UKIP members 'unsuitable' to foster ethnic children

Didn't do UKIP any harm in the recent by-elections, this story, did it.

If someone is an active member of UKIP one has to assume they are in sympathy with its philosphies. These children come from a culture which they profess to want to ban from the country.
To me that does not sound like a really suitable place for those children. I cannot believe that sooner or later the FPs political views and feelings would not "leak out" in a manner which would show in their attitudes to the children.

How can they promote these children's cultural values if they are claiming as UKIP members they are against "these people" coming into the country.

These carers would not have been suitable in the long term but it was only ever going to be a short term placement. With that in mind I still do not feel there was any justification for removing them with no preparation and worst of all, separating them. I am fairly sure they have been moved to other short term placements and will face further moves in the future. I am also fairly sure that the decision was made in order to avoid further criticism from the judge when the case returns to court. If that is the case it was not a child centred decision. These are my views from reading between the lines and knowing how the process works.

That DM story is full of exagerations and prejudices and doesn't acknowledge genuine concern about the safety and wellbeing of these children. Living in rodent-infested houses and wandering round streets alone in the early hours of the morning is no way to take care of a child, and is not a cultural issue - it's a child protection issue. These journalists are the same ones who criticised the McCanns for going across the road to have a meal with friends and leaving the children in bed. They can't have it both ways.

I totally agree with Whenim64. I'm sure the UKIP thing was just one of many points taken into consideration when making the decision. We have several friends who have adopted children from very different cultures, and all of them say that the issue of 'identity' is very complex and can cause real crisis when kids become teenagers. Some friends of our in the Paris region adopted a Brazilian child when a baby, for instance. At first, they believed that all the child needed was love and security, but as the child became more and more rebellious and unhappy in his early teenage years, they realised how he suffered from an identity crisis. They are middle-class and live in a lovely Paris suburb- where the youngster found himself to be the only black kid, and it did unsettle him. He began to love Brazilian music and sub-culture - wanted to distance himself from his adoptive parents values. Fortunately, they were aware of this, very tolerant- and always hugely positive about his roots - encouraging his interests in that direction, taking him twice to Brazil, etc.

They have all got over that difficult phase, and he is now doing well as a youg adult, with a wonderful girlfriend, and finally in proper training for a job. They do say how naive they were about children 'just needing love and security' - identity is vastly important too. How could UKIP members, whose official values are clearly anti immigration and anti multiculturalism- not make such identity issues worse as kids get older???

And the council removed the children in the first place for what seem quite discriminatory reasons...www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2244297/UKIP-fostering-scandal-Its-social-workers-racist-say-Slovak-parents.html

I think it is disgraceful that the Prime Minister hasn't stepped in and done something about this. There was no need to take these children away from a perfectly good foster home. They had been there since September, Just long enough to settle in. No one has given any thoughts to the real needs of the children - that of a loving, stable home which they had with these people.

These foster parents would not have taken the children in if they were racist. The council has been ubelievably stupid.

No Ana I wasn't suggesting it was anyone's fault!! Just confusing. It doesn't take much in my case

I didn't make the connection, so I started this one in error (JO5 had started another one which I hadn't noticed). GNHQ don't seem to do 'merging' so we're stuck.
I did ask people to ignore my thread!

At least three threads on this topic now. It's all very confusing and not really conducive to any debate. I posted on Bags' thread 'The rise of fascism' because it was the first one I saw.

The media choose to ignore what was behind this decision. The children were placed temporarily and needed longer term placements. They are from a country with their own, strong identity and sense of their culture and background. UKIP has a policy of not agreeing with multi-culturalism so in the long term this would undermine the plan for the children's development within their own cultural identity and in a multi-cultural community. It made sense to make the move before this became unmanageable. The foster parents are described as exemplary, but their political beliefs in this instance could get in the way of the children feeling comfortable because of their cultural background. Social services were putting the interests of these children first, and got cracking with ending what was always a temporary arrangement. Sounds ok to me?

don't forget mine!

Mishap Annodomini posted this on the earlier thread on this subject. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20474120

Interesting one this - in my experience there is always more behind these decisions than we hear about - the media latch onto something and blow it up. I don't trust the media at all - I have seen so many instances when their reporting bears no relation at all to what is really going on - and there are confidentiality issues in SSD that sometimes make it impossible for them to outline the full reasons for their decisions.

It is absolutely right in principle that fostering should be "colour-blind" - in other words colour/ethnicity should not be the overriding consideration in placements or in registration of foster parents.

But there may be specific instances when a child, because of their background and life experience, might gain particular benefit from being fostered by someone from their own community. For instance an older child whose only experience is of living within a particular ethnic community area might find it hard to adapt to something that felt totally alien to him/her, assuming that they are already enduring a major life upheaval anyway.

I would guess there is more to this decision than meets the eye.

The more threads on it the better, I say.

Oh &!!x**|!! Missed them! Sorry ...
Please ignore this thread!

Ana There is an earlier thread (in fact, two of them) on this subject.