Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3vl5w3zy2eo
Adopted children to have closer contact with birth families
Sanchia Berg and Katie Inman
BBC News
- Published 7 November 2024
Adopted children are likely to be allowed much closer contact with their birth families in the future as part of “seismic” changes recommended in a report published today. Some families say the changes are long overdue but others worry they may deter people from adopting. Angela Frazer-Wicks’ two sons were removed from her care and adopted in 2004, when they were aged five and one. She was in an abusive relationship and had problems with addiction and her mental health. By 2011 Angela had recovered, she was in a new relationship, and had a baby daughter. The local authority was not involved in her daughter’s care. Angela’s sons and their adoptive parents had stayed in touch with her writing letters and sending photos once or twice a year. But when the older of the two boys became a teenager, he told his adoptive mother he no longer wanted to write to his birth mother. Angela carried on sending cards, but heard nothing back for years. Then out of the blue, in 2020, Angela received an email from her eldest son. It turned out he had been trying to contact her, but the local authority had told him that wasn’t possible. Last month, Angela met her eldest son in person – it was the first time she had seen him for 20 years. “It was amazing for me,” Angela says, “even more so for my daughter – she’s waited her entire life to meet her brother.”
Adoption is the state’s most powerful intervention in family life. It is a permanent break between a child and their birth family, and alters the child’s identity forever. In law they are no longer the child of their birth parents, and most adopted children grow up without seeing or knowing any of their birth family. Around 3,000 children are adopted in England each year. It’s a process that must be authorised by judges in family courts, who set out the level of contact the child will have with their birth parents usually just letters, sent twice a year, via an intermediary. While adoption law has evolved over the years allowing children to know more about their history than they once did, in some ways, families say, adoption is still very much stuck in the past. Now a new report from a group set up by the most senior judge in the family court, external says wholesale reform of the system is needed. “Letterbox” contact between adopted children and birth families is outdated, the report says, instead recommending face-to-face contact where that is safe. The extremely detailed report is strongly supported by Sir Andrew McFarlane who says there is no need to change the law for this to happen. The report is likely to influence family court adoption hearings throughout England and Wales. Angela Frazer-Wicks describes her experience of adoption as a “life sentence without any right to appeal”.
As chair of trustees of the charity Family Rights Group, she is pleased mothers like her will have more chance to continue seeing their children after they have been adopted. “It’s a seismic shift,” Angela says. “It’s been such a long time coming. My hope is that we start to see just a bit more compassion towards birth families – they are so often seen as the problem.”
While meeting birth family can be very positive for some adopted children, face-to-face meetings aren’t good for all children in this position. When Cassie was adopted aged three, she constantly worried about the mother she’d been take away from. Out shopping with her adoptive parents Dee and John, Cassie would even ask if she could buy groceries for her birth mum. Dee was advised it would be reassuring for Cassie to meet her birth mother face-to-face. Their reunion, in a noisy contact centre, went well but the following day Cassie was very tired, pale and limp. Dee decided to take Cassie to the doctor, and by the time they arrived at the surgery Cassie was trembling and vomiting uncontrollably. But there was nothing physically wrong the doctor said Cassie was in shock. For nearly two years Cassie and Dee went to specialist therapy. Cassie still seemed to worry about her birth mother, and would try to call her on a toy telephone. Another meeting was arranged, in a quieter environment, with support. After that, Cassie, who is now aged 30, says she didn’t want to see her birth mother again. “I never felt a strong urge,” she says. “I had all the information about her.”
More reporting from family courts
With more recent adoptions, there is a new kind of risk. Children can trace their birth family online and some will go and meet them. That can lead to conflict with adoptive parents, even adoption breakdown. “The children become very emotionally mixed up,” says Sir Andrew McFarlane, the head of the Family Court in England and Wales.
“If you’re trying to work out who you are you in the world, and you have some memory of the family you lived with until you were four or five it’s almost natural to try and trace them and be in touch with them.”
Without expert help, this can have disastrous consequences. In 2021 one couple told the BBC it was “devastating” to see their two adopted sons turn against them and get drawn into crime, after they had been reunited with their birth family. There is no accurate data on how many adoptions break down. The charity Adoption UK has said it varies between 3% and 9%. Following a four-year review and consultation, the 170-page report published today says greater consideration should be given to whether adopted children “should have face-to-face contact with those who were significant to them before they were adopted”.
The report is intended as a review of the adoption process and a “catalyst for positive changes”.
Among the dozens of other recommendations are reforming the law on international adoption, and setting up a national register for court adoption records to make it easier for people to find their own files. The report also recommends dropping the term “celebration” for parents’ last visit to court with the child they are adopting. Many adoptive parents agree the current “letterbox” system of contact is not effective. In a 2022 survey, Adoption UK found that most prospective adopters believed that standardising direct contact would deter people from adopting, at a time when the number of people coming forward to adopt is in decline. But at the same time, it found that 70% of those looking to adopt believed that direct contact should be standard practice, if considered safe. Others think it could create further problems. Nigel Priestley is a specialist adoption solicitor and an adopter himself. He has seen the issues this contact can cause. “I think it’s enormously risky,” he says. “In my view there is a grave danger that if you once open Pandora’s Box shutting it will be impossible.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said the value of children growing up in a loving family “cannot be underestimated”. And for many children in care, “adoption makes this happen”.
