General News Discussion

[Ed209]

Rembering of course what happened to the social services in the Baby P case.

[eFestivals]

I don't think membership has the power to effect them at all. Its the the people who have the impact and its the people and not some membership that should concern us.

At very best, those people have shown sympathies for views which will negatively impact onto the kids.

Whether they are actually sympathetic to those views or not, just their formal association with an organisation which has those views will itself negatively impact onto the kids.

Those views and those non-British kids are in conflict, which increases the risk of harm (mental or physical) to those kids.

[eFestivals]

I understand and appreciate the arguments, but the Baby P case bears zero resemblance to any of this.

with the case details, you're right.

But it's definitely impacted onto how child care workers choose to act now tho - the massive increase in kids being taken into care shows that. Where benefit of the doubt might have been given before, it's not now.

[eFestivals]

Bullshit. Thats just you joining dots badly. Like all ways...

they are members of a party where one of it's two main policies is anti-immigration and anti-multiculturalism.

It might be the case that they have zero sympathies for those views, but to think that no possibility of 'guilt by association' should ever be deferred on them is beyond rational.

It might have passed you by Barry, but we - all of us - are what we choose to do. And they have chosen to associate themselves with a party who has views which will negatively impact onto those children.

[hot_ice]

with the case details, you're right.

But it's definitely impacted onto how child care workers choose to act now tho - the massive increase in kids being taken into care shows that. Where benefit of the doubt might have been given before, it's not now.

Edited December 3, 2012 by hot_ice

[TalkShow Bob]

The reasoning for the removal seemed entirely based on the UKIP membership. If it wasn't for that membership they would not have been removed it would seem. Read it again.

[zahidf]

I would investigate without delay and base my judgement on that investigation.

[TalkShow Bob]

I do suggest you re-read it because that bolded bit is at odds with the rest of the article.

[hot_ice]

Yup... Would seem so.... and its what the public demand when it goes wrong.... and then cries when they take action like this... So I see SS problem here...

But being professional is sometimes about standing firm and not being pushed by the public / press in this way.

Edited December 3, 2012 by hot_ice

[hot_ice]

I don't think that justifies making the wrong calls though....

[zahidf]

I would suggest if the basis for the concern is nothing more than UKIP membership, the children had been there with no issues for eight weeks, and the foster parents had years of glowing service...

1, Its a very strong statement to suggest the children's lives where truly at risk

2, SS couldn't of taken a couple of hours to speak to the parents and make a sensible judgement based on something more than UKIP membership.

I think there needs to be a bit more of a grown up and sensible attitude here than the one you are pushing.

[eFestivals]

But there is a flip... As the number of potential foster careers / people there for adoption is narrowed, this means more kids are kept in state care homes. There track record is scary bad as well...

what you've missed from that is that, despite the record of care homes, no care worker will ever be criticised for moving a child into one from a foster home where there is a percieved risk. For circumstances like these, a council childrens home will be considered 100% safe.

I am not talking about the public, I am asking you for your thoughts on how you think it should be.

I think that what you are missing is that there is not only the reality of how each part works within the care system, there is also the theory of how its meant to work and how that theory impacts onto other parts of the system.

For example, I'm sure that we all know that what we hear of the reality of council childrens homes is that they are meant to be pretty dreadful places (I don't know for myself that they are, but I accept that's very probably true).

But in theory they are meant to be absolute places of safety for a child at risk. The council runs them and they have that remit for them, so that's what they are in theory.

It gets to mean that a care worker can make a decision to remove foster kids from a foster couple because there's a perception of risk of harm, and take them to a place which is supposedly 100% safe (if it turns out that the care home is not safe, that's not that care worker's responsibility).

It's pretty hard to work a system which is about removing kids out of harm's way if there's not a presumption that some places are safe. For the system as it works in the UK, that place is those childrens' homes.

I am not talking about the public, I am asking you for your thoughts on how you think it should be.

The system has got to where it as a result of public pressure each time a case hits the headlines.

I feel I get why it's got there, and what that brings about in exceptional and unusual cases - and I feel they're an acceptable consequence of how the system is. It's not possible to pre-empt with questions every possible set of circumstances, and the public wouldn't find more-intrusive questioning in advance any more palatable than it does this UKIP foster parents case which has arisen because of too few questions.

If I tried to design a childrens care system I doubt it would look like it does, but I don't think i'm qualified to say that what we have is wrong when it's been arrived at via what's happened to children when known risks have been ignored. One safe kid is better than a hundred million "it'll be alright, I'm sure" and a dead kid.

