Frontline, The Care Review and the lost decade …..

July 11, 2021UncategorizedChildrens Social Care Review, Frontlinedianegalpin

A decade on from the creation of Frontline and the final conclusions of the Children’s Social Care Review some individuals careers have soared, riches have been enhanced, power, privilege & elite status have been grasped, bright futures are in clear sight… but alas not for those children and families at the centre of this continuing social work saga.

In October 2012 an early career teacher in his mid 20’s decided he was going to change the future of social work with children and families. So Josh MacAlister approached Ark Ventures, a global charity set up in 2002 by hedge fund managers, seeking support to develop a new programme of social work education based on a fast track teacher leadership training programme he himself had qualified through called Teach First.

Ark responded by providing £200,000 in seed capital so a business plan for Government funding could be submitted by MacAlister to start up Frontline. Support in developing the business plan was provided by BCG (Boston Consulting Group the 2nd largest American consultancy in the world). ‘The business plan was submitted in just four months, and used to secure over £15m of government and philanthropic investment to launch the venture’ (Ark Ventures).

A decision by Israel’s supreme court Sunday paved the way for same-sex couples to have children through surrogacy, capping a decade-old legal battle in what activist groups hailed as a major advance for LGBTQ rights in Israel.

Restrictions on surrogacy for same-sex couples and single fathers in Israel must be lifted within six months, the court ruled, giving authorities time to prepare for the change while making clear that it is a definitive one.

“We won! And now it’s final,” the petitioners said in a statement, the Times of Israel reported. “This is a big step toward equality, not only for LGBT in Israel, but for everyone in Israel.”

Surrogacy was already permitted for heterosexual couples and single women. The law excluded same-sex couples, however, and some who couldn’t have kids with surrogate mothers in Israel turned to surrogates overseas.

Advertisement

MADURAI: As of July 8, 295 children are missing in the State. The number would have been 297 had the two toddlers sold into illegal adoption by an NGO in Madurai not been rescued. The incident raises several questions over the effectiveness of existing systems to ensure the safety of abandoned women and children in the State.

The Madurai incident came to light after a one-year-old boy, who was under the care of one Idhayam Trust, was claimed to have died of Covid at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH). An investigation, however, revealed that he, along with another toddler, was sold to illegal adoption by the chief executive director of the trust, GR Sivakumar, and his accomplices.

It turned out that the NGO, which had been recognised with several State awards and worked closely with the police for over ten years, used the ‘trust’ of the public to pursue unscrupulous activities. Notably, the same NGO had been allocated a building by the Madurai Corporation less than a year ago to look after the destitute rescued during the lockdown. Soon after the aforementioned incident, three more children were rescued in similar cases of illegal adoption near Jaihindpuram in Madurai.

Subsequently, all NGO-run Homes in the district were inspected by the District Social Welfare Department following an order by Collector S Aneesh Sekhar. Madurai also has two Central government-aided Homes and one State government-aided Home.

According to District Social Welfare Officer, Helen Rose, around 20 of the 39 Homes in Madurai were functioning without registration. “They have been told to register with the department soon. This apart, registration process is underway for 5 Homes. Eleven have renewed their licenses. While one Home was shut down by the district administration, two others did so themselves,” she said.

Adopted children commonly face mental trauma with new families. Adjusting to a new environment, being surrounded by strangers and so many questions lashed out on them about families or past experiences place them into a difficult situation. Besides a happy beginning, a safe and secure grounding with a healthy caregiver is needed most. Their brains won’t stop thinking with one time comfort been provided by you. They’ll test you so many times in various ways. And this can cause big trouble to the adoptive families too.

An open-minded family, along with more group support, can help reduce such problems by acknowledging and addressing them without passing judgment on the child.

The adoption process in general is a tiresome journey. Parents go through many troubles to adopt a child. Hence, their openness and resilience can accommodate the mental issues being faced by the adopted children.

Psychiatrists suggest parents to pay attention to the behavioural part of their children. They say parents often ignore such incidents and on a later course regret not addressing them at the right moment. But mostly they never understand what was the area of focusing. In most cases, adoptive parents do not notice such events until a specialist points them out.

Seeking expert help to nurture a healthy relationship with your child is no shame. When you see anything different in your kid’s behaviour you can always visit a doctor. Explain your areas of concern and changes you’ve noticed so far. The first place is always the family doctor, and seek help from a paediatrician if they are not sure of the condition. He will assess your children and if needed refer you to specialists like a psychiatrist.

MADURAI: The recent incident of child trafficking and illegal adoption through a city-based NGO, Idhayam Trust, has put the highlight on the need to educate society against stigmatising childless couples and sensitise it to the nitty-gritty of legal adoption system.

“A family is not complete without a child,” *Rani and *Rajan are told repeatedly by those around them. Having been childless for over a decade, the couple found themselves at the receiving end of heartless stigmatisation, isolation, and humiliation, most of it directed at Rani.