“We know that adoption has a profound impact on everyone involved, and it’s vital that the child’s best interests are protected and remain at the heart of the process.”
Clarification 8 November 2024: This story has been amended following updated information supplied by Adoption UK
‘They just took the baby away’: Family speaks out in church-run homes scandal
‘They just took the baby away’: Family speaks out in church-run homes scandal
- Wednesday 16 October 2024 at 10:27pm
A family has come forward following an ITV News investigation into cruelty and abuse at ex church run mother and baby homes, Social Affairs Correspondent Sarah Corker reports
Further allegations of abuse and neglect at a former church-run mother and baby home in Cumbria have emerged, following an ITV News investigation. Earlier this year we revealed that 45 babies who had died at St Monica’s home – in Kendal were buried in an unmarked grave in the town’s cemetery.
St Monica’s was one of hundreds of homes for unmarried mothers across England.
Between 1949 and the mid-1970s, an estimated 200,000 women were sent away to homes run by churches and the state where they were pressured and coerced in to give up their babies for adoption. Other infants died through poor care.
Since our first report aired in July, the family of one of those children has come forward and told ITV News that their mother was lied to about the fate of her baby daughter, Faith, and was never told where she was buried.
Norah Everard was in her 80s, and dying from cancer, when she told her family for the first time about the trauma she’d endured decades earlier as a teenager in 1941.
Pregnant and unmarried, she was sent away to St Monica’s, which was run by the Diocese of Carlisle, to have her baby.
Norah’s son Bob Chubb recounted the details that his late mother shared with him and his wife Carole about the “cruel” home.
“We were all round the table one Christmas, and she said ‘I’ve got something important to tell you both. Bob you weren’t my first born’, and then she told me about being raped as a young school girl, going to St Monica’s in Kendal to have the baby, and the baby was stillborn, called Faith,” Bob told ITV News.
Burial records seen by ITV News suggest that Norah was lied to, they show that Faith wasn’t stillborn and that she had lived for 12 hours and was later buried in an unmarked grave at Parkside Cemetery in Kendal – one of the 45 babies who were buried in secrecy.
If you’d like to share your story please get in touch with Sarah on the following email: Investigations@itv.com
“I don’t think she was told the truth. I think some terrible things went on,” Mr Chubb said. Carole Chubb, Bob’s wife, said: “It really really disgusts me. They just took the baby away and said the baby’s dead and that’s it. Did they even given her any milk? Would she have survived? “Norah told me it was cruel place, they made the women scrub floors when they were heavily pregnant and they were refused pain relief in labour as a punishment.”
Bob and Carole share their family’s story and concerns about how babies were treated
Concerns have been raised by other families about the poor care of sick and premature babies at the home in the decades after the war, while official documents from the archives paint a disturbing picture of neglect, cruelty and suffering inside St Monica’s. Bob revealed that he too was born prematurely at the same home in the late 1940s, and feels ‘lucky’ that he survived.
The acting Bishop of Carlisle Rt Rev Rob Saner-Haigh described what had happened to Norah and her daughter as ‘wrong’ and said he was ‘really sorry’ for the way women and children had been treated.
The acting Bishop of Carlisle Rt Rev Rob Saner-Haigh answers questions from ITV News
Since allegations of abuse first emerged, 20 people with a connection to St Monica’s have contacted the Diocese requesting access to their family records. “The Church of England should do all it can to support people who have lived with the trauma. We need to listen and give them a choice in decision making so they can tell us what they need and as an organisation we show them the love and dignity that they weren’t shown before,” he said.
The family of another baby, Stephen Holt, who died aged 3 months old at the home in 1964, are now campaigning for a permanent memorial to the 45 babies.
It was years later when baby Stephen’s mother Judith Hindley first told her husband, also called Stephen, of the abuse she endured at the ‘draconian’ home in the late 1960s. “Judith was 17 at the time and told me how she was forced to clean floors and kitchens while heavily pregnant. They were being punished,” he said. “Her son Stephen was born with disabilities and needed to go to hospital, but he was cruelly denied proper medical care and died 11 weeks later.” She never recovered from that trauma and in 2006, Judith took her own life close to the cemetery where her baby is buried.
Stephen Hindley explains what happened to his wife Judith at St Monica’s and why he is campaigning for a memorial
Cumbria Police has confirmed it is still investigating allegations of historic abuse at St Monica’s and said it “would welcome any new information which would assist officers…following concerns raised in relation to these premises”. Westmorland and Furness District Council which owns the cemetery where the graves are located said: “We are currently exploring options and reaching out to others who may wish to be involved or consulted on the possibility of marking the unmarked graves at Parkside Road cemetery, Kendal relating to the former St Monica’s Maternity home.”
