Vulpix
05-20-2009, 10:15 AM
Social workers 'taking black children away from caring white foster families' (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1184595/The-family-wreckers-Social-workers-attacked-race-rules-rob-foster-children-caring-home.html)
The 'family wreckers': Social workers attacked over race rules that rob foster children of a caring home
By Steve Doughty (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Steve+Doughty)
Last updated at 8:16 AM on 20th May 2009
Social workers were under fire last night after a report revealed they were breaking up foster families because the parents were the wrong colour.
It said official attempts to take mixed-race and black children away from white foster parents are heard 'regularly' in the family courts.
Race rules say they can only be adopted by adults of the same ethnic background. The guidance claims ethnic minority children suffer mental health difficulties if brought up by white parents.
But critics attacked the policy as misguided. Patricia Morgan, an author on adoption and the family, said: 'There is no evidence that children brought up by parents of a different race suffer mental health problems.
'If that was true President Obama would be a danger to us all.'
The U.S. leader was born to a white American mother and an African father.
The research on fostering and race, carried out for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said social workers were 'confused' about why race rules were being used to decide the future of children.
It said they were guided by skin colour, and when they spoke about culture 'they were often referring only to ethnic categorisations'.
The Bristol University researchers said that of 50 ethnic minority children whose adoption cases it followed, only 13 actually found new parents due to the insistence on 'same race placements'.
In one case a nurse offered to adopt an ethnically mixed child with severe disabilities. She was turned down because she could not meet the 'Polish element' in the child's ethnicity. The child remained in state care.
Children who are adopted do much better than children left in the state care system, where most get no school qualifications and go on to lives of unemployment, drug addiction, crime and prostitution. The report is to be published in full later this summer.
Its disclosure comes after last week's row over the state-funded British Association for Adoption and Fostering's guide for gay couples. It referred to opponents of gay adoption as 'retarded homophobes' who 'need an excuse to whinge'. It later apologised.`
BAAF remains one of the greatest advocates of applying race rules to adoption. But the Bristol report said this results in regular attempts at the deliberate destruction of foster families in which parents and children have formed a bond.
In cases followed for the Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children report, the courts found in favour of the foster carers, it said.
It added that the hearings led to 'professional disagreements' and 'disarray' in relationships between local councils and foster parents.
Tory MP Julian Brazier said: 'The problem goes back to adoption law. Some of us warned when the Adoption and Children Act was passed in 2002 that this would happen.'
The Act - which first allowed gay couples to adopt - says that in adoption there must be 'due consideration to the child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background'.
A spokesman for the DCSF said: 'We know that children thrive better if adopted by a family who share their ethnic origin or cultural group, as well as meeting their other needs.'
The 'family wreckers': Social workers attacked over race rules that rob foster children of a caring home
By Steve Doughty (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=y&authornamef=Steve+Doughty)
Last updated at 8:16 AM on 20th May 2009
Social workers were under fire last night after a report revealed they were breaking up foster families because the parents were the wrong colour.
It said official attempts to take mixed-race and black children away from white foster parents are heard 'regularly' in the family courts.
Race rules say they can only be adopted by adults of the same ethnic background. The guidance claims ethnic minority children suffer mental health difficulties if brought up by white parents.
But critics attacked the policy as misguided. Patricia Morgan, an author on adoption and the family, said: 'There is no evidence that children brought up by parents of a different race suffer mental health problems.
'If that was true President Obama would be a danger to us all.'
The U.S. leader was born to a white American mother and an African father.
The research on fostering and race, carried out for the Department for Children, Schools and Families, said social workers were 'confused' about why race rules were being used to decide the future of children.
It said they were guided by skin colour, and when they spoke about culture 'they were often referring only to ethnic categorisations'.
The Bristol University researchers said that of 50 ethnic minority children whose adoption cases it followed, only 13 actually found new parents due to the insistence on 'same race placements'.
In one case a nurse offered to adopt an ethnically mixed child with severe disabilities. She was turned down because she could not meet the 'Polish element' in the child's ethnicity. The child remained in state care.
Children who are adopted do much better than children left in the state care system, where most get no school qualifications and go on to lives of unemployment, drug addiction, crime and prostitution. The report is to be published in full later this summer.
Its disclosure comes after last week's row over the state-funded British Association for Adoption and Fostering's guide for gay couples. It referred to opponents of gay adoption as 'retarded homophobes' who 'need an excuse to whinge'. It later apologised.`
BAAF remains one of the greatest advocates of applying race rules to adoption. But the Bristol report said this results in regular attempts at the deliberate destruction of foster families in which parents and children have formed a bond.
In cases followed for the Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children report, the courts found in favour of the foster carers, it said.
It added that the hearings led to 'professional disagreements' and 'disarray' in relationships between local councils and foster parents.
Tory MP Julian Brazier said: 'The problem goes back to adoption law. Some of us warned when the Adoption and Children Act was passed in 2002 that this would happen.'
The Act - which first allowed gay couples to adopt - says that in adoption there must be 'due consideration to the child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background'.
A spokesman for the DCSF said: 'We know that children thrive better if adopted by a family who share their ethnic origin or cultural group, as well as meeting their other needs.'