First minister, Nicola Sturgeon, announced this ‘root and branch’ review of the care system so that we can get it right for the most vulnerable children and young people in Scotland.
Continue reading “Care Review in Scotland wants to hear from parents and families about care”
My father used to have a game where he would hold up a clenched fist and say, see this hand? Watch this,” and as we watched the hand, he would then bring the other hand up to punch us (gently) on the chin – his message being that it is not the hand being waved in your face you have to watch but the other one coming in with the knock out blow.
The likelihood of an unexpected blow was one lesson he was keen to pass on to us – or to remind himself of. It is one I often forget as I realise I have been watching the wrong fist just before being sideswiped from the other direction.
Continue reading “You’re all missing something very important about the rape clause”
Picture: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC
By Nushra Mansuri, professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers
Watching the harrowing BBC drama series ‘Three Girls’ hit a raw nerve for me. In the late nineties, I worked for a third sector organisation and supported young women and girls who were homeless or in a housing crisis – many of whom were fleeing child sexual exploitation. A lot of the work focused on advocating to children’s social care, housing providers, education, police, health and many other services on their behalf.
Continue reading “The Three Girls drama is a reminder that staying silent is not an option”
Director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services tells you just about everything you need to know about child welfare and foster care in America
Kerry Littleford argues that mothers who have multiple children taken into care need help to stop it happening again.
As she shares her own story, Kerry makes the case for focusing not just on the children who have been taken into care, but the women whose problems haven’t gone away.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
Click below to listen.
Source: Four Thought
Adoption decisions are often made at a very vulnerable stage after giving birth. A recent report from Legal Action for Women also highlighted that mothers on low incomes, those with learning difficulties and teenage mums are particularly vulnerable to having their children adopted.
The voices of birth parents whose children are adopted can go unheard, however. In my case, as a young care leaver who hadn’t yet turned 18, there was seemingly little regard or compassion for what was the most difficult and selfless act I could have taken when trying to decide what was best for my baby.
Continue reading “Much more can be done to support birth parents pre and post-adoption”
It’s been a year since social services closed my case and I still feel shaken by what happened. I was accused of emotionally abusing my daughter. There was no evidence, just opinion and speculation and random quotes about how children whose parents have a mental health condition “could” be affected. Sarah had always been a confident girl who made friends easily but middle school was a shock. Right from the start she was bullied. I spent so much time making phone calls and trips to the school, without success, that it began to take a toll on my health as well. I visited the GP with symptoms of stress and anxiety. Worried about the impact of this on my daughter, I asked social services for help. In three years, we had five different social workers. Maybe I was unlucky but our experience with the first four was not positive. Chloe, the fifth, was different.
Continue reading “‘IF I EVER NEED A SOCIAL WORKER AGAIN, I HOPE IT’S CHLOE’”
In November 2016 Par gave a presentation and Q & A session on Parents rights, advocacy and trauma awareness to 2nd year social work and social science students at Edinburgh University, which was much appreciated and very much valued by the students.
Maggie Mellon asks why we have children and what makes a parent. Drawing on her own experience of motherhood, she looks at how parents face very different situations when they bring a child into the world:
Over 25 years ago, at nearly midnight on 21 December 1989, I had my first child by caesarean section in the Whittington Hospital in north London. I was 36 years old, had a full-time job, nearly a year’s paid maternity leave to look forward to, a three-bedroom house with a garden and just as, if not more, important, a partner who was as happy as I was to become a parent.
