Too many children are being seized by social workers without good reason: why do these families have no protection from the Human Rights Act?

I found this article interesting, but as both a Christian and a social worker, I find your comments ignorant and offensive. I know many hardworking, dedicated social workers helping children who have come from horrendously abusive and neglectful situations. You cannot begin to imagine what some children have been through. I hope you never have to read a child’s case file – and those are the ones that survive their abuse. The system is not perfect, but the vast majority of social workers are doing the best they can within the confines a flawed system. I can’t speak to the UK system, but the US state system I’m familiar with requires extensive support for reunification with birth parents before moving towards adoption.

Any infant who comes to an ER with evidence of eight bone fractures *should* be taken away from their parents until it’s understood what’s going on. It shouldn’t have taken 18 months to figure out that the child had a bone disorder, but you can’t exactly get mad at a social worker for acting immediately with what is, more often than not, clear evidence of horrendous abuse. Just because they’re a two-parent household doesn’t automatically mean they’re loving towards their children. 

Regarding the “Human Rights Act”-

Tuesday February 3, 2009
United Nations Population Fund Leader Says Family Breakdown is a Triumph for Human Rights
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/feb/09020312

Which is absolutely the same thing the Communist Manifesto says-
http://revolution2.us/content/docs/history/communist/manifesto.htm#family

Leonard Henderson, co-founder 
American Family Rights 
http://familyrights.us 
“Until Every Child Comes Home”© 
“The Voice of America’s Families”©

Creation332- See How to Fight CPS

http://familyrights.us/how_to/fight_cps.html 

I can and do speak to the UK system. Social workers have the benefit of secret courts where they can lie through their teeth. I don’t know whether the God-hating criminal element is in the majority or the minority, but it is this element that calls the shots.

America’s Adoption Awareness Month. Who are we kiidding?
people like cute inarticulate children, but…

http://all-about-orphans.blogspot.com

Parents should beware of the traps set by these people. The wrong remark at the wrong time can lead to suspicion and ‘social work involvement’. I was poor. I even had adverse comment made that I was ‘spending too much money on the children’s clothes and didn’t know how to budget’. I have never recovered from my experience.

SocialWorker, I find your comments ignorant and offensive. I have seen examples of horrendous social workers “case files.” I have seen how these “case files” are filled with lies, exaggerations, and twisted opinion. I have seen how GOOD families are destroyed by your “well intentioned” agents. I have seen what it does to children to be ripped from their LOVING homes…by strangers…carted off to a strange home, all due to a social workers opinion that they know better what a child needs. Your arrogance/ignorance is appalling. Your sanctimoneous attitude is the very reason that has lead to your agency’s abuse of innocent children and families. Your suggestion that the US state system requires “extensive support for reunification” with birth parents… do you even understand what is WRONG with this statement??? The US state system REQUIRES that you make ALL reasonable efforts to MAINTAIN a child in their home first! This is too often overlooked by pious agents who assume a parent is guilty of something and therefore justifies their decision to kidnap a child and let the judge/court determine the innocence of the parent based on allegations that are false in an estimated 80% of cases where children have been removed (based on ACF federal reports). The trauma that is caused by removal is unconscionable. The days, months, years that a child is kept from their parents, grandparents, friends, neighbors, pets, all that is familiar while the parents jump through your hoops to prove their innocence is unconscionable. When an estimated 80% of cases end with unsubstantiated findings, decisions are NOT as you suggest “clear evidence of horrendous abuse.” You have now abused these children and caused irreparable harm, and that IS clear evidence of horrendous abuse. Those children are not thanking you for “saving them.” Excusing your “flawed” system is not acceptable. familyrightswi@ymail.com

SocialWorker: 8 bone fractures does not warrant an automatic assumption of abuse. There are other possibilities to be considered – car accidents being but one of many possible explanations. Is it common practice among social workers to assume guilt and force the party to prove innocence?  Whatever happened to a parent’s right to be presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty?

It appears my original comment to SocialWorker has been removed.  I am curious of WHY?

It related to point 4 of our Content Standards:

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/acceptable-use-policy/

What was “ignorant” about telling the truth with the facts?  Nobody’s talking about the tragedy of abused kids.  

