Channel 4 Plans Britain’s Forgotten Children Season
Combining TV programmes, online content and off-air events, Channel 4’s Britain’s Forgotten Children season aims to raise awareness of the issues facing children in care.
Opening the season, Adopt Me (w/t) follows four households of would-be adopters over 18 months as they take part in a pioneering project designed to find homes for the children no one wants. Journalist and adoption campaigner David Akinsanya has worked with three of the country’s leading adoption agencies and BAAF (British Association for Adoption and Fostering) to create this innovative and hands-on training course.
Adoption Experience (www.channel4.com/adopt) will provide a unique online resource to support the programme. The site will include video testimonies from people who have been adopted, adopters, social workers, siblings, people left in the system and potential adopters, offering insights into many of the issues surrounding adoption.
Dominique Walker, who commissioned Adopt Me for Channel 4, said: “We’ve been privileged to work with adoption agencies and follow the progress of this new course that encourages parents to take on the children who are hardest to find a home for. We need to be more aware of these children’s plight and understand the issues they face.”
David Akinsanya added: “As someone who spent their entire childhood in care, I wish I’d have had the chance to have been adopted. Not having loving parents affected my education and desire to succeed at school and made me feel unwanted and abandoned. I hope the series prompts people to look into their lives to see if they can offer their home to a child that needs one. I know it is a big ask of people but the rewards are enormous – to both child and family.”
The season also includes an edition of Dispatches presented by Rageh Omaar and a Cutting Edge special, The Homecoming, which tells the story of journalist Rachel Roberts, who was placed in a children’s home in Doncaster at the age of four. Now, more than 30 years later, with only an old photo and fading recollections of her time there, she’s searching for the other children she shared the home with to find out what became of them. The film also takes a wider look at the care system in general and the long-lasting effects it can have on those who experience it.
The season closes with single drama The Unloved, the directorial debut from Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton. Morton has worked with acclaimed writer Tony Grisoni (In This World, Red Riding) to create a child’s eye view of the care system in the UK. Filmed in Morton’s home town of Nottingham, it stars Robert Carlyle (28 Weeks Later), Susan Lynch (Elizabeth: The Golden Age), Craig Parkinson (Control) and Andrea Lowe (Silent Witness).The two young leads – Molly Windsor as Lucy and Lauren Socha as Lauren – were cast through open auditions held across Nottingham schools, drama groups and at The Television Workshop (which Morton attended aged 12).
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The issues facing children in the care system will not be resolved by Adoption,I hope the series does not simply perpetuate that myth.
Adoption at best is a very British way of our middle class media seeing an obvious solution when in fact it isn’t.
I will view with some trepidation.
The advert for this has really angered me.
I’m hoping that it was made to grab attention and is not just a glimpse of what is to come. The care system can work very well. Even residential care for some young people.
But all I can gather from this is that there is going to be;
A recruitment drive for adopters
A drama that will be…..well a drama.
And a sensationalist documentrary which shocks people with how bad things were 30 years ago.
Will there be anything positive? Will there be anything up to date?
Forced adoption is behind many of “Britain’s Forgotten Children. I hope this gets coverage in the season, as it’s a shameful thorn in the British Governments side.
i had mine removed as a failed assessment yet another area has passed me my children at the time were all under 5 in sheffield at min if my children were adopted doncaster and sheffield would benefit the councils that is and are sociall services are they on back handers for keeping up the quota . oone of my children were abused in care i never harmed my children ever . guess where my kids are with my ex family great the family what harrassed us intimidated us attacked us and ttheir father abuses my older 3 children and doncaster social services give him unsupervised contact me and my children ave been failed by social services and the goverment and the police and my ex is free to abuse more kids .
I was wondering can anyone tell me what is the music for the trailer of ‘Britains Forgoten Children, is it something by the Roling #Stones maybe?
Steve
Steve I am looking for this my self and I am sure it is ‘Paint it Black’ by the rolling stones! That is why I am on here too!
Sorry no its not! Its gimme shelter! Though the first is good too!
I have spent the best part of the past ten years working with homeless young people. Many are care leavers and I constantly question exactly what care means as I meet so many desperate , disillusioned young people.
Labelled disfunctional and many alone in the world at 16 without anyone to turn to…..I hope this hilights the need for real “care” for those passing through this system !
I am an orphan. I was failed on numerous levels by the system. After my killed herself I was left with my verbally abusive alcholic father who was known to the police. At no point did social services check we were okay. After 4 years of psychological abuse my father also killed himself. At 14 my two siblings (then 13 and 10) and I were seperated to live with different members of extended family. Still no social services. I lived for 2 years with my alcholic aunt.Then at 16 lived in a hostel until I was moved to an apartment at 17. Did I want to live without a family at 17? How many times can this system fail someone? I have no faith in it at all. It’s a lucky draw.
The system DOES fail children in care and perpetuate an often negative behaviour once a child leaves care at 16. The transition to adulthood is full of hurdles of red tape, beaucarcy, negligent staff, form filling, pathway plans, reviews etc.
ITS A F**KED SYSTEM RUN BY OVERPAID FU**ED PEOPLE. Birmingham City Council who have been issued with an improvement order are the worst. Their work population is ageing while younger and more competent workers leave. Why? Because when such competent people speak out B’ham City Council’s HR, Senior managers, head of service and so called investigation officers will close ranks to protect their own worthless behinds!
2 such people who have escaped this order have now been transferred to Coventry Social services.. WATCH OUT COVENTRY. IF THE LEAVING CARE SERVICE IS SHEDDING STAFF IN COVENTRY ITS BECAUSE OF AN ATTEMPT TO SAVE ‘MONEY’ YET PLACE YOUNG PEOPLE LEAVING CARE AT UNNECCESSARY RISKS.
I would like to say to Rachel You were one of the luckier ones. I am sure that there is a lot of people out there that do the job but dont care. All children need love and attention. Personally, I feel I may have been better off brought up in a home. My mother hated boys such that when I started school at Bilson, Cinderford I didnt even know my own name. I have a picture of me and my sister dressed in girls clothing when I was almost four.I was terrified. I never had one good word from my mother..never mind a hug or a kiss.I was made to feel ashamed of myself… I was nothing. My brother was lucky to be born although he too had girls clothing and hair down his back until almost 3yrs old ..when neighbours complained to her. But fortunately he had a loving Godmother. Now 70 I note how young boys are often treated like parcels being pushed around whereas girls are communicated with. I have a shop and see it most days. This treatment really “knackered my life”.
I feel there are so many complex issues surrounding chilren and young people in care. Firstly can the damage done to so many in their own homes and from their own parents ever be repaired so this is the very frist ‘let down’ on the most basic level for care and attention. Secondly when you reach the care system – usually after years of abuse and neglect, the system lets you down again in the different way – of inconsistency in every respect – education, social workers, families, then you reach the grand ‘old’ age of 18 – and the only lesson you get is how to claim benefits and live in a bed sitter alone.
Why on earth was it ever called the ‘care system’ – when it is a patched up system??? Which turfs so many young people out into further isolation. God Bless you all who have been in care xxx
i would like help from channel 4 my son is in care and hes not being look arfter nice and i have a son that live with me i have a lot of notes and evdinceds of this