CC Live news: Taking vulnerable children into care may do more harm than good

A Scottish adoption expert has warned that efforts to take more vulnerable children into care could be more damaging than supporting them to stay with birth families.
 
Barbara Hudson, Scottish director of Baaf Adoption and Fostering, said recent calls by Scottish ministers for social workers to intervene earlier in the cases of children whose parents misuse drugs or alcohol were misguided.
 
The concerns, prompted by a series of recent high profile abuse and neglect cases, are likely to lead to new guidance or regulations for social work departments in the new year.
 
But Hudson said: “It’s very tempting [to intervene earlier], but it’s short-term. We can’t keep taking children away from people and screwing them up in the system and looking to other families to sort it out.
 
“We have to start thinking more creatively about making it possible to stay in the birth family. Many of the substance misusing parents are in their 20s and may not have had good parenting experiences. Can we help give them parenting skills?”
 
Hudson added that society was overoptimistic about the impact the state could make on vulnerable children’s lives.