[TalkShow Bob]

Isn't that referring to the UKIP membership you said it wasn't based on ?

I think its not the re-reading you need to do but improve you analysis of the artitctle.

And also, why should SS be putting value into the concerns of a birth parent who just had the children taking away... Sounds a tad crazy to me.

[zahidf]

I didn't say I see no problem... I said its not a reason in itself to take that decision based on nothing more.

You seem to sign up to the idea that SS are always to blame when it goes wrong. That someone always have to be blamed. Not sure about that.

The people to blame are the bastards who do horrible things. The ones we send to prison.

If SS are worth their salt you would of imagined they would have ways to find out if people are too much of a risk (everyone is a risk at some level) over and above something like membership of a political party.

Edited December 3, 2012 by zahidf

[eFestivals]

Guilt by association is something I said much earlier in this debate.

If we go down this route anyone of pretty much any faith would be banned from fostering no matter what their personal feelings are on certain subjects.

I would imagine being a member of the conservative party would put you at risk as well.

And how far do you go ?

Church attendance once a month ? or does it have to be more ?

Going to the church bake sale ?

Pint at the conversative club

How far you go is made clear by this case - when it has a direct impact onto the kids being cared for.

So that means that nearly every one of your fantasy scenarios doesn't exist, or only exists around a particular set of circumstances.

This kids have a right to their ethnicity, to everything about it. They shouldn't be put at risk of thinking it somehow made them inferior as a consequence of who they have been placed with.

Even if the couple have no interest in immigration and anti-multicultural issues themselves, the UKIP literature they receive because they're members will certainly refer to it, and will be in the house with the kids, and the kids will know that the foster couple associate with UKIP. It has the ability to raise all sorts of fears in those particular children, because they're immigrants, and with very strong cultural traits (more so than most other white Europeans).

Nothing of the same exists if the children are white British and placed with those UKIP members. The white British kids can be influenced by those UKIP views of course, but those UKIP views do not directly impact onto those children (because they're not directly effected by them).

I can't see anything which is official Tory policy that impacts in anything like the same way as happens with this particular UKIP case. They don't have policies which directly impact onto everything which any child might be, in the way that UKIP's anti-immigration / anti-multicultralism does onto an immigrant.

[zahidf]

You might homophobic opinions for example. Join the dots.

[eFestivals]

Do you need a 10 month investigation to explore someones political views and how they might impact a child ?

do you need 100 more pages to a discussions thread before you're able to accept that there's legitimate reasons for thinking their political views might negatively impact a child?

Because so far you've not even accepted the possibility, which doesn't put you in a good place for analysing any decisions which might come off the back of that.

[feral chile]

They're not saying these foster parents are unfit to foster, though, are they? They're just saying that these particular children are not a good placement for them to have.

I'm assuming that the foster parents themselves aren't racist though, as wouldn't they have objected to fostering the children in the first place if they were?

[eFestivals]

Yeah... Point 1 and 3 seemed to come back to the UKIP issue...

yep - that's because there's no getting away from the *fact* that UKIP's official views impact negatively onto these particular children!!!

It cannot be removed from the situation, even if those particular foster carers don't agree with UKIP's anti-immigration/anti-multicultural views, because that couple are still associated with UKIP.

[thetime]

So will's and kate are expecting there first child, if its a girl the equality issue will be interesting.

[eFestivals]

I have accepted there is an extremely small possibility in some peoples minds...

That's progression.

Nowhere near enough for them to just take them though.. To investigate yes...

PMSL.

You do know how funny it is for you to say it's so very wrong for the council to presume risk when you are presuming no-risk while knowing far less about the case, right?

[eFestivals]

So will's and kate are expecting there first child, if its a girl the equality issue will be interesting.

have they not got around to sorting it yet? oh dear. ;lol:

They've been saying for years that it was important to do before there was a child it might effect, but that there wasn't any rush.

Oh FFS .... the poor little darling has been hospitalised with morning sickness.

Someone give her a good meal, she looks like she needs it.

[Ed209]

So will's and kate are expecting there first child, if its a girl the equality issue will be interesting.

[Guest]

They're not saying these foster parents are unfit to foster, though, are they? They're just saying that these particular children are not a good placement for them to have.

I'm assuming that the foster parents themselves aren't racist though, as wouldn't they have objected to fostering the children in the first place if they were?

[Ed209]

It was done last year

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2054467/UK-royal-succession-laws-Commonwealth-agrees-historic-change-sex-equality.html