What we ARE talking about is the tragedy of kids who AREN’T abused but who are taken anyway.  Seems the System deems it necessary to take thousands of children who are *not* abused for the one child who might “slip through the cracks”.  so thousands of children should be traumatized for life for one child? THIS is our concern.  Nobody is saying that a child who is suffering should be ignored and left in the circumstances ~ which BTW happens a great deal while kids who have not been abused are taken at the drop of a hat.  Especially if they are an older kid suffering.  

Come one!  Admit it!  Older kids are not taken so much because they are not so marketable and don’t bring as good of a price like the human marketing scheme of little kids that CPS profits from all the time. Don’t TELL me that the Title IV mandates are not a corrupting force!!!!  Anyone who has looked at the numbers can see it, even low income poor people like me who DSHS likes to pretend “chose” poverty and “did nothing”  when it comes to the 24/7 job of raising their children.  You know, the “doing nothing”  like The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Act says (Welfare Reform) raising children is about.  You know the one that says poor women “do nothing” while raising their children but “do something more important” while being forced to ignore their children in order to make some rich man richer while saying, “Do you want fries with that?” I have a teacher friend who kept bringing a 13 year old in to CPS who was being severely beaten by his father for over a year ~ but would CPS even get up from their office chair to do anything about him?  Not until the teacher threatened to go to the press would they move their lazy butts enough to do anything about it!  The teacher was puzzled about this reluctance ~ until I explained to him that this child would not bring in so much of a profit as a cute little 3 year old.  Such as a toddler whose trauma boiling down underneath nobody would see or understand that would not show up until they were in puberty because they had been ripped from their families . Like the legally kidnapped 3 year old who I saw this week with MRSA on her finger that would not heal because the parents (both working McJobs that did not even pay the rent) could not afford to take her back to the doctor who gave them a cream to rub in the wound that didn’t work. Did CPS help these hard working parents? Not on your life when there is mney to be made, 1000% more to be spent taking and selling this child instead!  

The teacher was more understanding then of how the System works: Cute little babies will SELL like hotcakes, while a teenager getting the crap beaten out of him every day?  Not so much … I have seen just within the past month where a 19 year old gave birth to a child when she did not even know she was pregnant.  Before she could decide what to do and the grandparents were there ready to take the child should she decide she could not raise him ~  CPS chose to announce they were moving in and taking the child within a couple hours after this baby took its first breath where 8 FREAKING COUPLES were already lined up waving money  ~ notified by CPS workers slobbering after those bonuses, doncha know …Worse unless YOU are “ignorant” then you yourself know about the studies done where instead of spending 1000% more or our tax dollars on foster care, giving families services (even in the case of drug addicted or alcoholic parents) actually works better than taking kids except in the most severe of cases.

You also know if you are not “ignorant” that children have a 5-7X more likely chance of being abused in foster care and that adoption is not far behind with abuse statistics, than if these had been left in the home and their birth families given services.If speaking about the legal kidnapping of kids when they are not abused is considered by you to be “ignorant” well perhaps you are part of the problem for which I speak.  See, since you are a professional you should know that every single case is *not* about “bone fractures” ~ which, according to University of Washington, Michigan University, NY Department of Social Services and the Casey Foundation show overwhelming statistics true, severe abuse is present in only about 10% of those cases. The other 90% of these children as I said, are not being taken from their families for any “bone fractures” at all ~ just for “future” abuse when there has been no indication proven in a real court of law with due process, that any abuse had occurred, much less any indication of “future” abuse, whatever that means.  You know well, where “the best interest of the child” REALLY means more like, “The best interest of the bank accounts for the Foster Care and CPS Industrial Complex …. ”  

