Rotary Challenge

script

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  • Created by: Matt
  • Created on: 12-03-12 20:28

Alice: The laws on adoption these days have got out of control. There are 65,520 children waiting to be adopted right now. 58% of these are over the age of 10… which is statistically the age that aren’t in demand to be adopted.

Matt: From this we can see that the process of adoption needs to be shortened so that children are taken out of care and in to adoption as quickly as possible.

Mike: Yeah – after all, it’s not healthy for a young child to be kept in mass care. The government may be doing all they can to keep these children safe and with the care they need – but a child needs a family, for the love and attention, it really deserves. 

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Cash: Although I can see why that it seems the adoption process is too long – there are infact, many reasons as to why the adoption process takes the amount of time it does.

Emma: Yeah. These include loads of dead important steps too. [sort of look at the audience as if too explain to them how it works] Firstly, a lot of paperwork is required to see initially, if the couple are a right fit. Next, a social worker will interview you, and visit the place you intend to raise the child.

Will: After a lot more crucial paper work, references are made, from friends, family, doctors, employers, that sort of thing. Further along the process, an interview day is arranged, where intensive interviews take place, in order to finally determine when the child is ready to be taken into the house.

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Cash: After all this, social workers will repeatedly check up on the adopted child, every day for a few weeks, then maybe just once a week after that. All these processes ensure that the child has a happy life, and you can’t argue with that, surely?

Mike: I agree that there are processes that are necessary to take, but on average it takes 2 years and 7 months to adopt. Many would say that the first few years of a baby’s life are the most crucial for their development, therefore the authorities should be trying to let couples (and single people) adopt as soon as possible rather than making it as hard as possible.

Will:  It isn’t the case that the authorities are making the case ‘as hard a possible’. When you get on an airplane – do you make a case that authorities are making the process as long as possible, when there doing safety checks? When it’s you welfare at hand – your willing to make exceptions, don’t children have a right to welfare too?

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Cash: Time needs to be taken to make sure that children are happy. How would you feel If you were carelessly placed in an environment in which you weren’t happy?

Alice: Yes, but don’t you see that it would be even worse for a child to stay in a home that they are not happy with, possible waiting in care, all alone, waiting for the health and safety checkups to be finished?

Mike: They do seem ridiculous – I was talking to a friend, who is trying to adopt, who agreed that the checkups and interviews were over intrusive and unnessessary. The care system are also spending a lot of time to make sure that Black and Asian children go to  families of the same ethnicity, and although this is understandable, it is leaving many minority groups in care for a longer time for no reason when they could happily join any home.

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Emma: The reason they do that is so that children feel part of the family when they enter in to their new home as they will have shared backgrounds and experiences

Matt: The whole reason that a child is in for adoption is because the child is in need of quality care. As long as they are with a family that can give them that care then it shouldn’t matter about what ethnicity they are, we should just want as many children to be adopted as quickly as is safe to do.

Alice:  There are many reasons why children are put up for adoption; it may only be that the child’s parents were unsure about their capabilities as parents. But what if the child is being abused? How is it fair to keep a person in that kind of situation?

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BABY P CASE STUDY

Mike: Sometimes, the process take so long, innocent people are harmed. It’s not just the adoption process that’s at fault here – It’s the whole care system!

Alice: On the first 2006, Baby Peter was born into society.

Matt: December 2006: Baby Peters mother is arrested, after numerous bruises on peters face and chest.

Mike: After 5 weeks of having to stay with a family friend, the boy is returned ‘home’.

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Alice: in February 2007, a former social worker expresses worries about baby P’s alleged parental failings to the child protection services.

Matt: On the first of august, Baby P is examined at a health clinic, following sustained injuries to face and chest. Two days later, on February 3rd, 2007, Baby Peter was found dead.

Mike: That’s a period of 8 months, following an arrest of Baby Peters mother, under a case of child abuse, to which the care system failed to take the child out of care, and find appropriate parents for Baby P to grow up with.

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Will: That a tragic story, but regrettably, this is a one in a million event, which should not be a showcase for the adoption service. Even if Baby P was taken out of his home, what are the chances he would have been adopted anyway?

Alice: But is it an one in a million event? Did you know more than 5 children are killed every day as a result of child abuse? Maybe if the process was shortened, these children may have a chance of being saved.

Cash: Again, a fair pair point, but there are cases of the reverse happening too. Studies have shown that adopted children are more likely to receive some kind of abuse from their parents than biological children.

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Emma: Exactly. Adopted children lose their parents early on in life, and no matter how good their foster parents are, the children still feel this sense of loss, becoming difficult, and usually frustrating to take care of. It’s called the Primal wound.

[Sad music start again]

Emma: Adoptees are more likely to be physically and sexually abused.

Will: One fact that the Adoption industry is keen to ignore is that these children are open to be abused from others too. 

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Cash: It’s common sense. Mothers have a primal instinct to care for their families and to ensure the survival of their family tree’s. Without this sense of ‘blood’, these parents do not have the chance to bond with their adopted child, and the result is the baby is born into a world of neglect and abuse.

Emma: Maybe if the adoption process was just slightly longer, Children and there adopted families would be able to make this bond, and feel more closely connected to their families.

Will: this would also give time for the blood mother, and child they are leaving, to make amendments, and have a proper goodbye(SAD MUSIC)

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Matt: True, but what if the child that is being adopted is in abuse? Surely the child needs to get into a same home as soon as possible.

Mike: Even the government is recognizing there are faults in the care system. This clip shows how women are being put off making a childs life happier by the long process.The government is to speed up the process of adoption in England, saying it is "painfully slow" and "unwelcoming".  [Play BBC News clip]

Cash: [Music starts coming in now, but still so you can hear cash’s summary] Well, again, I can see your point, and I agree that maybe the laws are getting so long that childrens happiness is at stake. so, if the adoption process is shortened, but only to the extent that children aren’t at risk of being rushed into an uncertain family, wouldn’t that be better?

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Emma: Yeah, and only if the social care system employs more workers, to get the checks, that you can’t deny are important, done quicker?

Alice: alright, that could work. If we can eliminate the risk of great tragedies such as Baby Peters death, but also, Long enough for necessary health checks to be completed; this would ensure that the adopted child still has to right to happiness. Thank you for listening. 

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