When a mother and a father can or will not make the right decisions concerning the care of their child, a welfare worker is assigned to “act in the child’s best interest”.
As you know, they are then placed in the care of “a place of safety” for 6 months or more, then thereafter placed out to more permanent homes “to bond” with a person who would hopefully give them love and care.

What is really interesting is that the welfare workers only see the child for an hour or so every month or less, thus they do not get to know them, yet they get to decide what is best for the child.   Without a single consultation or even one hours prior notice with the current care-givers, who actually take care of these kids and know them very well,  or asking the child what he/she wants, they take the child away to a new home, where they have never met the people they have to live with from then on, and have no idea what to expect.

While living with us we have them believe that their Mommy/ Daddy loves them very much, that they went away to work hard now and they will come back one day, perhaps when they have a big house and lots of money to fetch them.  They have to believe that they are loved by their parents, that is the corner stone to loving yourself, their beginning.  These children didn’t have an easy life, and when they are taken away from us they feel that they were never really loved, why else would we give him/her up so easily?   When they are removed from the next best thing to Mommy or Daddy, they do not understand that this entirely happens to “please the court” and that it is to have the “case closed”. 

Understanding the law, (but not all it stands for), I only wish it really understood children well.  If only the law knew that children would mistrust grown-ups and refuse to grow attached to anyone if they get taken away so many times without warning. Couldn’t there be time for a chat to the child, time to visit with the new foster or permanent parents for a day, then a weekend then a week, before they get taken away for good, almost like a sudden death. 

And then rules the court, the child is not to be removed from the new premises, can not come and visit even for a day, he/she may not be visited, you are not given the new adres, they must be left (again) to ‘bond’ with the new family – often just another shelter or childrens home and. not a real family.  Does the law understand the emptiness it creates within a child, by covering the grounds of permanent child placements so fully?

2007 The law has recently been changed to give foster parents more rights concerning the placements of young children.