The shocking rise of fascism

social worker

I agree Bags. Surely their ability to be good foster parents should be first and foremost. If they were out and out racists then surely they would not have agreed to take the children in the first place. I also don't have much sympathy with UKIP but in this case the social workers were wrong

It sounds as if the kids were doing well too. Poor kids

It sounds as if both the social workers and the "council" – whichever part deals with such matters – are either very ignorant or highly prejudiced or both. I, too, am no supporter of UKIP. I am aware that it has very clear cut and firm policies about immigration. But then shouldn't any political party hoping to be elected to government have policies about things that affect the country, including immigration? Talking about immigration is not the same as racism and, of course, not all immigrants are a different race. (How I hate that term/concept.) I think these foster parents have been fostering for seven years and the three children who have just been removed from their care were an emergency placement. I have no idea if they were immigrants. In their position, I would think quite hard about whether I was willing to continue fostering after this appalling humiliation.

What next? Will councils start choosing foster parents on the basis of their choice of reading matter, or star sign?
Of course many of us do not like the policies of UKIP but it is not an illegal organisation and there is no evidence that these foster parents were imposing their views on the children, or allowing them to colour their treatment of them.

I have just seen this woman on TV and she put a plausible case - but she's too damn sure she's right!
- and it seems to have been only her decision, surely other opinions should have been sought?

Whatever else UKIP is, they have stated that they are not racist but want controlled immigration - that is if you believe everything Nigel Farrage says - and have a black candidate in the forthcoming by-election. They are also against multi-culturalism which apparently the social workers interpreted as racism

She said UKIP does not like European people and wants them all out of the country. And the British are American/Australian/Asian/African/European? (Delete where inapplicable.) UKIP wants to leave the European Union – so, according to recent polls do nearly 50% of the country and a large number of current MPs.

I don't think Nigel Farage is a liar or as much of a liar as some politicians, but I do think he is a misogynist (women should be cleaning behind the fridge) and a plonker.

Thousands of mixed race children have been left to languish in the misnamed care system because social workers insisted they had to be placed with adoptive or foster parents with the same ethnic background. Apart from the fact that there are proportionally less people from ethnic minorities offering themselves for selection, some children have very confused ethnic backgrounds - for example, has any social worker met a person of Russian/African/Turkish descent offering themselves as adopters - I taught a girl of such a racial mix, who had been in care for most of her life.

I am not sure that the council workers know what is meant by multiculturalism, but if it means teaching children in their 'own' language I am also opposed to it. The ability to speak, read and understand English is essential for children who are going to be living and working in Britain. I am also opposed to racially-segregated schools, which are usually defended on religious grounds. We have seen what that has achieved in Northern Ireland.
Of course immigrants can happily meet up in social clubs, as the Polish community has demonstrated, and parents can arrange religious, language and cultural education outside of the national school system but I do not believe it is sensible to encourage 'separate development'.

Greatnan couldn't agree with you more.

I'm surprised that anyone found the 'Strategic Manager' from Rotherham at all convincing. I heard her on Today. She said UKIP's policy is against multiculturalism but that wasn't why the children had been removed. It was an 'emergency placement' and the children were never expected to stay there long term. Of course they didn't ask foster parents about their political views, that usually emerged during discussion. Her priority had to be the ethnic and cultural needs of the children. Makes one weep.

She wasn't convincing. I should have said 'a theoretically plausible case'?

I agree Lilygran she was a very poor interviewee on the radio.

What was interesting though, she said that a judge (don't know if the judge in this case) had previously criticized social services for not taking into account ethnic and cultural needs of children.

Social workers seem to get it in the neck no matter what they do.

This was clearly a messup on the part of Rotherham Borough Council. Children should never be removed from carers without preparation unless they are at immediate risk of harm. Even if this was a temporary placement I would have expected there to be a planned transfer to different carers. The fact that one child was moved first and the other two several days later suggests that they may have been moved to different placements - I sincerely hope not as that would only compound the damage. I'm sure there will be a full investigation as the council have been embarrassed in the press. I would not want to be Joyce Thacker today.

Assessment of prospective foster carers is an extremely through process and involves discussion of their views on almost everything you can imagine. This of course includes racism and multiculturalism. It doesn't matter whether the family intend to foster children from a different ethnicity from their own, the fact is we live in a multi-ethnic and multicultural society and we need foster carers to produce future citizens who are tolerant and open in their views. This couple's views should have been well known and well documented. In addition, as well as the children having a social worker the foster carers would have their own supervising social worker whose role is to offer ongoing support and ongoing assessment of their progress and training needs. I am not at all clear where this person fitted into the decision making here. I am very glad to see that BASW (British Association of Social Workers) have come out and spoken against this action.

