The Wardman Wire

[Update 10/2/2009: I've edited the headline, removing "choice", as I didn't intend to make any arguments about whether Sexual Orientation is innate or not - this piece is about autonomy for fostered teenagers. Thanks to Eshto in the comments.]

From the Daily Mail this morning, a report of a Foster Carer “struck off” for “allowing a Muslim girl in her care to convert to Christianity.” This is the nub of it:

A foster mother has been struck off the register for allowing a Muslim girl in her care to convert to Christianity.

The woman, who has looked after more than 80 children in the past ten years, is considering suing the council over the decision.

Although she is a practising Anglican, she said she had put no pressure on the girl who was baptised last year at the age of 16.

She said social workers had also raised no objections to her own attendance at church.

But officials insist she failed in her duty to preserve the girl’s religion and should have tried to stop the baptism.

The foster mother’s removal from the register followed in November.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has launched a legal challenge to the decision with funding from the Christian Institute.

I don’t usually take the Daily Mail as a single source, but this seems to be a sober report. My comments are based on an assumption that the report is accurate. If this has been “Daily Mail”-ed I’ll correct and update.

There’s a lot that could be said about this, but there is one point that I find fascinating: it is established that childen under 18 have a right to self-determination of children where sexuality, marriage or deciding what to do with a baby are concerned, but the denial of that right when it comes to choosing a religion. That does not look consistent.

The name of the Council has not been published, so I’ve had a look at the Handbook published by Sheffield for the principles and practises which are mandated for Forster Carers.

You can read the whole Sheffield Foster Carer’s Handbook book (PDF, 900k, 190 pages).

It is important to note that I am not criticising Sheffield in particular here, rather using the document as an example and illustration.

Opposition to Discrimination

The Council opposes all forms of discrimination

(page 14)

The Council opposes all forms of discrimination on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, religion and disability. We recognise that discrimination creates barriers to achieving equality for all people.

Foster carers are therefore expected to comply with this and will be challenged if you behave in a discriminatory manner. You are also invited to challenge the service if you believe the service has acted in a discriminatory manner.

All children need a positive identity, therefore when a child needs substitute family care his/her interests may be best met by a placement with a family, which reflects his/her background in terms of race, language, religion and culture. This includes children from all ethnic backgrounds whether black or white. You have a duty to celebrate the child’s culture with them. You can get help from your supervising social worker to help you achieve this aim.

Standard 7 of the National Minimum Standards for Fostering Services requires that services be provided in a manner, which values diversity and promotes equality.

Maintaining Religious Beliefs and Practices during Foster Care

Specifically on religion, the Sheffield Handbook says (page 110):

Religion

It is important for a child’s identity and possible reunification with his/her birth family that a child’s religious practices and beliefs are represented during the period of separation from their birth family.

Foster carers cannot change a child’s religion.

It is part of your role to encourage the child placed with you to practice their religion, even if you don’t practice the religion or practice it in a different way. It is important that children and young people have enough information about their religion to understand the main features and gain a sense of belonging.

You will need to ask the child, family, and social worker about how religion is practiced within the birth family. All families have slightly different rituals related to festivals and events – are Christmas presents opened in the morning or on Christmas Eve? How do the family break the fast during Ramadan?

If you have strong religious convictions, whereas the foster child and their family do not, it would be inappropriate to insist that the foster child observes your religious practices.

Sheffield City Council has produced a guide to Culture & Religion in Sheffield, which offers the following information about the religions practised in Sheffield and the customs and practices within these religions.

I don’t see anything there about a child wishing to change their own religion.

Gay and Bisexual Young People

This is in marked contrast to the attitude towards sexual orientation:

Gay Lesbian and Bisexual Young People.

During the teenage years young people develop their sexual identity. Assumptions about young people’s sexuality should not be made. You should make sure you are clear that you do not expect your foster child to have a boyfriend or girlfriend but rather that they have a positive health relationship with the person of their choice.

The Children Act Guidance 1989 Vol 4 says ‘the needs and concerns of gay young men and women must be recognised and approached sympathetically.’

Is this Consistent?

I don’t think is consistent, as surely it is a matter for the child to determine their own identity – and that applies to both sexuality and religion, or neither.

If Fostering Services (or the Law) are going to determine that children are going to demand autonomy in one area, it cannot impose conformity in another.

A Legal Challenge

I think a legal challenge will be useful here to help determine in just which areas of life Local Authorities are allowed to deny their charges a right to find their own views, and just how great are the restrictions that they can demand are imposed by Foster Carers.

Does a Council Adoption Service have the right to demand that a child be prevented from attending religious services of a type that the Service thinks don’t fit in with a child’s “Culture”? Or does it have the right to demand that a child be forced to attend services that the Service has determined are part of the child’s “culture”?

What’s Going On?

I’m not willing to be categorical about the action of the Local Authority, beyond saying that they seem to be taking the easy way out and trying to impose procedures on a question that requires a human touch.

The decision to deregister a Carer who has cared for 80 children seems to be simply bizarre. The only explanation I can come up with for that action is that they are again looking for an easy way out, rather than grappling with the problems caused by children seeking to exercise their free will.

I’d make a comparison with the process which created an inflexible set of ideas about race which were fashionable in the 1980s and resulted in cases where children were only allowed to be adopted by parents of their own “culture”.

Wrapping Up

I’ll also be interested to see what those blogs wanting to exclude religion from public life come up with on this one.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Cranmer seems thoroughly sensible (his commenters less so):

The girl was, after all, 16 years old when she chose to be baptised. She is considered intelligent, and ‘chose herself not to wear overtly Muslim clothes or to eat Halal food’. She also freely chose to attend church, despite her carer initially discouraging her. In short, she was of an age to decide herself how she wished to dress, what she wished to eat, and what religion she wished to follow. And this right is enshrined in UK law, not to mention the EU Convention on Human Rights and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the United Nations. Her decision to embrace Christianity ought to be of absolutely no concern to any petty (or ’senior’) official in local government, and Cranmer has no idea why any employee of the British state should deem it their business to attempt to un-convert the converted.

But the gross incompetence and ineptitude of this council is further exemplified when one reads that this young convert to Christianity has been returned to her own family – who ‘have not been told of her conversion’. It was because she was ‘assaulted by a family member’ in 2007 that she was put into foster care in the first place. Does this council have confidence that this girl will be safe?

and the thread over at the Dawkins Forums agrees:

As an atheist I don’t care which sky fairy…

As a secularist I am appalled.

Discuss.

Finally, the same standards must apply whichever way conversion happens – for example if a teenager abandons their faith, or gains one.

Tags: daily mail, dismissed, foster care, sexuality