Parents were kept informed, court told

A social worker who helped arrange the adoption of an emotionally
and behaviourally disturbed five-year-old child told the High Court
last week that he kept the boy’s new parents fully informed of his
problems.

The couple – who adopted the boy and his younger sister in the
mid-1990s – are suing Essex Council for the psychiatric injuries
they claim they suffered as a result of the council’s failure to
warn them fully of the boy’s behavioural problems.

However, the social worker told the court that the couple had said
they understood the boy’s problems and had the ability and
resourcefulness to call for help if they needed it.

In a report he wrote in 1997, the social worker noted that the
couple “see no need to have any ongoing social worker involvement
and believe the file can now be closed”.

However, he was unsure whether he had made the couple aware that
the boy would require child guidance, respite carers, professional
help, and was displaying behaviour that a doctor thought abnormal.

“They understood the difficulties the children had had in the past
and the problems they might bring with them,” he added.

The case continues.