Department for Education spokesperson said: “We have the deepest sympathy with all of those who are affected, the practice was abhorrent and should never have taken place.
“While we will not be able to quickly make every change we would like, we will look at whether there is any more we could do to support those affected.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-68629466
Couple adopted vulnerable children to abuse
- Published
22 March
Abuse
poisoned generations of a family after children’s allegations and
sexualised behaviour were not acted upon, a report has revealed.
The
abuse began with Couple A in Gloucestershire, who specifically asked to
adopt an “emotionally disturbed” child – so they could assault them.
The couple, eventually jailed in 2018, went on to adopt four siblings, beginning a cycle of sexual abuse that lasted for years.
The report said agencies “fell short”.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help and advice can be found on the BBC Action Line
Couple
A, who cannot be named for legal reasons, adopted the four young
siblings, who had been abused by their birth parents, in the 1990s.
Police
describe Couple A as “wealthy” and “people you wouldn’t suspect”, with
the woman “a pillar of the community and a church-goer with a very
successful job”.
An
adoption form written by a social worker in the area they had been
living at the time outside of Gloucestershire shows they asked for a
child who was “emotionally disturbed”.
Gloucestershire
Constabulary’s Det Sgt Grace Craddock, who led the police
investigation, said they “sought out children that were traumatised”.
“I believe it was so they could have access to children who wouldn’t be believed if they were to talk out,” she said.
Couple A were jailed for a total of 23 years between them for abusing two of their adopted children.
But
one of the other siblings, along with her husband, later abused two of
their own children. In 2023, Couple B were jailed for a total of 17
years.
Det Sgt Grace Craddock said the mother in Couple A “pulled the wool over the eyes of every professional that became involved”
Det
Sgt Craddock said the dominating factor over the entire family was the
mother of Couple A, who she described as “one of the most manipulative
people I have ever met”.
The mother sat in on meetings with social services and schools, making sure nothing was said that could implicate them.
“It’s
clear from the material that we’ve reviewed in the last seven years
that she pulled the wool over the eyes of every professional that became
involved,” Det Sgt Craddock said.
“There
were certain points, over the years, social care would get involved,
they’d look over allegations but she was always considered the safe
factor and that allowed her access to the children.”
Police said the victims of the family were undergoing therapy and “living with trauma every day”.
“It’s taken years for them to feel ready to talk about what’s happened,” Det Sgt Craddock said.
“Going through a court case for any child is extremely difficult.
“They’ve
got closure thankfully but those offences have happened to them and
they have to process that going into adulthood. We don’t just finish the
investigation and close that door, the support is ongoing.”
‘More and more evidence’
In 2010, Gloucestershire Constabulary did not prosecute Couple A after one of the children said she had been abused.
The
CPS was not consulted and no legal advice was taken, despite evidence
the father had been downloading indecent images of children, for which
he was later cautioned.
When Couple B’s children started going to primary school, teachers noticed a pattern of worrying behaviour.
“Pete”,
a member of staff, told the BBC that the school began to notice “more
and more evidence of quite significant sexualised behaviour” as each
sibling joined.
Despite
referrals to children’s services, and concerns also shown from staff in
probation, social services and at a children’s centre, Pete and his
colleagues felt they were pushed back by the local authority.
“Pete” told BBC reporter Steve Knibbs, pictured here, he was pleased the children finally had justice
“It
was very much ‘this will not get past legal’ and I found that
frustrating because I said ‘I’m not here to try and get a legal outcome
I’m here to try and get these children protected’,” Pete said.
“And
it would be ‘well, they haven’t said anything’ and I would go on saying
‘they don’t have to have said anything’ – their behaviour was screaming
at us and that wasn’t being taken account of.
“That
was quite disturbing because these children would have been coached,
threatened, you know, and scripted ‘if you’re asked this, this is what
you say’.”
‘Apologise unreservedly’
A report by Gloucestershire Safeguarding Partnership was published on Friday, external
into the background of the failings that led to the creation of
Operation Acorne, an investigation involving a number of local agencies
in July 2017.
Eleven
children connected to four families were taken into police protection
and local authority care. Two other families had convictions for
neglect, but the victims of Couples A and B finally saw their abusers
brought to justice and jailed.
The
failings in the system were against a backdrop of a deterioration in
children’s services in Gloucestershire revealed in 2017.
In June of that year, the same month that Operation Acorne was set up, Ofsted announced it had found “serious and widespread failures” in children’s services in Gloucestershire.
It
said that “too many children were being left in situations at risk of
significant harm for too long” because dangers were not recognised.
The
county council’s director of children’s services, Ann James, apologised
“unreservedly” for the authority’s “not joined up or adequate” initial
response.