Just sayin’ …sheesh Cat in Seattle

Dear Oddie, you deserve a ton of kudos for bringing up this issue to the blog. However, when you ask why such parents, and their children had so little protection from the much vaunted Human Rights Act, that’s the Pandora box you can’t selectively open and close at will. What I mean is that you can’t join force with Human Rights Act and its activists when need be and discard their work whenever their intervention targets our own community. That’s why I urge to read this brilliant exposé,” Sex, the Greatest Damned Thing?” in Amazon.com.uk  about children bastards born out of wedlock from women concubines of priests and bishops around the world. This is a greatbook of advocacy for dispensed priests, who deserve better than a limited role in the Catholic Church. And this, at a time that our own Catholic Church for which they have worked for decades, would rather welcome married Anglican and Lutheran clergy in the church with better benefits. The whole issue is that Human Rights Actibvists have reporting to us that domestic violence against priests’ women concubines and  their bastard children is evil and ungodly. Talking about Human Rights Act in the secular world of corrupt judges and cops, is like the cat calling the kettle black. To conclude, I would urge to read the above book and blog about the fierce urgency of change to eradicate violence against children everywhere in church as well as in the secular world. God bless!

It is totally disrespectful for any social worker to come on the internet and suggest that a care system that has injured, or in many cases, recently killed, a child in their care – conditions that would remove children from anyone else’s care permanently, should be allowed to care for a child merely because they have unexplained broken bones. It violates Catholic social teaching and European countries like France, Spain and Italy and most of Latin America don’t remove them them on that basis: it’s culturally backwards and offensive. Only common law countries and Germanic/Scandinavian countries do it – I don’t even think even Russia and the former communist block countries act like this.
As for these workers caring about children, if they cared, agency services would be given outside of normal business hours, workers would return their calls promptly and sometimes even answer them.  Reality is that the workers work to please their bosses, who need more cases of abuse to justify their continuing budgets, the judges don’t want to judge the case lest it be a case that goes bad later, and the lawyers make money by keeping the cases alive (rather than closed).

No. So?

  Mr Oddie, often I agree heartily with what you write, sometimes I disagree but up to now I have always enjoyed your articles. However, I felt quite sick when I read this one. (Even more so when I read a chunk of the comments.) Yes, one often reads articles riddled with ignorance and prejudice on the subject of social workers but naively I have expected better of the Catholic Herald. I have had to wait some days since it first appeared to be able to respond calmly.

A hallmark of prejudice is to write off whole groups of people rather than considering individual cases. And while anyone may be excused not having a good knowledge of social work practice in the UK, to write an article about it without that knowledge and taking all the information from only one source is egregiously unfair. I am sure that as in any profession there are social workers who have all sorts of defects, act negligently or carelessly etc. I am equally sure that the majority enter the profession, knowing that they will constantly be exposed to extremely distressing circumstances, huge workloads and hugely derogatory comments in the press, out of a sense of commitment and dedication. Amazingly this attitude persists in many throughout their years in this field.

You and many of those who have commented write as though social workers practise in a vacuum, removing children from their families at will on scant evidence and on their own authority. Not so. There are statutory provisions, policies and procedures which they have to follow at all times. They make recommendations to a judge which may be agreed or set aside. Those recommendations are tested in court under cross examination. It is the judge who decides whether a child should be removed, not a social worker.

Ah yes, those “secret courts”. No, they are not open to the public. Just consider for a moment if they were. At the moment families who are aggrieved at a decision can and often do have recourse to the press. The social workers of course cannot respond since they are bound by confidentiality. But if the public and the press were able to attend just imagine the press reports picking over the details of chaotic lives which would appear, particularly in the tabloids. Because the press is fickle. They would not confine themselves to reporting cases where they would encourage outrage at social workers and their treatment of innocent parents but would just as easily report on cases where they would encourage readers to sit in judgment on the families . Do we really want this level of intrusion into private lives – those of children and their families ?

I do have an interest to declare. My own daughter has been a social worker for 13 years in this field at various levels of responsibility. I admit to feeling proud of her and moved by her as she matured in the profession where she has always been motivated by the ethic of service, primarily to the children involved, to families and as she has increased in responsibilities, to expecting high standards from those workers under her management giving them support so they can attain them. I know she is not exceptional – there are many more very similar. But one would never know it from what one habitually reads.

Well done, William. This is a widespread, national scandal. It happens to the poorest families.

Social workers DO practice in a vacuum, at least in the US.  

