In the news

These are the latest child welfare stories that should be right on your radar:

• Michael Gray and Shirley Gray plead guilty to abusing and murdering their adopted and biological children
• Former gymnastics coach charged with child sexual abuse
• What to know about the Miss Hall’s School teacher sex abuse allegations

Image of the month

Our image of the month is by Paul Brian Tovey, an adult adoptee whose adoptive parents physically, psychologically and sexually abused him in childhood.

Paul’s work describes the effect his maltreatment has had on his mental and physical health, as a child and as an adult.

Paul also campaigns for adoptees to have the legal right to revert back to their birth identities, which many adoptees say is essential to their ability to heal from the impact of their adoption.

This process is currently unavailable to most adoptees in the UK because of the costs involved, and a high legal bar which makes granting a reversion almost impossible. 

This month’s painting is titled “Adoptee Poem From Inner Shark Compass-land” and looks at the fear caused by the current child protection process. In particular, the removal of children from their parents by social workers on questionable grounds who then funnel the children into adoption agencies.

The poem below, also by Paul, is meant to be read alongside his art:

I saw a form of splits of  kids and mothers hearts erupted

Look there,  those family lives cut in half and totally disrupted

There came the Courts and wiggies with swung black bats

To make the sentences on lives by curled white wizard pratts

Sometimes we trauma kids dreamed and hallucinated all that

And after we needed a therapy for screaming on the tear mat

The worst dreams were the Social Shark Compass Bringer

Come out of black and into green and there upon a finger

Dangled a fate of changed identity spells and other hells

And there we were the children, in the mixed up social cells

Poverty of help came after birth for parents blamed and tried

We children stood alone and stored up what we never cried

Made tales in the cross and nails to aid a sense of rescue

Time drifted by,  and all that was left as fate bereft was :

“MOMMY DADDY – I SO MISS YOUUUUUU”

Now we are the survey of the children and the mothers

I count them too as soul sisters, and the fathers as brothers.

New survey aims to gather families’ experiences of involuntary adoptions and care orders in Britain

A new survey launched today hopes to gather insights on the experiences of mothers and other carers in England and Wales who have experienced care orders, and involuntary adoptions which are sometimes referred to as non-consensual or forced adoptions.

Research estimates that around 90% of all adoptions in Britain are involuntary, meaning that they are contested by birth families during the care proceedings process.

The survey has been produced by adoption and care order-experienced parents, who have been supported by the Taken UK project and adoption reform initiative Adoptee Watch.

The introduction to the survey says:

“This is a : “Mothers and Others” Citizen Survey on:”UK Forced Adoptions 2002–2024″ It will also generate information on UK Care Order experiences of parents too, which are often interwoven into such matters.

We are gathering experiences which socially “unseen” parents have of Child Care systems that have resulted in them having children taken away, and put on UK Care Orders, or Adopted Orders, often non-consensually and sometimes coercively.

This survey is GDPR (Data Protection) compliant. All information gathered, will be treated under those terms and any information given in it accidentally identifying anyone will be anonymized and erased. We have NO intention of collecting emails or names, or processing personal data that may trace any individuals.

This is NOT a funded or sponsored initiative. It is driven by a community of Parents and Children affected by “Forced Adoption” and/or Child Care Order practices in the UK.

Those aiding the design of this survey have been affiliated to bodies dealing with court crisis matters. You will find many such groups of lay people on Twitter/Facebook , if you look up “court crisis”.

After results are collected, this survey will be for community use by any members of the public. It will be designated for use too as: “Creative Commons” after it is checked out and made public.

We aim to take this surveyed body of experiences to MP’s, Media and others, as reports and requests for a new Inclusive UK Forced Adoption Public Inquiry for 2002–2024. We want reform of policies to prevent the State violating family lives, and to re-empower protective parents forced to give up children.

It is quite clear to us all, there also needs to be a wider “Care Order Public Inquiry” for abuses to be exposed of systems and bodies involved.

SPECIAL NOTE : If you have Learning Disabilities and find this survey difficult, please DO ask for someone to help you to do this survey.

For any hurts triggered by this survey we are asking that you consider support like contact with a confidential body like Samaritans :

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan

You may wish to try others for help using your best judgement Please DO remain cautious about your confidentiality:

https://www.umhan.com/resources/104-new-old-peer-support-groups

For other resources: please look up: BACP, MIND, RSVP (Rape and Sexual Violence Project (Birmingham UK )) and DO ASK for signposting to other SAFE services in your localities.

Be cautious about your confidentiality since the State has recruited even some Charities to report-back to it.

Please also see : https://rapecrisis.org.uk/find-a-centre/ which may signpost you to an appropriate help organisation regarding trauma, re-activated by Domestic Violence etc.

This survey is LONG because of the nature of the issues. Do take a rest when you can and continue after that if you need to.”

The survey, which has been uploaded onto the EasyQuest platform can be accessed here.

An article on the online writing platform Medium with further links and additional information can be accessed here.

Online Conference: Advancing Advocacy For Young Adoptees

A free online conference offering experience-informed ways to advocate for adopted children has been organised by Simon Benn, the founder of Thriving Adoptees, a project which helps adoptees negatively impacted by their adoptions to heal.

Ben’s website offers some background about his own personal experience of adoption: “I was adopted at 5 weeks old and so young I don’t ever remember not knowing. All went well until I found out that my teddy bear was a gift from my birth mother when I was 40. That unleashed an eruption of anger, feeling rejected and unloved. That led to a quest to heal, healing and a desire to help others. 15 years later I work with others who want to support adoptees through my podcast, consulting, webinars and any other way I can.”