“Whilst these
circumstances are thankfully very rare, our focus during the years
since this abuse was uncovered has been to, along with our partners, act
in response to mistakes that were made and to strengthen how we work
together to effectively safeguard children in the county,” she said.
“Although
these events occurred up to 15 years ago, the findings and the
recommendations serve as a reminder to us all that we must all remain
vigilant and unwavering in our protection of children.”
Earlier this week the council apologised over the failures which led to a child being abused by her carer.
Police said they were “sorry for the consequences of not taking action at an earlier stage” (stock image)
The
report highlighted that in 2016 police did not look into the
allegations of sexualised behaviour because the children involved were
under the age of criminal responsibility.
It
said: “This deflected the professional child protection network from a
more fundamental question: ‘Where had the children involved learnt this
behaviour?’.”
Addressing
the missed opportunity to prosecute Couple A, Assistant Chief Constable
Arman Mathieson said Gloucestershire police was “sorry for the
consequences of not taking action at an earlier stage”.
“In
relation to the police failing identified in the report, specifically
that we did not refer the allegations made by a victim in 2009 to the
Crown Prosecution Service, this was not the right decision and I have
apologised to those involved,” he said.
“While
this decision was made in good faith by the investigating officer,
based on a perception the evidential threshold had not been met, this is
not what we do now.
“When
the case was referred again in 2017, it was taken forward with the
utmost professionalism via a multi-agency investigation spanning over
six years, resulting in extensive safeguarding and significant
convictions that totalled over 40 years.
“The
report’s findings have been embedded within our organisations and we
continue to work closely together, every day, to safeguard children and
bring offenders to justice.”
Det
Sgt Craddock added: “We’re unable to name the parents involved for
legal reasons and to protect the victims but this offending is very
distinct and if anyone’s got concerns that it’s familiar or they think
that they might have been involved in anything of this nature then have
the confidence to come forward and speak to police.”
Delay and frustration in adoption law’s first year
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3dx01v8x8o
Delay and frustration in adoption law’s first year
At a glance
- More than 10,000 requests for adoptees’ birth records have been submitted during the first year of a new Irish law
- The authorities struggled to meet demand and missed legal deadlines
- A total of 5,500 requests were made to use a new family tracing service
- More than half (53%) of tracing requests are yet to be allocated to staff
Eimear Flanagan
BBC News NI
- Published3 October 2023
An Irish law that gave adopted people the right to access their birth records has led to more than 10,000 applications during its first year of operation.
The Birth Information and Tracing Act, external was designed to end much of the secrecy embedded in Ireland’s 70-year-old adoption system.
But for many adoptees waiting decades for answers about their early lives, the new procedures meant delays and frustration.
The legislation created a new family tracing service and throughout the year 5,500 requests to find relatives were submitted.
However, due to the complexity of some searches, 53% of tracing requests are yet to be allocated to staff.
“I am relying on a system that is working at a snail’s pace,” said Linda Southern, who is searching for her birth parents.
The 48-year-old Dubliner was adopted in 1975 at six weeks of age.
She spent her first 47 years not knowing her birth name nor the names of her mother and father.
That is because until 3 October 2022, Irish adoptees had no automatic right to see their own birth certificates, nor to know their biological parents’ identities.
The new law was supposed to give adoptees access to birth records within 30 days, or 90 days in complex cases.
Two organisations tasked with releasing records struggled to handle an early surge of applications.
The Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) and child and family agency Tusla both missed statutory deadlines.
“The initial surge led to wait times which would be frustrating and which we regret,” said AAI interim chief executive Colm O’Leary.
“When you’re starting off a process and you’re learning that records are held across various sources, it takes time to become familiar with all of the record types,” he explained.
A Tusla spokeswoman said “a significant portion of the applications are classified as complex which means they require more time”.
But adoptees argue authorities should have been better prepared.
“Surely, state bodies would have had a basic idea of the number of adoptees who would want to at least get their birth information,” said Ms Southern.
After initial delays, she received her own documents which – for the first time – revealed her original name and parents’ names.
However, she still needs help finding her biological family and spent the past year waiting for news.
“I don’t know if they will ever trace my birth mother or not.
“If they can’t, I should be told,” she said.
“They should have presumed the majority would want to trace – better to presume that too many people would wish to trace birth families than too few.”
‘Belfast baby’
Loraine Jackson had hoped her birth files might shed some light on her cross-border adoption.
She grew up in Dublin, with barely any information about her birth.
But in her early 40s, she found out she was actually a native of the United Kingdom, having been born to a single mother in Belfast in 1948.
Her parents died years before she could trace them.
When she spoke to BBC News NI last year, she expressed hope her files might reveal how or why she was taken across the border for adoption.
After months of waiting, a “fat package” arrived in the post which included an unredacted version of her adoption agreement.
For the first time, she saw her relatives’ signatures and finally found out who authorised her adoption.
“My birth mother had not been present at the signing. Her sister signed for her,” Ms Jackson explained.
She also expected her files would contain information about the standard of care she received in Bethany children’s home in Dublin.