Those “laws and policies” are regularly ignored in our Family Courts.  In the real courts, the accused have a right to an attorney and to “Due Process”, and the only accused who have any a right to an attorney is the parent.  This right means an attorney is paid for by the government.  Other accused such as grandparents, relatives, or anyone who is not the parent do *not* have that right.  The finger is simply pointed by the case manger and the accused is automatically considered guilty.  They are allowed to consider “in the best interest of the child” on a FEELING with no proof of any abuse but just say there is FUTURE abuse (you know, even if it is something that never happened in the past but hey, these people have a FEELING it will so therefore it suddenly becomes a legal “fact”). 

Due Process is in our Constitution is a right to a trial and for the accused to face the accuser and defend themselves.  This is not followed in Family Court at all.  I am sorry but yu can be a professional for 50 years and it is *not* considered proper to make a FELLING into a fact ~ and sorry even a magician could ever prove something will happen in the future. A funny thing even the most ignorant know about the future…NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS.  Especially when there is no proof anything ever happened in the past. Sorry being “experienced” should not work ~ even if they consider themselves so wonderful they KNOW what the future will be like they are Jesus or something, which many of them seem to think.   
Then these accused, never proven to be abusive, are then put on a public list for the rest of their lives.  If they cannot afford an attorney, too bad and there is no way to remove it. For LIFE.  This is not in our Constitution to be accused and then never get a chance to have a professional defend you when the consequences are so dire.  Worse, even the parent’s government attorney is paid out of the same funding as the judge, social worker, CASA, counselors, all who rely on our Title IV funding mandates: “the more kids you take the more money you make and if you return those kids home, you LOSE all that funding…”  This means that what we call a “Public Pretender” depends on LOSING their cases because it keeps them employed In addition, the case manager, CASA and judge all depend on this same money to keep their jobs.   A”public pretender” never has to prove themselves to have won a single case in order to be one, and most if not all lose their cases all the time. Talk about a vacuum! 

Sorry, but I have been a part of a case where the case managers LIED and it was proven in court, and I “won” the case.  Even when you “win” there is no remedy for the “accused” but simply to watch their relative be sold like a piece of merchandise ~ where the “vendor” gets thousands in bonuses for doing so after being proven a perjurer.  Perjury is something that is SUPPOSED to be a crime, but instead it is ignored as if it never happened and the perjurer never faces so much as a slap oin the wrist (according to an FOIA request in my state showing thatafter 30 years liars did not receive so much as a slap on the wrist ~ many were even promoted).  

Yes, talk about an VACUUM, these liars are given BONUSES and promotions for doing so!  So, by the time I could prove their lies, they had performed an adoption to an unmarried couple of four kids who stayed in bed until after 10:00 in the morning and their own unsupervised toddler Drowned in their unprotected, adult-sized swimming pool with two toddlers running around.  These adopters, part of CPS and funded out of the same money, decided to give a child to a couple who should have been considered neglectful under their own “laws and policy”  less than a year after the death of a child.  

So, I am falsely accused and these child neglecters got their “replacement” kid by the time I could legally prove their lies, it was already done.  This was already done after DHS dragged their feet for over a year.  BTW I was poor and could not afford a lawyer.  I had to suddenly become a judge, attorney and do all the work myself. Otherwise, not only did I wrongfully lose a child I had cared for as the only mother she knew her first four years out of her life without so much as a trial, I would have been put on a public list for the rest of my life where I could not find work, rent a home, or even volunteer for my granddaughter at her school.    No these case managers live in a vacuum all right. I am glad you are proud of your daughter, but she is part of a corrupt System that relies on the sale of children for their own employment.  I am not the only one who has seen this happen, I am just one of thousands a year who experience this and our children are traumatized for life ~ basically because “the more kids they take, the more money they make and if they return them home (or help the birth families), then you will LOSE YOUR JOBS! Not only Have I heard these caveats from US Representatives in charge of funding this, I have also seen the damage done because of this reliance of social workers to live off the backs of (mostly) poor children.  Then ask the 270,000 foster care and adoption “alumni” about their 5-7 X more likely to be abused in foster care and adoption that Michigan Sate and also the NY DSH studied. simply because nobody responsible has to prove a thing in court except their “feelings”, which are then turned in to “facts” ostentatiously because it is,  ”in the best interest of my wallet ~ errrr  I mean in the best interest of the child …”. Cat in Seattle <—warrior for low income families and the falsely accused! 

  mntleo, I am very sorry indeed to hear of your experience.  I hope I made it clear that I am not claiming any knowledge of the system in the USA or indeed anywhere else outside the UK.

