MUM told of her heartache yesterday after social workers snatched two of her daughters because they have anorexia.
The girls - 12 and 14 - were taken from her care after their weight plunged.
The despairing mum, who had begged for specialist help for her daughters, said: "My girls are ill, not neglected.
"I did everything that a mum could do and now I cannot even see my daughters without supervision."
She battled to get her daughters to eat properly but watched in horror as the pair appeared to be starving themselves in competition with each other to eat as little as possible.
Their mum admits she feared they would starve to death. But she insists they should instead have received specialist medical attention while remaining in her care.
The older sister has become even more emaciated since going into care and has been admitted to a specialist hospital.
The action by South Lanarkshire council - the first of its kind in Scotland - comes weeks after Dundee City Council put a s114,000 round-the-clock support team in place to prevent a fat family over-eating.
Now the mum of the anorexic girls, from East Kilbride, says she will sue to get her daughters home.
Her lawyer claims the council may have breached the Children (Scotland) Act and should have attempted to provide a solution which kept the family together.
The 47-year-old mum, a nursery nurse employed by the same council, said: "I asked for some home support but instead of getting the help I needed, my daughters were snatched from me.
"Anorexia. is an illness not a welfare issue.
"One of my girls was beginning to recover and put on weight but since being put into foster care she's lost more weight and has had to be rushed back into hospital."
The 12-year-old, once a medal-winning athlete, started to become obsessed with food in 2007 after a healthy eating project in primary school.
She cut her intake dramatically until she was taking little more than basic fluids and flushing her packed lunch down the toilet at school.
Then aged 11, she began seeing eating disorder specialist Dr Richard Foxley at NHS Lanarkshire Child & Family Clinic.
But by March 2008, she was so underweight she was sent to s500-a-day privately run Huntercombe Hospital, West Lothian, for 13 months.
After a gradual improvement, the mum's hope turned to horror when she realised the 14-year-old had begun to copy her sister.
The mum said: "I took her to the doctor straight away. But I'd to fight to get her seen by a specialist. While my youngest daughter was still in hospital, my other daughter was cutting her food down to virtually nothing.
"I was told the Child&Family Clinic was the only place I could go for help.
"But by the time they agreed to see her last October, she was so emaciated, doctors at the clinic couldn't even get a pulse when they finally examined her.
"They were so shocked, they insisted she be admitted to Wishaw General Hospital immediately.
"After she was stabilised, she was sent to Huntercombe to join her sister."
The girls were discharged from Huntercombe in April, two weeks apart, having gained some weight.
Their mum said: "Although I was happy to have them both home I realised they were still struggling with anorexia.
"I warned everyone they'd put on weight just to get out of hospital. But my concerns were completely ignored.
"I was told hospital was getting too expensive and I'd just have to cope.
"The girls were writing things like 'nothing else matters as long as I can see my bones' in their diaries.
"As soon as they got together, they started competing again.
"I was terrified my daughters were dying in front of my eyes.
"I begged for help at mealtimes and at the end of April, the council eventually sent a private firm of home helps.
"They weren't qualified on eating disorders, and during the four days they came to our home, they made extremely unhelpful comments such as how my girls could be models because of their 'fantastic bone structure'.
"Their comments just made things even worse."
On April 29 this year, the mum was so worried about her youngest daughter's condition she took her to Hairmyres Hospital.
The girl was so weak, she was transferred by ambulance to Wishaw General and put on a drip.
The next day, her stunned mum was told by social workers they were taking the girl into foster care.
The mum said: "They told me if I did not sign their paperwork voluntarily, they'd get a court order.
"I was so distressed and felt so alone, they completely bulldozed me into signing.
"When I told my daughter, she completely broke down. I held her in my arms all night trying to comfort her and she started blaming herself and promising she'd start eating again."
The mum was ordered to be out of the hospital by the time social workers came to collect her daughter.
It was nine days before they saw each other again and social workers have since insisted any contact has to be supervised.
On June 1, social workers took the older girl after the mother again signed an agreement fearing court action if she didn't.
Her second daughter has since run away from foster care and had to be re-hospitalised at Huntercombe after further weight loss.
"I believe if we'd been given the help and support I needed when both girls were discharged from Huntercombe within a fortnight of each other, we'd still be together and the girls would have had a real chance of getting better.
"We needed joint medical and social work support.
"But it seemed because the authorities had never dealt with anything like this before, they just grabbed my kids and threw them into care as it was simpler and less expensive."
The mum's lawyer, who asked not to be identified to protect the anonymity of his client, said: "The council put the sisters into care without going to court by using a voluntary order.
"I've seen cases where parents have severe drug and social problems but their children aren't removed or treated in this way.
"I believe South Lanarkshire Council may have breached the Children (Scotland) Act in the sister's case. "They have a statutory duty to ensure each child has as normal a life as possible and they've failed to provide the support required to do that."
South Lanarkshire Council said: "Due to client confidentiality, we are unable to discuss individual situations.