But apart from a photocopy of her name in Bethany’s admission book, she was disappointed.
“The information just didn’t seem to be there. Whether records were not kept as well in those days, I don’t know.”
Although left with many unanswered questions, her maternal aunt’s role in her adoption was new information to her.
“It was definitely worthwhile doing, and I’d advise anyone who hasn’t applied yet to go for it.”
AAI staff received a wide range of feedback from adoptees about their birth files – from delight to disappointment to disbelief.
“A lot of people have said: ‘Is that it? Is there nothing else?'” Mr O’Leary said.
He acknowledged some adoptees were dismayed to learn that nothing more exists on file than details they already knew.
Others have received heavily censored documents.
“Sometimes the authority gets records that are already redacted prior to us getting them… we cannot unredact it,” Mr O’Leary explained.
He also said AAI staff can apply redactions themselves, in cases where personal information refers to a third party.
However, he added applicants can request a review if they believe files were “inappropriately redacted”.
The interim chief executive acknowledged the AAI’s 12 social workers have “significant” tracing workloads.
But he said tracing “is not a linear process” and adoptees often pause the search themselves to digest new information.
“You’re dealing with a very emotive situation,” Mr O’Leary said.
“People may initiate a trace, thinking that their birth mother would want to hear from them, and they have to take on board that the birth mother does not want contact.”
But the new law produced positive outcomes too – the AAI’s tracing service has facilitated 44 family reunions.
“Sometimes I’ll go to the kitchen and I’ll see a social worker taking out the fancy crockery and making tea” Mr O’Leary said.
“They’re bringing it into a room where a family is being reunited.”
He added that when staff help connect families “there is a sense of success, and of delivering on the legislation”.
The AAI’s backlog of birth record applications is almost cleared and by last week, just 56 were outstanding.
Tusla has a much larger backlog which it expects to clear by June 2024.
It said from1 September, all new applications are being processed “within statutory timelines”.
If you are affected by the issues raised in this story, help and support can be found at BBC Action Line.
Mother and baby homes: NI-born survivor ‘abandoned again’
Mother and baby homes: NI-born survivor ‘abandoned again’
Published 18 March
By Eimear Flanagan BBC News NI
A woman from Dublin, born into a mother and baby home in Northern Ireland, has said she feels “abandoned again” because she is excluded from a new compensation scheme. Sinead Buckley was born in 1972 to an unmarried woman from the Republic of Ireland. At that time her mother, Eileen, was living in Marianvale in Newry. A midwife in Dublin, Eileen came north because of the fear and stigma associated with being a single mother. Marianvale was one of a network of institutions across the island of Ireland which housed unmarried women and their babies at a time when pregnancy outside marriage was viewed as scandalous. After the birth in Newry’s Daisy Hill Hospital, an adoption agency in the Republic arranged for Eileen’s baby to be adopted by a family in Dublin. Ms Buckley grew up and still lives in Dublin, but never got to meet her birth mother. Eileen died during a Covid lockdown which meant she endured the heartbreak of watching her mother’s funeral over the internet. This week, the Republic of Ireland will open an €800m (£684m) redress scheme, external for survivors of its own mother and baby homes. Ms Buckley is one of thousands of Irish adoptees who will not qualify, despite her decades-long battle with the Irish state to access her birth identity and family medical history. “I grew up with a sense of rejection and abandonment and I feel like I’ve just been completely abandoned again,” she told BBC News NI.
“I used to be proud to be Irish, I’m not anymore. I’m not Irish what I am?”
Ireland’s Department of Children said that Marianvale was outside the Republic’s jurisdiction, adding there were “processes ongoing in Northern Ireland to respond to these legacy issues”.
But as a Dubliner, born to parents from the Republic, Ms Buckley said she cannot understand why she is excluded from the Irish redress scheme “because I was born a few miles over the border and adopted back here”.
Who qualifies for compensation?
Under the rules, mothers who spent even one night in an eligible institution in the Republic will receive compensation. Payments start at €5,000 (£4,275) and rise incrementally based on length of stay, external. But former child residents only qualify if they spent six months or more in homes. Marianvale is not on the list of eligible institutions, but even if it was, Ms Buckley would still not be entitled to compensation because it appears she was resident for less than six months. “I wish someone would explain the six-month thing to me because we’ve suffered through life,” she said.
“There’s absolutely no humanity in this decision.”
She added she paid Irish taxes all her life and now the Irish state “isn’t recognising me”. “For me it’s not about the money, it’s about the principle,” she said. “I want to be vindicated.”
‘Where do I belong?’
Adoption records show her mother was engaged to a Tipperary man when she became pregnant, but Eileen’s family opposed her relationship. When she entered Marianvale, her fiancé was not even told he was about to become a father. The adoption was arranged by Cunamh, formerly known as the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society of Ireland. “If the adoption was arranged from counties in the south and agencies in the south run by convents and nuns in the south and women from the south were in there and the children were adopted back into the south it’s just a loophole to get out of paying anybody money,” Ms Buckley said.
