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Give careful thought to what is best for the child, says BAAF, in response to Meadow case

Issued: 21 January 04

The British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) has stressed the need to put the interests of the child first in reviewing cases of children taken away from their birth families on the evidence of the controversial paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow.

Felicity Collier, chief executive of BAAF, said:

“Each case should be reviewed on its merits. This is a very difficult area but you have to put the needs of the child at the forefront of any decision and listen to their wishes and feelings where they are old enough to have a view.”

“Of course, children have a right to know the truth about their family history and about the circumstances in which they were adopted - and where a court decides the original court decision was incorrect, given current knowledge, sensitive counselling will be important for all parties. At the least it will be possible in some cases to consider again whether there should be contact between adopted children and their birth families.”

“Individual cases will be very different. For children adopted as small infants you cannot simply turn the clock back and transplant them from the only family they may have known when they are loved, settled and secure. For older children who have clear memories of their birth family and perhaps have remained in contact, their wishes may be very different - but we cannot assume this will always be the case. We must always remember the evidence about the dangers of moving small children and the mounting evidence about the impact on infant brain development.”

“It is important to remember the very difficult job which social workers have in protecting children and balancing the rights of children to be safe against their rights to remain with their birth families.”

“Evidence in care proceedings is rightly based on the balance of probabilities. If every case where children are removed had to prove that abuse had been ‘proved beyond reasonable doubt’, as in criminal proceedings, then society would have to accept that many more children would die. It is an unpalatable truth that infants and children are killed by their parents, and currently, social workers are the first to be blamed if they do not act quickly enough.”

Ends

Contact:

Lucy Handford, Media Assistant, 020 7593 2054

Note

1. The British Association for Adoption & Fostering (BAAF) is the UK’s leading adoption & fostering charity. For more information visit www.baaf.org.uk