However, Social Work Resources work in partnership with health colleagues and families to provide appropriate support in the community."
NHS Lanarkshire said:"We are aware of this issue. However, no concerns have been raised with us about the provision of medical care.
"Unfortunately, we cannot comment further on individual cases due to patient confidentiality."
___________________________
CHRIS FREEMAN Consultant at the Cullen Centre for Eating Disorders
ONE of Britain's top anorexia. experts yesterday voiced shock at the treatment given to the family at the centre of the scandal.
Consultant psychiatrist Chris Freeman said: "One thing is certain and that is 'bad' mothers don't cause anorexia. The illness is far more complex than that. And we do know there can be a family or genetic link with anorexia.
"I feel keeping these girls in foster care long-term is a sure-fire way of getting them both re-admitted to hospital.
"I'd also question sending these girls to a privately-run clinic when Scotland now has three very good NHS centres for young people in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.
"It seems entirely inappropriate that such a huge amount of money has been spent on inpatient treatment for these girls, only for there to be little done in the way of care and support from the local council or health teams for when they come out of hospital."
Dr Freeman, director of eating disorder services for South East Scotland, added: "Having a specialist team in place when patients come out of hospital is almost as important as what goes on inside hospital.
"I'm also concerned this mother had to take them to hospital when they were so bad, they were almost dying. Things should never have been allowed to get to that stage.
"This is a killer illness, but a lot of GPs don't realise that. In fact, anorexia. has the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder.
"A lot of GPs seem to think anorexics will eventually 'come to their senses' and start eating again - that just doesn't happen. They can die.
"There has been concern among some specialists about the links between healthy eating projects in schools and triggers for eating disorders.
"Once an eating disorder has been triggered, it can be very difficult to get under control."
I have few words to say about this as I am so freaking angry. Goes to show howlame the NHS and Social Services can be.
And the 'home helps' saying what they said, OMFG I hope they were dismissed.
Last edited by Mrs Sam : 11-10-2009 at 02:41 PM.
Reason: removed link so i could edit the amounts and food
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i'm tired of chasing my dreams. i'm just gonna ask where they're going, and hook up with them later.
Thats awful i dont have an ED but that is just going to far i feel very sorry for both the two daughters and their mum. The girls have an illness they need help with but not help as in taking the daughters away from there mum , that could and already has made things worse.
That poor family.
Awful situation, obviously - but the source isn't particularly trustworthy? I dunno, it seems that there is a lot being missed out, and it's clearly a hugely biased article.
Plus, there are a few concerns I have that sprung to mind - these girls were taken to a private eating disorders unit, and then released from these - why were they released if they weren't stable? And there will have been an NHS system in support of this; hospitals, especially Huntercombe, don't release patients unless they're sure they have an NHS support system in place, and they also nearly always work along-side the family with post-discharge support - yet none of this was mentioned in the article?
And I don't understand why this mother was asking for help for mealtimes, too - yes, it's heart-breaking to have children with eating disorders, especially around meal-times, but I don't understand why this family was asking for some sort of home help for this? If the sisters were triggering each other, I don't see how that'd help at all?
There simply isn't enough information in this article to actually form a decent opinion (and annoyingly, any google searches just bring up links to this article).
Last edited by Dreaming. : 08-10-2009 at 11:41 PM.
just goes to show how much or system cares about people.
hopefully these girls get the help they need and can make their own choice of being at home or in foster care
Whilst it sounds shocking, I think this phrase is very telling:
Quote:
South Lanarkshire Council said: "Due to client confidentiality, we are unable to discuss individual situations.
It's a completely biased and one sided story, we don't know what other factors there are behind this decision. We can make wild speculations, such as the fact that a fair proportion of anorexics experienced abusive childhoods, but that sinks as low as this article that assumes that the kids being taken into care was inappropriate when they are not in possession of the full facts.
what the HELL????!!!
that pissed me off so much, the social workers are retarded
jesus
those poor girls need help not to be put in foster care, they need to be back with their mom
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It is so biased...it always is...it actually annoys me.
It especially annoys me that this is all in Scotland...I mean sure my city has one of the "very good NHS centres for young people" but oh that story...I feel like punching a pillow after that.
As others have said, we only have half the story here. If everything the mum said is true, and there were no other factors that contributed to the girls being taken into care, then yes, it is disgraceful. But all we actually know is that the girls have anorexia and were taken into care, not that they were taken into care because of their anorexia. What mum is going to say that her children were taken into care because she was abusive or neglectful, or was unable to protect them from an abusive member of the household? When presented with an explanation that completely exonerates her, like the children's illness in this case, what mum would even admit to herself that there may have been other factors that contributed to her children being taken into care? That's not to say that the mum in this case was abusive or neglectful, only that we don't have enough information to blame the social worker any more than we do the mum. For all we know, the girls might have been taken into care because of abuse they reported while in hospital or shortly afterwards, or because the mum refused to allow or facilitate necessary care for the girls while they were not in hospital, or even encouraged them to lose weight or reduce their food intake. Or maybe everything did happen exactly as the mum said, and the decision was completely inappropriate. The point is that we don't have enough information to decide either way.