Border babies
Her cross-border journey was not unique. A recent report into Northern Ireland’s mother and baby homes, external calculated that more than 550 babies were moved to the Republic between 1930 and 1990. “Here in the north, the campaigners have been calling for their public inquiry and redress for more than a decade,” said solicitor Claire McKeegan, who acts on behalf of survivors of institutional abuse in Northern Ireland.
In 2021, Stormont’s leaders agreed to hold a public inquiry into mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries and workhouses north of the border. But two and a half years on, that inquiry is still to be legally established. “Obviously with the collapse of Stormont, the legislation hasn’t happened for them and many survivors and victims are no longer with us,” Ms McKeegan said.
The solicitor is due to meet First Minister Michelle O’Neill about the issue next month and said the message from survivors will be: “It must be done and it must be done now.”
For Ms Buckley though, it was the Republic’s secretive adoption system which she had to fight all her life. As a teenager she suffered serious health issues and baffled doctors ran lots of tests because they could not access her family medical records. “My mother told me that at one stage they thought it was leukaemia and that the doctors had been trying to ring the adoption agency just to try and get some history. They were like: ‘This girl is really sick, we need to know.’ And they were just met with closed doors.”
Aged 43, Ms Buckley was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a condition she later found out runs in her birth family. She believes she missed out on earlier diagnosis and treatment due to her lack of rights to birth information when she was a teenager. A new Irish law came into force in 2022 which gave all adoptees rights to access their original birth certificate and family medical history, but adoptees complain of long delays with the new system. How many survivors get compensation?
It has been estimated there are about 58,200 people still alive who spent time in the Republic’s mother and baby homes and county homes (institutions which succeeded workhouses). The Department of Children confirmed its redress scheme will “provide financial payments to an estimated 34,000 people”.
But that means just over 40% of survivors some 24,000 people cannot apply because of the six-month rule. Awarding payments and medical benefits to all surviving residents would have doubled the cost of the scheme. “The exclusions are vast and it really is extremely unfair,” said Dr Maeve O’Rourke.
The human rights lecturer recently helped design the framework for investigating homes in Northern Ireland. Dr O’Rourke argued the Republic’s 2015-2021 mother and baby homes investigation, external was too narrowly focused and has resulted in a restricted redress scheme. She said there should have been a wider investigation into adoption across all of society, including the role of adoption agencies, maternity hospitals, “forced family separations” and illegal birth registrations. “Unfortunately, and perhaps to limit its ultimate financial liability, the Irish government insisted that it would be limited to mother and baby institutions and a sample of county homes,” she added.
Ms Buckley took part in a 2021 public consultation, external in which survivors and interested parties gave views on the design of the redress scheme. Most survivors stressed loss of the mother/child bond was the most important factor that required redress, not the time spent in homes. Ms Buckley shared her own experience during the consultation but was shocked when she realised Marianvale residents would not be part of the settlement. “I couldn’t stop crying. We bared our souls at that thing, you know? We told them how this has affected us mentally,” she said.
“For saving a few quid, we’re just collateral damage.”
Bessborough mother and baby home should have been bought by the State, Tánaiste says
Bessborough mother and baby home should have been bought by the State, Tánaiste says
ireland
20/09/2024 | 14:48 PM
Olivia Kelleher
Tánaiste Micheál Martin has indicated that he has always been of the view that the State should have purchased Bessborough, the former mother and baby home in Cork, for conversion into a memorial or amenity site.
This week a decision made by Cork City Council to refuse planning permission for a proposed 92 unit residential development at Bessborough in Blackrock in the city was upheld by An Bord Pleanála.
The planning authority backed the decision of the local authority because of the historical landscape and potential human remains at the grounds.
Speaking in Cork, Mr Martin said that options should be explored in relation to the use of the site.
“I was always of a view that the local authority with the State should have purchased that site and have a proper memorialisation but also see if we could do things on a planned basis. It is a beautiful area. It can potentially be a very strong amenity area for the area as well, but that was always my view on it.
“I felt at the time that maybe the local authority should have got involved earlier and pre-empted what happened and bought it because there are medical facilities, or HSE facilities on the site,” he said.
“There are a variety of facilities on the site, and it is a natural area and a green area as well, and we need to look at that as well.”
Meanwhile, Bessborough became notorious for the cruelty and neglect of mothers and their babies.
Of the more than 900 babies who died at Bessborough or in Cork hospitals having been transferred from the mother and baby home over the course of seven decades, less than 70 have known burial sites.
Survivors of the home have broadly welcomed the decision by An Bord Pleanála to deny planning for building on the site.
Carmel, whose mother gave birth to a boy who died in Bessborough, told Red FM News of her delight at the decision by the planning authority.
“I’m delighted it is being refused. All the grounds potentially have burials in them. It is not just one particular area.