“We were treated a failure by our family members. We were ridiculed during social gatherings and ostracised from family functions. My in-laws called me maladi and said they would get rid of me and make my husband marry a ‘fertile’ woman. My husband was supportive, but I lived with the insecurity for years until we moved out and cut ties with our families,” said Rani.

For Rajan, the harassment was centred on social status. “My colleagues and elders from the family told me that I would need a child to look after us in our old age and to perform my last rites. When others discussed schools and future plans of their children, I would be ridiculed and ignored,” said Rajan.

The case of Rani and Rajan is not an isolated one; almost all childless couples come across such situations. Many of these couples have already applied for adoption. As for Rani and Rajan, they are waiting for a call from the government for the past three and a half year now.

OPINION: There’s an unfathomable quality about TV programmes such as Long Lost Family, or its antipodean cousin, David Lomas’ Lost and Found. The narratives are heartbreakingly familiar: a child adopted out to loving parents enjoys a happy childhood, only to discover in later life that a piece of the “who am I” puzzle is missing. There’s a void in their identity, which the programme naturally manages to fill.

Redemption makes for top-rating telly that’s guaranteed to shed a tear among the voyeuristic like you and me. What these programmes blithely ignore is that, for the approximately 80,000 people who’ve been adopted between 1955-85, the state has engaged in sanctioned child-trafficking that redistributed children from single mothers to couples who couldn’t have children, claiming the birth mothers had a choice – when they didn’t.

Now finally, the most antiquated of the three pieces of legislation surrounding adoption, the 1955 Adoption Act, is under review.

The Ministry of Justice has released a discussion paper “Adoption in Aotearoa New Zealand”, reviewing the act. It’s seeking submissions on six key issues: what is adoption and who is involved; cultural aspects of adoption, including wh?ngai? or atawhai; how the adoption process works in New Zealand and offshore; the impacts of adoption; and the adoption process for a surrogate child.

READ MORE:

This article is the seventh in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children they had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. ? ED.

By Lee Kyung-eun

gettyimagesbank

From early 2000, Korea witnessed the permanent return of children it had once sent to the U.S. for adoption. Unlike adoptees visiting on motherland tours, these individuals had been deported by the U.S. after committing petty crimes. Despite having grown up in the U.S., they had never acquired American citizenship and therefore were regarded as foreign criminals since their Korean nationality remained intact.

These cases have had tragic consequences. In 2011, Philip Clay, born Kim Sang-pil in the 1970s, suffered such a fate. Like the other deportees, his adoption was never finalized, and he failed to acquire U.S. citizenship. After a long struggle to adjust to Korea, he committed suicide in 2017. While Clay had Korean citizenship, his adoption should have guaranteed him U.S. nationality. Adoption is meant to serve as a permanent and secure solution for children deprived of parental care, and becoming a national of the receiving country represents a fundamental basis for achieving such security.

'Adopted' woman, 56, reveals horror at learning her parents illegally BOUGHT her from a Georgia baby trafficker - after spending 13 years searching for answers about her birth mom

Jane Blasio, 56, from Akron, Ohio, was one of the hundreds of babies who were trafficked out of Dr. Thomas J. Hicks's clinic in McCaysville, Georgia

From the 1940s through the 1960s, the small-town doctor sold more than 200 newborns to out-of-state couples, many of which hailed from the Akron area

Blasio was told she was adopted when she was six, but it wasn't until she was a teenager that she the discrepancies on her birth certificate

Her mother, Joan, and father, Jim, were illegally named as her birth parents on the document, which also listed the Hicks Clinic

Jane Blasio went looking for her biological parents and uncovered a shocking scandal — she was one of hundreds of infants illegally sold in the 1950s and 1960s from a clinic in Georgia

Six-year-old Jane Blasio was playing in her backyard one afternoon when her life was upended. Her father, Jim, asked her to come indoors because he wanted to tell her something.

The Akron, Ohio resident ran inside to find Jim puffing on a cigarette.

"We have something to tell you and it may be hard for you to understand," he said to Blasio and her sister Michelle, 11, who sat at the kitchen table.

As he fumbled for his words, Joan, the girls' mother, announced, "You two were adopted. Do you know what that means?"

ZEVENAAR - Sam van den Haak from Zevenaar, born in Sri Lanka, is suing the Dutch state. She was adopted in 1984, under false pretenses. “When I saw my adoption file, I was in shock.”

Together with twenty other adopted children, Van den Haak will send a letter to the Dutch state this week. Their adoption papers are forged, that is the conclusion of the Joustra Committee. The adoptions have caused them a lot of damage and they want to be compensated for that.

The date of birth in her passport is certainly not the day she was born, Sam learned from her Sri Lankan grandmother. To top it off, the date of birth in her passport is not the same one listed in her adoption file. "I feel sold and bought", says Sam.

She is working on a book about her life. Not born on my birthday, is the working title. "I think it is important that my story is told," says Sam She will be 40 in December of this year. Although, according to her passport, she celebrated her birthday earlier this month. "Future adoptive parents should learn from the mistakes made in the past. And I want my real date of birth in my passport."

How is it possible that these people passed the screening for adoption?