I was also not saying that there should and could be great improvements within the system in the UK.  All I was trying to do was to redress the balance here in the UK where social workers are regularly denigrated as a blanket group thing by a Press which makes no effort on the whole to understand what the system is and by successive Governments of varying hues which in the way of Governments throughout the world make sudden reactve changes in a short-termist way of thinking which often make it more difficult for those working within the system and therefore ultimately for those people caught up in it.  I merely wanted to defend those social workers – I believe the majority here in the UK- who do a good job under difficult circumstances and who do not lose their humanity.

This is a digrace I intend to expose this error in law, I myself have a unbelievable story to tell !

johnhhannigantgwu@yahoo.com.

http://www.parentsinjusticegroupscotland.co.uk/ Parents Blogging website for all.

http://www.profitableharm.com/home.html Vaccine damage link

NAME AND SHAME THOSE SOCIAL WORKERS THOSE JUDGES AND THOSE CHILD ABUSERS IN THE STATE SYSTEM ANYWHERE WORLDWIDE.

Had you child stolen ?
Had your child suffer after childhood vaccinations ?
Is your child in care ?

Does your child have adhd autism aspergers allergy or a moderate learning difficulty ?
We have been created by the need to fight widespread social care injustice and abuse of draconian state power. Children are being ripped from their parents simply because they are considered “unconventional” or even single.
Just like pigs we rootle under the surface to find those golden nuggets of truth hidden beneath half truths, targets, idealised aims and a “not my decision” culture. In fact, we are the truffle P.I.G.S. of the social care world.

Our aim is to help and support parents who have lost their children through spurious reasons. Low income, untidy house, learning difficulties,Vaccine damage, bad diet, disorganised lifestyle or a perceived non cooperation with social services.
We don’t claim that these are fully acceptable but if the money wasted by the legal and social system was spent helping families with these difficulties there would be no need for their abusive and draconian behaviour.
The whole system cannot be seen to have made a mistake, so they cover up any dodgy decisions. Everyone has seen how government and bankers squirm out of responsibility for their actions. Even sympathetic solicitors have little chance against this state conspiracy.
The worst thing about the whole rotten business is that the children pay for the rest of their lives. And it doesn’t stop there. Their children end up suffering too. Three generations affected by inept decision making, it’s beyond criminal.
So please get in touch however hopeless and battered you feel. We can and will make a difference to you and your children

Oh the System wins a great deal for taking a child under false pretenses, all right.  This false caveat that a case manager is “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” crap is just that: crap. A Freedom of In formations Act request reveals that in over 30 years these “damned if they do, damned if they don’t professionals” have not even gotten a slap on the wrist, even after having been proven in court to have lied (perjury in the US is punishable and considered a crime).  

