General Chat

We had this happen to us once when we fostered, understand this, if you can..........

A child with us was mixed race, his mother was abandoned at birth, through testing, it was thought that one of her birth parents was white, the other black, she was adopted to a white family.
The father of our boy was white, so he would of been quarter black. His whole background was white English, as his mother didn't know where her ancestors came from. A
fter a few months we had meeting with Social services to see how it was all going, he had settled in well, and was one of the family.

First comment from social services to open the meeting, directed to our foster son .......

" We'd firstly like to apologise to you for placing you with a white family, but there were no mixed race families available"

I don't care what colour any child child is, I just want to do the best for them, and see they do well.

The quicker this black/white thing is no longer commented upon, the bloody better we'd all get along famously without mentioning what colour someone is as though it matters :-|

Quite incredible to me, some of these occurences.

These children need love first and foremost, food, warmth. And they all live in a Britain that is multi-cultural. So if they are fostered out tp people of a different racial background or different religion, is ther any problem?

Is the problem that some foster parents prevent these children from learning about their background and their ethnic roots? I honestly think if my natural parents had died when I was 8 and living in Wolverhampton, I would have been delighted to have been fostered by a newly arrived West Indian couple. Much better than moving from a loving family home to a care institutional situation, surely.

And I think I would still have felt Welsh - I would have appreciated their West Indian culture a bit more and would have felt secure, but it would not make me a West Indian. Just that I would have loved them as foster parents.

it has obviously come to notice the political stance of the foster parents and its widely known what their policies are,but I would say it was the knock on effect that would leave the children in a vunerable position from outsiders as time went on,,,,,,,it happens
.They must come first.

These parents even looked into a religiously appropriate school for the eldest child, hardly indoctrination.

We are living in a world gone mad.

Have just looked at some of the policies of UKIP. Personally, I find them a very unattractive party, though I quite like their Leader. I have said they are nothing like the BNP, but have just looked at a few random policies they have on immigration and you judge!!!!!:-0

UKIP Immigration Policy
1.Ensure all EU citizens who came to Britain after 1 January 2004 are treated in the same way as citizens from other countries (unless entitled to ‘Permanent Leave to Remain’). Non- UK citizens travelling to or from the UK will have their entry and exit recorded. To enforce this, the number of UK Borders Agency staff engaged in controlling immigration will be tripled to 30,000

• Ensure that after the five-year freeze, any future immigration for permanent settlement will be on a strictly controlled, points-based system similar to Australia, Canada and New Zealand

• Return people found to be living illegally in the UK to their country of origin. There can be no question of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Such amnesties merely encourage further illegal immigration

End the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies

• Ensure British benefits are only available to UK citizens or those who have lived here for at least five years. Currently, British benefits can be claimed by EU citizens in their arrival year

I find it amazing that mixed race children should be placed with mixed race or black parents - if they're of a mixed race, surely both races are equal in their genes?
My daughter once knew 2 children, a boy and a girl. The boy was black, the girl was white. They were twins. Mother white, father black, but the children definitely didn't look of 'mixed race' (I hate that term) - they were white and black.

How would the authorities have coped if they ever had to be fostered?
Not bother - keep them in an orphanage?
Foster them out to different coloured families?

Fortunately they came from a strong loving family background, and there was no way this would ever happen, but they can't be the only different coloured twins/siblings around.

I detest multiculturalism.
It leads to ghettoisation rather than integration.
My ancestors were probably Norman-French who came over a thousand years ago. If multiculturalism had been the fad in the past I would probably been brought up as a Francophone in the French quarter of some city.
The British are often derided as a mongrel race. Probably a fair comment but past immigrations have on the whole been absorbed into general society whilst adding some of their own heritage to it.
Encouraged by well-meaning but misguided officialdom, many recent immigrants will still be leading separate lives in a thousand years.

I think it is great that we have plenty of cultures in our cities. When I first went to London (from Bangor in North Wales) it frightened me to death. No one spoke to any neighbours.

Then I went to London Welsh in Grays Inn Road. And suddenly realised the Welsh community was a "village" within London. My brother had a Polish girlfriend and there was a Polish "village" mainly in Ealing area. More recently, I did a lot of work in Brixton with recent African immigrants. In fact, London is just a network of different cultures.

There tends to be integration because we don't necessarily fall in love with someone from our own ethnic group. It doesn't seem that long ago that my grandma ( a lovely, kind and broad-minded lady for those days) looked at a photo of a marriage of a black man and a white woman in the Wolverhampton Chronicle (about 1959) and said "that will never work. It is unnatural" And I rather think that would have been a majority opinion then - we are quite racist now, but it was really horrendous 50 years ago.