There hasn’t been an investigation to establish whether there is a mass grave or where the children are but what we do know is that there is witnesses that have witnessed burials take place.”
Babies have grown up not knowing they were adopted after forced practice
Babies have grown up not knowing they were adopted after forced practice
‘It is vital that people living in Gloucestershire who are affected by historic forced adoption practices feel supported’
By Kim Horton Senior Reporter
- 06:00, 18 SEP 2024
A support plan has been put in place to helped those affected by forced adoption practices which spanned for almost 30 years. Between 1949 and 1976 an estimated 185,000 babies in England and Wales were taken from unmarried mothers and placed for adoption due to pressure from their families and society.
Evidence from across the UK suggests that many of the adoptions during this time were ‘closed’, meaning that children were given new names, identities, and birth certificates, were not informed that they were an adoptee and had no ongoing contact with their families. Gloucestershire County Council is working in partnership with Adoption West to ensure any mothers, or children who are now adults, impacted by forced adoption practices have access to readily available support.
The impact of this on women and children should not be underestimated, having lifelong and significantly distressing effects. The county council has commissioned Adoption West, a Regional Adoption Agency who amongst other adoption related activity provide support to adults who were adopted and families affected by forced adoption practices.
Leader of Gloucestershire County Council, Councillor Stephen Davies, said: “It is vital that people living in Gloucestershire who are affected by historic forced adoption practices feel supported. At times, they may need help and advice from professionals who understand adoption, which is why I would encourage anyone who has been affected by these practices to get in touch with Adoption West so that they can receive the help they need.”
Adoption West can support adopted adults, birth parents and birth relatives affected by historic adoptions in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.
The Adoption West Birth Links Service works with adopted adults and birth parents to provide:
- Support to apply to the Registrar General for the information needed to obtain a certified copy of their birth certificate
- Access to birth record services
- Up to six sessions of emotional support for birth family and adopted adults
- Advice about intermediary services
- Birth parent support groups
- To access support please visit the Adoption West website:
- Adopted Adults – Adoption West or telephone 03303 550 333
Panel launch Truth Recovery Report
New law change to improve access to adult adoption related therapy
New law change to improve access to adult adoption related therapy
News from BACP
20 December 2023
Providers of adult adoption-related therapy no longer need to be registered with Ofsted
Adult adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents will no longer face a major barrier to access therapy as a result of pressure from the counselling and psychotherapy sector and adoption charities. Until now, Ofsted registration has been required for those who provide therapy to adoptees, birth parents and adoptive parents aged over 18 in England which has long caused major barriers in accessing therapy at a time where people need it most. However, following years of lobbying to remove this requirement, an extensive government consultation was carried out earlier this year. This week, updated Ofsted guidance was issued implementing the Department for Education’s decision to make important changes will mean the providers of adult adoption-related therapy no longer need to be registered with Ofsted. After hearing the news, Martin Bell, our Head of Policy and Public Affairs, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to hear that the government has removed the Ofsted registration requirement for adult adoptees, birth mothers and adoptive parents. We’ve no doubt this change in legislation will significantly increase access to therapy and help more people at a time where they need it most. We’ve called for this change for many years as we know it’s caused a huge barrier for those trying to access vital, affordable, and appropriate counselling. Adoption can have a life-long impact on people and it’s crucial that anyone affected by it can access the mental health support they need. It’s also a topic that our members and clients feel incredibly passionate about. One of the issues that many of our therapists faced before this new legislation came into play was that it’s sometimes difficult to know if counselling will centre around adoption before therapy starts. Under the old rules, if adoption-related issues were unearthed in counselling, often the therapist had to stop working with the client and had few or even no onward referral pathways available for them. But now that the new change in law has come into play, therapists and clients will no longer have to face this upheaval and can access life changing therapy like any other adult.”
Marian O’Brien, who was adopted and recently affected by this issue, said: “Having finally decided to take the big step and have counselling to discuss my adoption story, I was told by the lovely therapist I had found that the law actually prohibited her from working with me I was incredulous! So, I am delighted with this news because it means I can get the support that I need from the therapist I want to work with.”
Our evidence was referred to throughout the government’s response to the consultation. The response also included our intention to create an adoption competence framework, and other good practice and CPD resources to enable members to develop their knowledge and understanding of this area. We’ve also committed to developing a training curriculum to support training providers to deliver training in this area. The report states: “the development of such a framework and training would deliver what many respondents asked for in their responses and should allow high quality provision with sufficient safeguarding for those registered with them.”
Please note: The new Ofsted guidance does not explicitly refer to the previous restrictions that were in place for therapists working with adults on issues related to adoption, and the fact that the required Ofsted registration has now been removed.
