SCOTLAND

'I needed to go into care. I needed to be taken out of that situation'

As the Scottish Parliament launches an investigation into the system for taking children in care, a woman has told STV News how it took years to come to terms with being separated from her mother.

Jade Roy, now 38, was taken into care when she was five years old after her mother became involved with drugs.

MSPs on Holyrood's Education and Culture Committee are to examine the process by which social workers decide whether to take children away from their parents.

Committee convener Stewart Maxwell said the inquiry would help ensure "that we are making the best decisions for children who may be abused or neglected".

Mr Maxwell said: "There is a sensitive and difficult balance to be struck between supporting families at home and intervening to remove children from harmful situations".

Ms Roy, from Edinburgh, told STV News that being taken away from her mother was a hugely stressful experience that she only fully understood years afterwards.

She said: "I really loved my family that adopted me... but it always hung over me that I still loved my mum.

"It wasn't I suppose until I was maybe 18 or 19 that I asked for my papers from the social work to find out exactly what had happened, because you remember things differently when you're little.

When I read it all I was just really shocked about what it was saying about me: I wet the bed, I didn't play, I didn't talk, I was just really unusual, withdrawn child, and I don't remember being like that.

"Just reading it back reaffirmed to me that it was absolutely the right thing to do for me. I needed to be taken out of that situation."

The committee says it will not rush to judgment, but consider in detail the current system to decide if it is working for children and their families.

The inquiry will also look at whether decisions are being made consistently across the country.

Over the last 10 years the number of children in care has risen from under 11,000 to more than 16,000. Last year 5,437 looked-after children remained in the family home.

News feature
29 June 2012

http://local.stv.tv/edinburgh/108471-i-needed-to-go-into-care-i-needed-to-be-taken-out-of-that-situation/

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