UKIP members may write to newspaper

in fact quite a few people in the office enjoyed it. 8)

Are you still a delivery driver for Social Worker?

This thread seems to have reached the final mocking stage. So, in summary, do the lefties here support the decision, oppose it or maybe even pretend it didn’t happen?

Neither – there’s not enough hard credible evidence to form a reasoned opinion. It needs investigating, it could well be very bad for the council. But it could also be very bad for the Foster Parents in question.

Most of the guff out there in the media is just nob jockey political points scoring rather than the actual concern for the welfare of the children.

This thread seems to have reached the final mocking stage.

wear the big hat, or half hour in the stocks….you decide…

So it turns out, pretty much as you’d expect, that there’s more to this story than we were initially told:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/30/ukip-row-many-reasons-children-removed

Still doesn’t answer the questions, why were the kids placed where they were, why was the removal initiated after the political party membership revealed, are the now separated siblings in a care setting that meets the language/ cultural needs, why can a social worker on the case be a member of UKIP but not the carers?

So I totally agree

So it turns out, pretty much as you’d expect, that there’s more to this story than we were initially told:

So basic story still stands but even more evidence of poor job by social services. Did the Guardian have some space to fill?

So basic story still stands but even more evidence of poor job by social services. Did the Guardian have some space to fill?

That’s a very bizarre reading of the article.

If these reasons for the removal of the children were the primary ones, why has there been no mention of them up till now?

They weren’t mentioned to the foster parents, the interview with Ms Thacker made no mention of them, the council statement made no mention of them, all the way through it has been the UKIP membership that has been talked up or down.

Fact remains, ‘well, UKIP have racist policies’… that is what the Social Worker said whilst informing the family of the removal. Not, we have a better placement for them, nor there is a risk to them. There has been no denial from anyone at the council that this was the given reasoning.

Seems someone had a bluesky party and this is the resulting smokescreen – Nothing like a bit of ‘retrospective justification’ – No doubt someone has only just finished back dating some briefing notes and minutes to confirm this new story.

Plus whatever the best reason for removing the children turns out to be, the whole incident has highlighted institutional prejudice within Rotherham social services. It’s a bit like saying ”I didn’t discriminate against you on the grounds of XYZ, it was on the basis of ABC. The fact that I hate you because you also happen to be XYZ is merely coincidence/convenient.’

There were also fears the children’s birth parents knew or might be able to find out where the foster parents lived. Though both the birth mother and father claim to continue to have supervised contact with some of their other children, it is believed social workers do not want the parents to know exactly where the children are living because of safety concerns.

Why didn’t social sevices just use this as their primary reason to remove the children, don’t mention UKIP at all. It would be perfectly reasonable, no fuss no scandal no nothing.

Maybe they did, maybe the UKIP thing was way down the list of reasons given, but people have jumped on it for some reason.

In the interests of fairness,I think they had to highlight it though,didn’t they?

Absolutely, we wouldn’t want to be left with the wrong impression.

After all,the fosterers are UKIP supporters,so they must be whiter than white 😉

In a purely metaphorical sense,of course.

I thought you were going to leave your choice of words open to interpretation – it would have been interesting to see the reactions! 😉

Still doesn’t answer the questions, why were the kids placed where they were,

Emergency foster placement, so presumably first available people.

why was the removal initiated after the political party membership revealed

Well, supposedly it wasn’t – it was because they were worried that a)the birth family would be able to find the kids or knew where they were.
b)the kids needed carers who could speak their language (which seems fair enough if you have suitable carers – which I guess is more likely in Rotherham)

are the now separated siblings in a care setting that meets the language/ cultural needs,

Hard to know as for pretty obvious reasons they can’t tell you where the kids are now.

why can a social worker on the case be a member of UKIP but not the carers?

Well, it kind of turns out that they can, and maybe that the UKIP membership isn’t really that relevant generally.

Having said that, whilst it seems like the main thing was a desire to find a culturally suitable placement (ie. one where the carers would know the same language as the children), and to avoid the children being found by their birth parents, you could argue that due to the local situation – large population of migrants, massive publicity in their home countries of how British social services are ‘stealing their children’ and taking them away from their culture, having Roma kids fostered by members of an anti-immigrant British party would actually be a bad thing, as it would further fuel all that publicity, and could have a real negative effect on the relations of council + social services with other members of the Roma community. It is perhaps more believable that people stealing children and taking them away from their home culture would include people who are members of a party that is explicitly anti multiculturalism, anti-immigration etc. And it is obviously in the interests of all Roma children, including those in this case that good relations with the social services are maintained.

+1 for joemarshall

Why didn’t social sevices just use this as their primary reason to remove the children, don’t mention UKIP at all. It would be perfectly reasonable, no fuss no scandal no nothing.

Because they hadn’t thought of it at the time of course!

could have a real negative effect on the relations of council + social services with other members of the Roma community

Because the overriding principle is that the welfare of the child will be the paramount consideration. Moving them overnight without transition and separating the siblings without any pressing need cannot be compatible with this aim.

None of the press articles have really highlighted the multi-country issue here – as I understand it, whilst this is a bit of a minor political issue here, back where they originally came from the dealings between UK social services and the Roma community is a really big front page news thing, and that means that it is also a really big thing for the local Roma immigrants and causing real problems locally due to mistrust.