There are still circumstances where registration with Ofsted is required, including working therapeutically with children and young people around adoption issues or when providing other adoption related support to anyone in addition to counselling. You can view the new updated adoption support agency guidance and registration requirements here
Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’
Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’
Sun, 30 May, 2021 – 06:35
Maresa Fagan
Survivors of mother and baby homes and other State institutions have been let down and only an international investigation can shed light on the “human rights violations” of the past, according to Bessborough survivor Terri Harrison. The 66-year-old Dublin campaigner is one of 13 women from Ireland and the North who have requested that the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigate the ‘violent legacy’ of mother and baby homes, Bessborough survivor: ‘The shame belongs with them’e laundries, and industrial schools. The recent ICC request made by Belfast-based legal firm KRW Law is seeking a preliminary examination into whether the institutional abuse exposed in recent reports and inquiries amounted to “crimes against humanity”. Earlier this year, the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation found that around 56,000 unmarried mothers and 57,000 children passed through 18 State-funded and church-run institutions examined and that around 9,000 babies and children died. The legacy of the institutions, which operated for more than seven decades, has left deep scars across society, from the mothers whose babies were taken away to the children who were adopted or who died and were buried in pits. The commission findings were met with widespread criticism from survivors and have led to several legal challenges against the State. For Terri, the final report was a “whitewash” as it failed to acknowledge or atone for the abduction and forced disappearances of thousands of young girls and women pregnant out of wedlock, their “stolen” babies, or for the children who died. “There wasn’t a whisper of humanity in the report,” Terri says, adding that it failed to address the issue of neglect and starvation or the 922 unaccounted for babies in the Bessborough facility in Cork.
‘Pregnant from Ireland’
Terri is one of more than 2,500 PFIs Irish women or girls who were officially recorded as ‘pregnant from Ireland’ and brought back from the UK to a mother and baby home. It was 1973 when the Crusade and Rescue Society, an English-based Catholic charity, “abducted” the expectant 18-year-old from London and a nun and priest escorted her by car to the airport and onwards to the Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork. It was a day forever etched in Terri’s mind. “I will never forget the door and the click of the door when it closed. I was just left there in the hallway. I have never felt as alone in my life as I did in that moment,” she says.
“When I stood in that hallway I lost me. I was given a house number and house name and was shown to a bed and locker. I just sat there and cried and cried and said to myself ‘this is the bowels of hell’.”
While Terri managed to escape from Bessborough and return to Dublin, she was tracked down and sent to St Patrick’s mother and baby home on the Navan Rd, where she gave birth to a baby boy, Niall, who was later “taken” for adoption. There was a cry, a primal scream, that you would hear regularly when a mother discovered that their baby was gone. “It was wrenching, like a cry from an animal,” she says.
Forty-eight years on, the pain and sense of loss remains, but Terri continues to hold out hope that she may someday reconnect with Niall, who she describes as her “shadow child”. “No matter where we were or what we were doing I always pictured him at the age he should be. I visualised him everywhere and at Christmas time there was always a present under the tree for him,” she says.
Terri is only too aware that her experience is not unique and last year got involved in setting up a support group, Society of Survivors, to enable women to share their experiences.
Carrying the secrets
Some women, she says, still carry the loss, silence, shame, and secrets today: “I know women in their eighties to this day who have not told anyone, including their husbands or families.”
Survivors, she explains, have endured ‘living bereavement’ even though there was no loss of life. “No death occurred but each stage of your life presents a new bereavement that amplifies all those years of loss. The loss of freedom and liberty, the loss of motherhood, the loss of the right to breastfeed your own child, it just goes on and on and it never stops until you die.”
Women and girls, some as young as 12, were “dehumanised” in the institutions, which could not be called a home, Terri says: “We weren’t residents. We were interned. We were incarcerated. We were recorded by our offence. I was down as my first offence. The only difference is we didn’t get a court of law or a trial to find us guilty of anything.”
An independent international investigation, she believes, is the only way to uncover the true scale of the “human rights violations” and “inhumane” treatment that occurred. “There is a huge correlation between us and those who were incarcerated in war camps. You were 100% at the mercy of your captives. You could do nothing without their approval,” she says.
Any attempts to attribute what happened to the social norms of the time was a “cop-out”, Terri says, adding that it amounted to human trafficking, involving several sectors of the State and society, and that women and young girls were denied access to information and their rights, such as the right to see their child under the 1952 Adoption Act. “Who gave anybody the right to lock me away and take my child? Nobody will answer that,” she says.
The long-time campaigner, who has penned a play, No More Secrets, No More Lies, based on her own experiences, says the Government needs to acknowledge what happened and support survivors. An enhanced medical card, she says, does not compare to the Health Amendment Act (HAA) card provided to victims of the contaminated blood products scandal, which is what survivors are looking for as a “gesture of kindness”. Any shame around these institutions today, Terri adds, lies firmly with the State and Government, and not survivors. “We are just a pain in their side or a toothache they want to get rid of. They don’t know what to do with us because we’re an embarrassment; we’re bringing embarrassment to the whole culture of this country,” Terri says.
“But I’ll keep saying this until I die; I like the word shame now because I know exactly where it belongs; the shame belongs with them.”
Society of Survivors support line: 085 8069925/26