Oooo the newspapers and TV reporters condemn their mistakes …scary! In my US state where the Wenatchee Witch Hunt occurred and dozens were falsely imprisoned for years, their kids scattered to the wind, families destroyed, was later legally proven to have been nothing but a bunch of lies.  It was based on false psychology that used a now debunked method called “memory retrieval” where counselors used children as guinea pigs and got them to “remember” abuse that never happened and then used it in court as a fact. What has happened to even ONE of these people?  The ring leader of this now considered unethical “counseling” is doing fine in practice as a UW professor and department head.  She is also advising the WA state legislator about CPS issues for laws they pass. The prosecutors are now judges themselves and part of large law firms with big salaries. The counselors are now in private practice with nice credentials making bucco bucks as if it never happened. But for sure in this case, there were firings all right ~ by the social workers who tried to report the reneging of the children who tried to tell the truth about their lack of abuse, as these professionals were required to do.   One was driven out of the country after being fired and then falsely accused of abusing his own children, the other was a supervisor who later sued the the state and won $3,000,000.  But over the stress she died.  Did any elected official, CPS workers or anyone in the legal system learn one thing from this case?  Nothing. Ziltch. If anything the main thing it did was teach them was to push through bogus laws that protect them even more and allow them to cover their tracks.  The same practices still exist to this day.  Case closed! The US has passed laws that tell case workers, “The more kids you take the more money you make and if you do anything to reunite them with their family you will LOSE all your present and future funding…” This funds all the people who decide to take a child from foster care, adoption and even funding the supposed Public Defender or as we call them, the “Public Pretender who never really has to defend the accused. Literally 1000% more is used to take kids than to reunite them with their families.  So everybody BUT the child “wins” if they rip that child from the family, tear the family apart, refuse to use their funding to assist the family, and then give the child to someone 5-7 X more likely to abuse them. This is routinely done even after the lies are proven with no recourse for the falsely accused. and nobody is ever held accountable for their lies, even after it is legally proven they did lie. Because they have blanketed themselves with legal protection that gives them immunity. The tragedy in all of this is the taken child, 90% who would have done much better if they remained with their parents and the family was supported.  Professionals well know this is a fact and this is the saddest of all.  Worse are the ones who remain intentionally ignorant because they profit from this corrupt System, they are an even sadder case.  Because this corruption will continue  as long as a government supports these practices while pretending they are deciding for “the best interest of the child”, and they are hiding the fact it is nothing more than in “the best interest of our bank accounts” and getting away with destroying lives for profit.  So no, the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” defense is no excuse, since not a single one will lose their jobs, get sued or even get disciplined even if they are proven to be liars. They well know there is no legal or systematic punishment they ever have to face except perhaps a newspaper or television reporter who criticizes them and embarrasses their department.  All will remain the same after the furor dies down and they will continue to do the same things.  Please note that this is not being done as much to teens and older children, this is something mostly younger children and babies will face as they are easier to sell.  If you believe this will somehow make them bond better, think again. Many will spend the rest of their lives wondering why they were “given away” when in fact they were sold to the highest bidder. While nobody wants a child to suffer in an abusive situation, unfortunately everybody BUT their own family is given the support needed for them to grow up healthy and loved.  Routinely 90% of these kids are never going to see their families again even if they were never abused.  They are then put in a 5-7 X more likely situation where they face a large likelihood they will drop out of school, become homeless, become addicted to drugs and alcohol, and/or become imprisoned.  Therefore, the only way case managers are “damned” is with their own voluntary enmeshment in a corrupt System keeping them employed where after even one week of employment they should see, it will eventually rot their souls. Cat in Seattle  

THE GP IN HARINGEY OR THE PROFFESSIONALS IN ST THOMAS CONSPIRE WITH HARINGEY AND GAVE THE BABY M OPIUM OR MORPHINE.
THEY DID IT TO JUSTIFY THEIR CRIMINAL ACT AGAINST THE FAMILY AND TO COVER UP THEIR CRIMES.

HOW CAN WE GET THIS ARCHAIC SECRET SOCIETY DISBANDED???????

my children were unfairly taken from me on the 7th march 2012 after lies being put in my file and no truth being placed in it. After meetings with managers and social workers nothing had been put in the file of what was said just all regarding me and my income (I am on a very low income and only recieved money for one child to provide for myself and 3 children) They didnt help me with things when asked and did not do as the conference reports had said they had to do. Because of this my children have now been removed from me and sent to an abusive household and I am not allowed contact with my children. My youngest has not been away from me for this length of time. Due to the incompetence of social care my children have been ripped away from a household that loved and cared for them the best they could. I am a single mother with no support from family as family are the ones that involved social services in the first place. Since the children have been taken there has been four other calls regarding the treatment of my children while they have been with my parents and social care have not acted on this. I am now hoping to take social care to court to sue them and I have been in touch with not only my local MP but I have also been in touch with the PM regarding the vial way parents are accused of things when innocent. This has all happened since homestart stopped working with me due to social services demanding they have no contact with me.

I would like to know how any social worker can send a child to an abusive home from a loving home and then state LIES in the file and not put things in the file from meetings and concerns people have. How can a social worker disregard any complaints made by others regarding the care of the children in that abusive household?