Greatnan in 30+ years as a social worker I have never seen any evidence that children are left to languish in the care system because a perfect ethnic match cannot be found. This is only one aspect of the matching process and although an appropriate match would be preferred, children are placed with carers from a different background if the match is good in all other ways. The only reason this attracts such good headlines (and soundbites from politicians) is because it diverts attention from the real problems of insufficient resources at all levels. Let's not forget that the emphasis on having children placed with carers from a similar racial and cultural background came from lessons learnt the hard way; from children placed with well-meaning white carers who sometimes grew up feeling confused and disconnected. Society has moved on enormously since then, and social work is trying its best to move on as well. We don't always get it right, but we don't always get it wrong either. This seems to have been a stupid decision but it is not representative of the good work that goes on every day.

Thank you Riverwalk.

It does sound as though the social workers were on the run from the judge in this case. I'm not surprised. If you think the media view of social workers is bad, you should try being a social worker presenting your case in court!

Inevitably, this will lead to all sorts of criticisms of social workers in general when, presumably, this issue is confined to one person/team/council. As usual.

Social Workers have not been insisting for the past decade or so that children are placed with carers of the same ethnic background......Social Workers have been following central government guidelines that this should be the case. The current government is changing the guidelines so that this particular placing criteria no longer has to be prioritised.

The bottom line is of course - are these loving and suitable foster parents? My personal opinion of UKIP is that it ranks only slightly above the BNP, but my opinion is completely irrelevant as should be the politics of the foster family in question.I fear this is yet another case of political dogma instead of common sense and I find it indefensible.

I have a friend, a black woman who's birth parents were from Sierra Leone, they came here as students when she was very young and then returned there for a number of years, leaving my friend in the care of white foster parents in Essex. When she was about 12 her parents came back to England to reclaim their daughter. My friend kicked up merry hell as by this time she had been with her foster parents for most of her childhood. I don't know the full ins and outs of the matter, but the final upshot was that she was allowed to stay with the foster parents who later adopted her and her natural parents returned to Africa without her and I believe that was the last she had contact with them. She married one of my husband's friends which is how I met her anyway and I know that she told her husband that she regards her adoptive parents as her true mother and father and feels that her natural family abandoned her, she also has said that she has no interest in her roots in Africa whatsoever. Her husband is white and English as are most of her friends, she even opened and ran a traditional tea shop with a friend for a while. She has made no bones about the fact that she loved her now deceased white parents dearly and has virtually no memory of the African parents who gave her up, albeit temporarily for about 10 years or so before showing any interest in getting her back. So what I'm saying is she is about as English as she could possibly be in her lifestyle, attitudes, memories, everything. She is now a woman in her 50s, I often wonder what her life would have been like if this had all played out more recently as it now seems imperative to the powers that be that children of different cultures should be in touch with their roots, but what if, like my friend they have no desire to do this and are quite happy with their lives in their adopted country, surely their personal happiness should come first.

These private fostering arrangements were not unusual I suspect.
I used to have a lot to do with social worker students and they did seem, in that particular university, to spend a huge proportion of their course on race related issues (this was 20 yrs ago) - I was always surprised that they did so little child psychology in comparison - attachment formation and that kind of thing. Sociologists seemed to dominate the design of that particular training course. But this may not reflect all of them.
I did once meet someone who seemed to have suffered to some extent from being a black girl, fostered by a white family in a white area. She was in her 20s and her identity seemed to be white. Her black and mixed race colleagues used to point out to her that other people didn't see her as white. Complicated. It left me thinking that perhaps fostering of black children into areas where there were no other black or mixed race children was a bad idea. But if you are in a city these days, there wont be many all-white schools!!!!

I believe it is not uncommon for people who have been adopted to feel some alienation, particularly if they are not told right from the start so it is not surprising that some cross-racial adoptees are unhappy.
I do hope that the care system is improving, but I have read the statistics about the number of 'cared for' (horrible phrase) children who end up in prison, on drugs, homeless, working as prostitutes, etc. or who are abused n some way whilst in care. No doubt some come into care already very damaged, but surely that just means they need even better care. We have all read about children who are shipped off to children's homes or foster homes hundreds of miles away from their extended family, or others who move as much as ten times in as many years.
I am not blaming the social workers, who, no doubt, do their best for all the children they meet, but something has very clearly been wrong for many years and I don't think we can just pretend that everything is right. Care is expensive unless it is given by the family and the amount a country spends on it is a fair indication of its level of civilisation.

Absolutely agree with that Greatnan. The care system is a shambles. I have seen it through many incarnations but I am not at all convinced the one we now have is an improvement on the one we had in the late 1970s. No more large institutions within which children are abused, but instead we have small private homes where children are not protected from those who target them from outside. Fostering has improved dramatically, but on the whole it's all very depressing. I still believe more preventive work to keep families together is the key, but that costs money.

It is reported that the children have been 'split up' from their siblings and I am sorry to say I find that totally upsetting and under the circumstances a disgraceful decision for adaults to make.How are they better off, can someone enlighten me please.

Is it wrong of me to question if in fact it is the Council who are displaying signs of racismin this particular case?.

I wish I knew why the children are in care and why the authorities cannot find their family in their country of origin. Surely they could possibly be better off if reunited with family rather than suffer at the hands of the British care system.

There is a lot of debate to be had on this matter that's for sure.