Mother pleads for help over ‘difficult’ daughter (From The Northern Echo)

typical response from this council and the Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS. They look for blame every where but themselves we need a public enquiry into these issues

how can they let familys like these 2 down so badly when they asked for help for there children isnt it about time they got it right and stopped passing the blame ... they should do there job and get it right before the matters get worse not leave it till its to late and the child ends up in an inccdent before they decide to step in and give the chil all the help they need i think its so out of line .. hope these families get a group together and help other familys going through the same ordeal and let them know that there is other groups that can help and put them all in right directions and that there are many there for them but they are never told about them either so they feel alone but there not so people lets help these families and others in there situations get there help and ther rights to all of them

Oh, right. This has nothing to do with basic parenting skills either does it.

What a $hite society we are living in where the councils/services are expected to take the rap for OUR poor social skills.

yes but if you read that the little girl has had these mental health problams since birth is that her fault or the parents.... more top the point the little boy is it his adoptive parents fault that he is the way he is after all the trauma he went through before he was placed with a loving family and how come if its poor parenting has the familys have other children that are perfectaly ok hmmm let me see my point is both these familys have been realy let down ... they have other kids that are ok so how can there parenting skills be that bad then

Health Editor Barry Nelson talks to a family who are finding that there is a lack of support for their adopted son who they say suffers from behavioural problems.

WHEN Peter and Jane were told it was highly unlikely that they could have children, there was one obvious solution. Peter had been adopted as a small child and had had such a positive experience that he felt adoption was a great institution.

“I had a very good experience and it seemed the right thing to do. I wanted to give kids the kind of life I was given,” says the self-employed Darlington businessman.

So, in 1995, the couple formally applied to their local authority to be accepted as potential adoptive parents.

Because they both smoked and had both lost one parent, the authority turned them down, partly on the grounds of smoking and partly because they had a “poor support network”.

Determined to adopt, the couple waited four years and applied again.

This time they cleared the various hurdles and were allowed to adopt a boy, aged 22 months, and his half-sister, aged nine months.

At the time the couple were told that both children had had a difficult start in life and had been neglected by their natural parents, who also had severe mental health problems.

Incredibly, within a year of adopting the two children the couple found out they were going to have a baby.

A baby girl was subsequently born and the couple now had a family of three to raise.

It was during the toddler and early-school stages that both adopted children started to demonstrate developmental and behavioural problems.

In junior school, the boy became increasingly violent towards other children, teachers and his adoptive father.

The local education authority was called in and agreed to place the boy in a unit for children with behavioural problems. Unfortunately, the unit closed after only six months.

Back at home, his behaviour became more violent and manipulative and he was referred to the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) of Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust.

CAMHS told the parents that the boy had an “attachment disorder” and asked them to attend what were called super-parenting classes.

The boy was sent back to mainstream school but his behaviour got worse, holding a teacher hostage with scissors.

In April last year, the boy was sent to a school for children with behavioural problems. In January, his problems escalated.

“He regularly trashed his room and was subject to violent outbursts,” his father says.

“I have a heart condition and he would goad me into angina attacks then laugh. He was also very violent with other children. We were at our wits’ end.”

At this stage Peter and Jane pleaded for help to keep the family together.

Their local GP referred the matter to Darlington Social Services and the boy’s school also referred the matter to social services, but the couple waited until February 21 before a social worker visited.

Peter said: “We suffered a month of continuous violence and we asked social services for urgent help.”

Only a few days later, the boy tried to sexually assault his sister then tried to stab his father with a kitchen knife. The boy was taken into emergency foster care, but then allowed home.

In a 90-day period between early January and the end of April, Peter calculates that his adoptive son made “three serious attempts” to stab him, as well as setting traps for his sisters with broken glass and by altering the thermostat on the shower to scald them.

APART from offering parenting advice, Peter claims that social services have done very little to support them.

After research into attachment disorders, the couple are convinced that their son is suffering from a condition called Reactive Attachment Disorder, or Rad.



and for those that didnt read this in the paper on the thuirsday here is the other familys plight