The description below for the conference is from its EventBrite page:

Whether you are advocating for young adoptees’ rights, mental health or something else, this event is for you…

And it’s designed to help you take your advocacy to the next level by drawing upon a panel of adoptees and adoptive parents.

Join us to hear insights, tips and learnings from Allison Olson, Beth Syverson, Damon Davis and Mike Thorne

Ask the panel questions on how to make your advocacy more effective.

Don’t miss this chance to connect, learn, and grow as an advocate. Register now!

Allison Olson is an adoptee, adoptive parent, and a children’s adoption book author. Her mission is to change the adoption narrative from the “lucky” child to the “loved” child.

Beth Syverson is an adoptive mom, wife, musician, and as of 2021 a podcaster, activist, and public speaker. Her podcast is Unravelling Adoption.

Damon Davis is an adoptee and host of the Who Am I Really Podcast. He has adopted his niece and nephew and also has a son.

Mike Thorne is a parent and an adoptee whose mission is restore people’s sense of dignity to unleash their greatness.

You can also register for the event even if you can’t attend on the day so that you can receive a recording of the webinar.

The conference takes place on Wednesday, May 29, 2024 at 5pm UK time, and will last approximately one hour.

You can book your ticket here.

Many thanks to Moses Farrow for alerting us to this event. You can follow Moses on X at @MosesFarrow.

The latest

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Jail for sex offender Daryll Sturgess who was given access to child’s data by law firm’s error
• Concerns over violence and threatening behaviour sees robing pilot introduced for judges in Central Family Court
• Government launches new offence for deepfake production and sharing

MPs want to hear people’s experiences of children’s social care

This post is a reproduction of the press release from the Education Committee’s web page:

MPs on the Education Committee want to hear from people with lived experience of social services as part of their investigation into how the Government could improve children’s social care. 

• Find the survey online here 
• Education Committee

The cross-party Committee today (11 April) launches a survey that asks care leavers of all ages about the help they received whilst in care and the types of accommodation they lived in, such as foster care, kinship, residential or adoption. 

There are also questions that will help the MPs learn about the types of support young people receive, including for their mental wellbeing, a disability, with their finances or help to find work or education. The Committee wants to hear whether that support was helpful or how it could be improved. 

The survey will form part of the Committee’s ongoing inquiry into children’s social care. Survey responses will be anonymised to ensure participants’ safety and their peace of mind. 

Chair comment

Education Committee Chair Robin Walker MP said: 

“My colleagues and I have been receiving detailed evidence from experts and professionals in children’s social care, but our inquiry wouldn’t be complete without hearing from people who have been through the system themselves. Whether their first-hand experiences were good or bad, hearing their reflections and their ideas about how to improve the system will be a huge help to us. At the end of our inquiry we will make detailed recommendations to the Government on how to do just that. So it’s vital that we can be properly informed by the people who really matter – young people the system is designed to help.” 

Further information

• About Parliament: Select committees
• Visiting Parliament: Watch committees

Online conference hosted by Moses Farrow looks at how to stop the deaths of fostered and adopted Children

An online conference hosted by Moses Farrow this weekend and open to the public, is inviting all those affected by or interested in care experiences, to take part in a conversation about how to protect fostered and adopted children from being maltreated and killed by their carers.

While the number of children affected by this kind of violence remains unclear, largely due to a lack of research in this area, cases where children have been abused and killed by their adoptive parents and foster carers are increasingly reported on by media outlets around the world.

A deeply concerning number of fostered children in the UK have reported maltreatment by their foster carers. The latest government figures say that the overall number of child abuse complaints against foster carers rose to 3,010 allegations during 2021 and 2022, an increase of 16% from the year before (2,600 allegations). Of those, 1,965 complaints were made by the children themselves. These numbers are likely to be conservative as we know children are often afraid to speak out for fear of being placed back inside the care system, or angering their carers.

Maltreatment experienced by adoptees is not recorded by governments as a matter of practice, which makes this form of violence much harder to quantify.

The introduction on the EventBrite page says:

“The adoption community is under attack. Today, children are fostered and adopted with the promise of a better life, a second chance at life. Instead they are abused and tortured to death. It’s time we collectively call a state of emergency and come together around this common threat.

First nations around the world have been targeted and removed from their lands. Mass graves of their children have been unearthed. The adoption industry has created a culture in which children are traded as commodities. They are victimized and dehumanized. They are being abused, tortured, and killed.

More and more adopted people are speaking up about these crimes. Yet, this remains a silent killer, the truth is being suppressed. It’s time we come together to protect our children, prevent the murders, and save their lives. Show and speak up at this virtual global town hall.”

The online conference takes place on Saturday, April 13 at at 9am Pacific Time, which is 12pm Eastern Daylight Time, and 5pm British Summer Time.

Anyone wishing to join the conference can do so here.

You can follow Moses’ work on his website here, or connect with Moses on X at @MosesFarrow.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The Latest

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Inquest into death of mum after baby put into foster care
• ‘Disabled’ children cropped out, banned and airbrushed from school photos
• Family lawyers join forces to support neurodivergent community

Hat tip to Social Researcher and PhD student “Aleaiactaest102” on X for the first item.

Photo by Mateus Henrique on Pexels.com

The latest

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Over 100,000 children trapped in family courts
• Belgium’s forced adoption scandal: Victims on lifelong quest for truth
• One in six school-aged children experiences cyberbullying, finds new WHO study

In the news

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Parental alienation expert sanctioned in UK now advising family courts
• Parents create support group to help others facing child contact cases (This service has not been vetted by Researching Reform)
• Family Court Fees to Rise