another positive sign of institutionalized oppression being exposed... in this case, in the UK, but the same thing occurs regularly in the U.S.:
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A long overdue scandal hit the headlines last week when a semi-official report exposed one of the murkiest corners of our child protection system – the way that supposed professional “experts” help social workers to remove children from their parents.


A study by Professor Jane Ireland, a forensic psychologist, for the Family Justice Council examined 126 psychological reports trawled at random from family court documents. It found that two thirds of them were “poor” or “very poor” in quality; that 20 per cent of their authors had no proper qualifications; and that no fewer than 90 per cent of the authors were not practising psychologists but appeared to earn their livings, wholly or partly, from writing reports for social workers. Already one psychologist, whose company has made nearly half a million pounds a year from such reports, is under investigation by the General Medical Council.


The picture Prof Ireland conveys is one with which I am only too familiar. I have seen how families can be torn apart largely on the basis of highly dubious psychological evidence designed, as John Hemming MP puts it, to “suit the demands of local authorities”. One mother lost her children, for instance, on the basis of a 235-page report, costing £14,000, which found that she was “likely to have a borderline personality disorder” – without the author ever having met her.


Another woman was found by a psychologist to be “a competent mother” – so the social workers went to a second witness, who found the same. They then commissioned a third, who at last came up with what they wanted: that the mother had, again, “a borderline personality disorder”. On that basis, her three children were sent for adoption.

(the rest)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/9150659/Dubio...