There is good news for Kerry Robertson, Mark McDougall and their baby Ben. As I reported last Friday when Ben was just 4 days old he was snatched from his parents by Irish social services upon the request of Fife Council's team who had deemed that Kerry was incapable of raising the child.
Yesterday mother and baby were reunited in a mother and child unit in Ireland. While that does mean that they will be under constant supervision it mean that the bonding process between mother and child can resume.
Fife Council it emerges have never carried out a formal psychological assessment of Kerry, who readily admits to not having many qualifications from school. However she was employed as a childcare worker in a local school in Fife before becoming pregnant and does hold a certificate in child care.
Now at least I'm glad that a proper appraisal in the mother and baby unit of Kerry capabilities as a mother can be assessed, though why this wasn't the first port of call from Fife or Ireland is beyond me. I hope that this period of supervision is successful for the family and they can then get on with the normality of raising their child.
UPDATE: To help raise money for the family and Mark to be able to get to the mother and baby unit you can bid for some of his pictures on ebay (via Morgan Gallagher).
I don't get why that couldn't have been done in Scotland. It's sad they've had to go away from their family to get the chance to be together as a family.
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