Journalist Chris Rogers pens 'semi-autobiographical' book

14 Apr 2010

Undercover, a new book by ITN reporter Chris Rogers, is based on the journalist's reports of conditions in Romanian and Turkish orphanages.

Former Newsround presenter Chris Rogers' has published a new book, Undercover, which explores the conditions in Turkish and Romanian orphanages.

Rogers' reports helped uncover examples of severe neglect and cruelty and he said the process of writing the book was "like therapy" after memories began affecting his personal life, the Elmbridge Guardian reports.

'Stalinist' social workers 'took children from loving mothers' By LAURA CLARK and PAUL BENTLEY Last updated at 8:34 AM on 13th April 2010 Comments (51) Add to My Stories Social workers behaved like officials in 'Stalin's Russia or Mao's China' in attempting to remove children from loving mothers, senior judges have said. They warned that social workers in two separate cases tried to put children in foster care without giving their mothers a proper chance to prove they were fit parents. Their actions risked fuelling public perceptions that social workers are 'arrogant and enthusiastic removers of children from their parents', Lord Justice Wall said. Battle: The couple with their son in Spain, before he was taken into care, have won the right to battle the decision for their eldest daughter to be adopted In one case, Devon County Council was attempting to remove a baby from his teenage mother because social workers believed she had a habit of forming relationships with dangerous men. But Lord Justice Aikens warned that social workers were effectively saying to the mother: 'Whatever you may do doesn't make any difference - we are going to take your child away.' He added: 'That is more like Stalin's Russia or Mao's China than the West of England - that is the impression you give.' In a separate case, Lord Justice Wall criticised the 'shocking' failure of social workers in the London borough of Greenwich to support a mother seeking to break free from an abusive relationship to win back her two children, who are in care. He said the case would do little to dispel the public perception of social workers in care proceedings as 'trampling on the rights of parents and children' while removing youngsters into 'an unsatisfactory care system'. The judge, who will today be sworn in as president of the High Court's Family Division, becoming the most senior family law judge in the UK, acknowledged that social workers were often 'damned if they do and damned if they do not'. But he insisted they had a clear legal duty to 'unite families rather than separate them'. His criticisms will feed public fears that social workers, in extreme cases, behave like 'child-snatchers'. There are concerns they sometimes break up families too readily and can be prejudiced against parents for frivolous reasons. In the Devon case, social workers believed a teenage mother, known in court as S, was unfit to care for her baby boy, H, because of her tendency to form relationships quickly with potentially dangerous men. Social workers said the father of her first child had been violent and the youngster had already been adopted. They argued that her new baby should also be placed in foster care and eventually adopted. But a county court had previously ruled the mother should be allowed a final assessment to see if she was fit to keep the baby. The council disagreed and went to the Court of Appeal last week seeking to overturn the directive. But Lord Justice Wall, sitting with Lord Justice Aikens, described Devon's argument as 'pretty unattractive'. 'Local authorities don't seem to understand that the public perceive them as pre-judging cases of this nature,' he said. The judges stopped short of saying the mother should keep her child, insisting only she should be given a fair hearing. Lord Justice Aikens said there was no evidence the mother had maltreated her baby in any way - or evidence that the violent father of her first child would have anything to do with baby H. He went on to condemn social workers' 'Stalinist' actions. The council has now withdrawn its appeal. A council spokesman said: 'This is a difficult and complex case in which the county council's first priority had to be for the welfare and protection of a vulnerable child.' In the Greenwich case, a mother known only as EH was seeking the return of her five-year-old son, R, and daughter RA, two. They had been taken into care in January 2008 after doctors discovered her daughter's left upper arm had been broken in three places. Medical staff believed it was not accidental and a judge later that year concluded the children's father, who had a history of violence, was responsible. Since June last year, the father had stopped having contact with the children, while the mother remained 'steadfast in her commitment' to them, the judges said. There was 'abundant evidence that she is a warm and loving mother'. But social workers in Greenwich were accused of failing to support her attempts to break contact with her violent ex-partner. Lord Justice Wall said the conduct of social services was 'hard to credit'. The court said Greenwich should give the mother more support and review its attempt to have the children adopted. The two cases will further rock public confidence in social services following the Baby P scandal, where social workers failed to spot signs of serious abuse and allowed themselves to be manipulated by unfit parents.

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Re: Adoptie Bolivia

Gepost door: Esther ()

Datum: 13 april 2010 19:49

Hallo Marian,

Wij hebben 2 maanden geleden ofzo gebeld. Toen bleek Sri Lanka al dicht te zijn. Wij hebben ze toen ook al gewezen op de onjuistheid op hun site. Inmiddels is er dus nog niets

High Court reserves order on Haynes plea in adoption case

Webmagazine, maandag 12 april 2010 9:30

Aantal adoptiekinderen bijna gehalveerd

In de afgelopen jaren zijn in Nederland minder kinderen geadopteerd. Het aantal adopties is tussen 2004 en 2008 bijna gehalveerd. Dit komt vooral door een kleiner aantal adoptiekinderen uit China.

800 kinderen geadopteerd in 2008

In 1995 werden in Nederland ruim 700 kinderen geadopteerd. Vervolgens is het aantal adoptiekinderen gestegen tot 1 370 in 2004. Daarna is dit aantal weer afgenomen. In 2008 ging het om bijna 800 kinderen.

Baby dearth snags adoption

KANTIPUR REPORT

KATHMANDU, APR 12 - Despite government measures to make inter-country adoption foolproof and hassle-free, the prospective adoptive parents are unlikely to get the children of their choice if the present situation persists.

The Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) is facing shortage of children who are eligible for inter-country adoption. As a result, adoptive American parents, who have submitted applications seeking babies of their choice, will probably have to return empty-handed.

The problem occurred after most adoptive American parents, who make a large chunk of adoptive foreign parents, sought little Nepali children.

Mother, 62, gives birth to twin girls

A woman aged 62 has given birth to twins thanks to IVF – after being told she was too old to adopt.

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The twins, Merry and Jacqueline, were born prematurely

They are believed to be healthy

IT started with a trip meeting wealthy kids around the United States and Canada.

After a year there, Lars Olsen decided he wanted to experience “the opposite”.

He chose Nepal.

The decision to volunteer for five months in 2004 set him on the unexpected path to the 2008 Suncorp Young Queensland of the Year.

“I witnessed a lot of corruption while I was over there and I wanted to do something,” he said.