In the grauniad today Tim Loughton bemoaned the lack of children aged over 5 going for adoption. You can see his point, not many Children coming into care after they are toddlers tend not to get adopted. What a good idea, big society, drop the kids off with unsuspecting adopters no more expensive foster and residential care, no more social workers and therapists, just two people struggling to cope with a very damaged young person for no pay, no support, no respite, not even expenses.
By the age of 12, where he feels lots more adopting needs to be done, the child is well established in their network of relationships no matter how inappropriate.. You cannot simply tell them all that didn't happen here are "mummy and daddy" and forget everyone you ever knew.
Adoption is less and less appropriate as the child gets older. There is also the bottom line, looking at the needs of some of the young people we have fostered, anyone who wanted to adopt them would have had to be insane, if they weren't when they applied, it would not have taken long.....
We have coped with and helped some children whose past was dragging them down, we did this because we were paid enough not to have to do other work, we were paid enough to be able to research and develop therapeutic approaches to help young people come to terms with their experiences.
Had we been expected to do all this for nothing whilst holding down a job, something would have had to give.
I know Tim thinks this is the big society and someone should come and look after poor peoples kids for nothing so that he can pay less tax. Sorry Tim it doesn't work like that, this society has levels of inequality that are obscene the inequality is linked to the misery at the bottom of society. Unless you are prepared to share money more evenly Tim you will continue to need to pay the tax.
By the age of 12, where he feels lots more adopting needs to be done, the child is well established in their network of relationships no matter how inappropriate.. You cannot simply tell them all that didn't happen here are "mummy and daddy" and forget everyone you ever knew.
Adoption is less and less appropriate as the child gets older. There is also the bottom line, looking at the needs of some of the young people we have fostered, anyone who wanted to adopt them would have had to be insane, if they weren't when they applied, it would not have taken long.....
We have coped with and helped some children whose past was dragging them down, we did this because we were paid enough not to have to do other work, we were paid enough to be able to research and develop therapeutic approaches to help young people come to terms with their experiences.
Had we been expected to do all this for nothing whilst holding down a job, something would have had to give.
I know Tim thinks this is the big society and someone should come and look after poor peoples kids for nothing so that he can pay less tax. Sorry Tim it doesn't work like that, this society has levels of inequality that are obscene the inequality is linked to the misery at the bottom of society. Unless you are prepared to share money more evenly Tim you will continue to need to pay the tax.
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