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Awful situation, obviously - but the source isn't particularly trustworthy? I dunno, it seems that there is a lot being missed out, and it's clearly a hugely biased article.
Plus, there are a few concerns I have that sprung to mind - these girls were taken to a private eating disorders unit, and then released from these - why were they released if they weren't stable? And there will have been an NHS system in support of this; hospitals, especially Huntercombe, don't release patients unless they're sure they have an NHS support system in place, and they also nearly always work along-side the family with post-discharge support - yet none of this was mentioned in the article?
And I don't understand why this mother was asking for help for mealtimes, too - yes, it's heart-breaking to have children with eating disorders, especially around meal-times, but I don't understand why this family was asking for some sort of home help for this? If the sisters were triggering each other, I don't see how that'd help at all?
There simply isn't enough information in this article to actually form a decent opinion (and annoyingly, any google searches just bring up links to this article).
QFT.
Also, I think the sisters -needed- to be separated.
And to some extent removal from the home may be the best way to do this.
I was too angered to read the whole thing, I kind of skimmed through it.
I am absolutely disgusted. Much more so than words can express.
The fact that there's 2 sisters suffering from anorexia does not say that she's a bad mother. Anorexia has been shown, in plenty of studies [Rutherford et al. 1993; Strober et al., 1990; Treasure & Holland, 1995], to have quite obvious genetic factors. It's not 'inherited' as such, but there's a huge amount of evidence that it runs in families. So it's not at all surprising that two siblings are both affected.
Taking the children into care will not do anything to alleviate the situation, as has already been apparent [she said one of the girls already lost x weight]. Stress and psychiatric comorbidity are strongly associated with eating disorders. Creating more stress i the form of removing them from everyone they knew and potentially leaving nobody they can trust, that can only have one result: a relapse. And they hadn't even recovered yet, so a deterioration is made even more probable.
The preferred treatment of anorexia in children, after weight restoration is family therapy. Helping the parents learn to help the child, making the family closer. It's all based around family involvement. It has a 90% recovery rate, in comparison with 18% for individual therapy. When you remove the child from the family, you're removing this essential support. For a child (and 12 and 14 year olds are still at that stage), the family still plays a very important role in their life, it hasn't yet been replaced by other relationships, so taking it away leaves the child much more vulnerable than ever.
I am generally very much against removing children from their families except for cases where there's very good evidence that there's abuse going on.
Sorry about the length.
Last edited by Ninja Orange : 10-10-2009 at 02:07 PM.
Whilst it sounds shocking, I think this phrase is very telling:
It's a completely biased and one sided story, we don't know what other factors there are behind this decision. We can make wild speculations, such as the fact that a fair proportion of anorexics experienced abusive childhoods, but that sinks as low as this article that assumes that the kids being taken into care was inappropriate when they are not in possession of the full facts.
QFT
"People have abused you lots in the past? Why do you then abuse yourself more?" - Quote
Sometimes I feel like I'm alone, Sometimes I feel like I'm not that strong, Sometimes I feel nothing at all, Sometimes I feel vulnerable, Sometimes I feel a little fragile
I don't know about this. There are two sides to the story and we've only got one so I agree it's impossible to make a decision on it but what I do know is that two children are obviously very ill and because of that I can see a case for taking them into care, not because their mum was inadequate in any way but because it is an illness she is not qualified or capable of helping them with or it would never have reached this stage. That's not a criticism of the mother. If I had children who were so badly anorexic as these two then I wouldn't be equiped to help them enough and I have a little experience of it. When I was teaching we had a little 9 year old who was well on the path to being anorexic but we all pulled together, family, school and medics and got her through it. But this child was no where near as bad as the two quoted above. and yes I agree with someone who said perhaps the girls needed to be separated in order to be treated properly. To be apart so they cannot compete with each other. They could, I think, still have supervised visits with each other but I'm not so sure of that.
Okay, looking at the article as it is; it's disgusting.
No mother should be punished for their child having Anorexia - as long as they didn't play a part in the disorder becomming a problem. As in, if there is abuse at home, or the parents know that something bad is happening to the child, and it's developed from there. A mother who has done nothing at all wrong, and their children have developed Anorexia should never, ever be punished. (I'm not saying a mother should be punished if something was happening, but there are different levels of things that can happen, if I make any sense?)
My Anorexia is not a result of my mother or father, it is not a result of anything that they have done. If they were punished for what I hae, it would break my heart. They have done nothing but support and help me. My illness was nothing to do with them, and if anything were to happen to them because of me...... It'd make things a million times worse.
I think it would be interesting for the 'other side' to comment and give their reasons for why they have chosen to take the daughters away.
I don't actually think that these media stories are worth a thought to be completely honest. The rubbish and lies that these stories are made up of are disgraceful. The media needs to wait until it actually has something to report, that isn't a complete lie.
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