation hitting middle to lower income families adoptions are going to be harder.

9. Have the reforms to the family justice system succeeded in making the system faster, simpler and less adversarial? How has the Act interacted with other reforms to the family justice system, for example the changes to legal aid?

No. To the contrary and we have evidence to support this claim. The family courts are secretive, production lines of injustice. They show a total lack of compassion for families and the act has done nothing to support family’s representation. The scope of representation is limited legally due to the act and the law governing the conduct of family courts and needs an urgent review. Legal Aid puts off many competent barristers and lawyers and there are simply not enough legal firms experienced with family law. The Covid-19 crisis has stressed the system beyond breaking point and so much injustice has happened to thousands of families across the UK. They are stressed and pushed into a process too quickly by social workers. Parents are not supported properly by their legal teams and the adversarial conduct of Local Authorities and CAFCASS has been shocking. We have found the abuse and experience our family has endured due to the local authority in *** is common practice across the UK.

10. Does the 26-week limit on care and placement proceedings strike the correct balance between justice and speed?

No. This needs a total review as a whole.

11. How well have the limitations on expert evidence served children in the family justice system?

Poorly. In our experience, experts are poorly sourced and qualified. Where they are medical experts, they are often ignored.

12. What has been the effect of the requirement to consider mediation?

Our experience is that this has been ignored by the family courts and the local authority.

13. How has the presumption of the involvement of both parents in the life of the child after family separation affected proceedings?

*** County Council’s policy is not to involve the family. This has been evidenced in letters, recording and court documents.

14. Has the Act achieved its goal of improving provision for children and young people with SEND, in all settings including mainstream schools, special schools and further education colleges? If changes are needed, could they be achieved under the framework of the Children and Families Act 2014 or is new legislation required?

No. Local Authorities are reluctant to find placements for older children, opting to concentrate on younger and ‘pretty babies’ as it is well known within the social work profession that pretty babies get adopted quickly.

15. Have the reforms to childcare agencies and childcare provision introduced by the Act improved the quality and availability of childcare? Are the reforms introduced by Part 5 of the Act sufficient to safeguard the welfare of children?

16. Does the Children’s Commissioner have the correct remit and powers? Are the correct accountability structures in place to ensure they discharge their duties effectively?

No. The public are poorly represented by the PHSO and LGO. They also do not have enough authority to investigate family’s complaints.

17. Is the system of shared parental leave and statutory shared parental pay functioning adequately? Is the system of flexible working functioning adequately? In light of the changes to working styles brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, what changes, if any, are needed to provisions in the Act on flexible working?

If this is in the context of Adopting parents this is concerning. Why prioritise an adopted family over that of a birth family when there is no evidence of harm? An adopted family must be financially capable of looking after a child. It is a test they must pass as would birth parents be assumed to be able to financially cope. This again shows the tone deafness of the government in relation to caring for families.

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April 2022