Love is the factor that is being forgotten in Rotherham. The children love their foster parents and foster parents are experienced and obviously fond of them. I am sure they are not as racist as some of our parents were in the 50's and 60's and most of us grew up to be fairly tolerant of different backgrounds.

the council know because every voting slip has a bar code
that belongs only to you
have a look next time you vote

i find this schocking to say the least not that i know anything about that party

but everybody has the right to vote for who they like :-( :-(

If you have read the article that Roy put on from the Telegraph.you would see that the council had an anonymous call to tell the social worker that they were members of UKIP. .
She more or less accused them of being rascist because she thought that UKIP is a rascist Political party.

Plus polotics should not come in to people who either foster or adopt.


So she had the kids taken away before she let them explain.

They maybe not members of UKIP but just vote for them.

That's a bit creepy, Joy. Using what we are assured is private information to 'vet' people. Mind you, not surprising.

Edit: just looked up the barcodes, they're an encrypted list of candidates, so the papers can be 'read' to double check the votes (apparently)

Last year, the council sent questionnaires around to their tenants.
They came from a third party and we were assured they were annonymous. The address label was addressed to 'The Occupier', and there was no name or address on the actual form.

Unfortunately for them, I noticed a number on the address label - and the same number on the questionnaire.
I didn't fill it in.
Two weeks later, I had a reminder, telling me I han't returned the form.

I rang the council (from work) and asked the poor girl on the end of the phone how they knew I hadn't sent the form back.
She, of course knew nothing about it - it had come from a 'third' party - who had conveniently not left any means of communication!

Personal information by stealth, checking who you vote for......
....It begs the question, why?

I think there's a certain degree of press and political manipulation coming through?

These children were not snatched away from long term foster parents, they had been in the home barely a couple of months...so all the emotive 'they love them" , "call them mum and dad' ( has anyone actually asked if the older child was told to call them that rather than first names?) may be overstating the case rather.

The foster parents sound like great people, but some great people also vote for the BNP, you can read pages of their manifesto and literature and not find any policy to disagree with...we all want "safe streets, a reduction of crime, no homelessness, good education, great medical care, 'green' policies"...they are ALL there on the BNP website and literature ...BUT , and I repeat with emphasis that "BUT!" what is there, is not 'all there is'.

The council/social workers are obliged to find the best home to meet ALL the needs of the children, not just the short term ones. It may be that they are right in assessing that this couple does not do that.... at worst it is a wrong decision made perhaps with the best of intentions.

All social workers must live on a knife edge, some will inevitably 'over react' in an effort not to be open to the accusation of 'not acting at all'.

I cottoned on to the fact that voting is not secret years ago when I saw them write the number of my voting slip in the register

something interesting that came up on the news this evening about this case - Rotherham is Labour run and there is an election coming up there shortly - weeks I understand. UKIP are standing in that election - now it seems to me that Labour have shot themselves in the foot if they were hoping to retain their seat

This morning: "Mr Gove, who was himself adopted as a child, said social workers had made "the wrong decision in the wrong way for the wrong reasons" and that he would be personally investigating and exploring steps to "deal with" the situation."

Who was Mr Gove adopted by? Mrs Thatcher? For me, that adoption needs to be reviewed by his local authority - even though it must have been many years ago. :-D ;-)

He probably meant the Rotherham children, not his own situation ;-)

It does seem a rather heavy handed attitude by the SS. As experienced foster carers, they would probably have been able to separate their Party's attitude towards immigration from that of the needs of innocent children.

A foster carer in Kent introduced me to an 'illegal immigrant' child picked up in Dover that day. Despite much eye-rolling about 'first safe country' the child passed through, the Carer was able to accept that the child as having had no control over their circumstances.

BTW - the carers were white, the child from an African country with very basic English

DET Was being flippant about Mr Gove's intervention but you make the point that I would make. That the children need stability and love.

I know Social Services need to be careful, but I really think they intervene when not wanted and do not intervene when wanted. Sometimes it must be extremely dangerous for them to intervene, and it would be natural for them to intervene in situations where there is no personal threat to them.

In other words, they avoid what a commentator (Jon Gaunt) called the "feral and feckless" in our society. I just hope they are as active in monitoring other children at risk in their Borough.

Beginning to think that this whole thing is political, after seeing that the elections are shortly to be held. Just labour trying to make UKIP look bad.

More disgusting than ever, how low are people going to stoop, to get what they want.? i.e. Labour.

Sue

or UKIP trying to make Labour look bad to be in with a chance of gaining seats? ...it could be either , both or neither....maybe the person/s who made the decision to remove the children is not a Labour voter, maybe THEY are politically motivated to make Labour look bad. ( the fact that it is a labour council does not mean everyone who works for it is, does it). or maybe it was a Conservative voter desperate to prove both Labour AND UKIP are dodgy :-)

Conspiracy theories abound!...maybe the person/s who took the decision did so in all good faith because they were trying to make the best decision,

My mum is going to vote UKIP she said *gulps*.. :-S

we'll still talk to you Muffy, in spite of your dreadful shame ;-)