OT - Adoption
There's quite a big debate raging here in the UK at the moment about at what stage in a truly disfunctional family should children be taken away permanently and put up for adoption.
The focus at the moment from social services et al is that children should stay with their birth family for as long as possible, and support can be put in place to help this.
However, the CEO of a big children's charity has said that he thinks children should be put up for adoption earlier, as before their 2nd birthday there is a far smaller chance of psychological damage.
I'm not sure where I stand on this - partly I think that if you're putting the welfare of the child first, then yes, adoption when very young is better than years of neglect and/or abuse (also, less people want to adopt a 5 year old who has problems)
However, the danger is that it becomes too easy to just take a child away from it's birth family - what about the addict who does manage to get clean etc? Also, presumably once a child is taken away for adoption then all the support stops, so the cycle is likely to be repeated with another child they have later.
What you you guys think?
- Storm76's blog
- Log in or register to post comments
Comments
What defines disfunctional
What defines disfunctional and who gets the authority to say what is disfunctional or not? That is what bothers me. The definition of disfunctional is: Abnormal or impaired functioning, especially of a bodily system or social group. This is such a broad area, and I would seriously have a problem with the government stepping in telling me and my family what they consider to be disfunctional.
What they're talking about
What they're talking about here is families where the child ends up being taken away & put up for adoption or fostering later on. This includes families where there are substance misuse issues, maybe some neglect etc.
Ahhh, from the way I
Ahhh, from the way I interpreted, abuse would be considered above and beyond disfunctional. From my understanding, when abuse in children is identified the children do get taken out of the situation.
So is disfunctional strictly relative to substance abuse?
___________________________________________________________________________
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
It's not just substance
It's not just substance misuse, but where the state has to intervene to offer a high level of support to the family to get by. So this could be where someone is not parenting well at all, where there could be mental health issues that mean the child isn't getting all the support they need etc.
My main problem is that many of the issues a family might face aren't necessarily permanent - someone can conquer an addiction, learn how to parent more effectively, get over a mental illness etc but then this has to be weighed up against the welfare of the child - if a child spend it's first 5 years of life with say an alcoholic parent, is it better to take them away when they're a year old or leave them with a parent who may sort themselves out later?