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Researching Reform

Researching Reform

Monthly Archives: August 2013

Kids Without Dads – London Tonight….. Tonight!

29 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Children

≈ 113 Comments

We are very excited to be able to confirm that single father’s charity, DadsHouse, will be featured on London Tonight, for their programme “Kids Without Dads”, which airs tonight at 7.30pm on ITV.

The programme will focus on single fathers, children who do not get to see their fathers and what the lack of male role models means to children and society as a whole.

The subject matter is of course an important one; Billy McGranaghan, the founder of DadsHouse will be talking about his work and how he came to be doing it. As a leader in their field, DadsHouse is certainly well placed to offer a current perspective on what’s happening to single fathers today.

A must watch, not just because Billy makes for brilliant viewing…..

LT LT2

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Why Charging Children and Families For Taking Children Into Care Does Not Work

29 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Children, Family Law

≈ 4 Comments

This recent article in The Guardian focuses on Worcester County Council’s proposed initiative to try to charge children over 16 for the services they receive ‘in care’. There are some very interesting philosophical arguments to be had over this point alone, but as usual there is nothing that sophisticated at play here. This is all about money.

Despite the fact that this kind of scheme has been, and is in full force all over the country in various other local authorities and has been shown to be unsuccessful in reducing costs for local authorities, and has managed, as you might imagine, to cause greater rifts between social workers and families, (“Can local authorities charge parents when taking their children into care?”, LexisPSL Family, Rachel Knowles, senior education and community care solicitor at Just for Kids Law, 28th August 2013), desperate times call for desperate measures, and it looks like local authorities all over the land will try anything to cut costs. Even if proven to be a waste of time, and resources.

Ah well, c’est la vie. And in the very informative article written by Rachel Knowles at Just For Kids Law (a charity we love) for LexiPSL, she also tells us that although some of these schemes, which are being reworked all the time, may be unlawful, many of them are not and continue to grow in popularity, despite the worrying outcomes of such schemes, which include the possibility that children who really need care just won’t get it because they can’t afford it. We see a human rights law suit waiting to happen; it’s a shame that we may have to wait until a child is hurt or dies before the government stops this disgusting practice.

However, the wording of the Children Act 1989 in relation to local authorities being able to charge for services is nuanced and effectively does not allow them to offer services on condition of payment (this is one area where less scrupulous local authorities may get into trouble and find themselves on the wrong side of the law). There are also conditions attached to exactly what and how such costs can be recovered. The bottom line is that local authorities do not have the right to cease providing a service or complying with its statutory duties because families or children have not paid contributions.

This will be one area to watch. Fascinating from a legal and a philosophical perspective. And a terrible indictment of our so-called civilised society.

(We apologise for not being able to provide a link to the very good article written by Rachel Knowles for LexisPSL, as it is a subscription site).

 

 

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“We Need to Look Deeper Into Why People Are Aggressive To Social Care Staff”

28 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Children

≈ 13 Comments

As you will have guessed from the title of this article on our favourite Community Care website, we are promised a piece about looking into the reasons why families and individuals are aggressive towards social workers. What we get is something very different. It is, instead and rather ironically, a hostile defense of social workers and a complete denial of any responsibility in situations where aggression manifests itself in social care scenarios. It’s like reading an emotionally under-developed adult’s back-chat. And it has no place in serious social work.

What ensues is a rather myopic and at times painfully ignorant analysis by Dr Siobhan Laird from the Centre for Social Work at Nottingham University, of what is actually going on, on the ground. Dr Laird’s lack of perception about the human condition too is apparent, and makes for concerning reading – time and again, people who are entrusted with teaching the next generation how to care for the vulnerable, seem to have too limited an understanding of just why and how humans react the way they do. A basic requirement, we feel, in this line of work.

The first moment we realised this article was going to be disappointing, was, in fact, upon reading the first paragraph, which says:

” An analysis of serious case reviews reveals that some parents and their partners engage in a wide range of intimidating behaviours, including making a formal complaint against the social worker, accusing the practitioner of being racist or homophobic, alleging that they are being victimised, inviting supporters hostile to children’s services to attend meetings and expressing disproportionate anger towards social workers over minor matters.”

Since when did making a complaint about a social worker amount to intimidation? It is well within every parent’s right to complain if they feel they have not been treated respectfully and ‘with care’.  And if the complaint is unfounded, surely social workers can move on and accept that this must be a reaction to the fear, sometimes, of losing one’s child. In our experience, having assisted hundreds of families at this stage, unwarranted complaints are few and far between, and if a family does complain about their treatment at the hands of social workers, they are often penalised, at best through ritual humiliation and dishonest reporting of events, and at worst, threatened with full care orders – not because the child has been deemed at that stage to be in need of such an order: purely, out of spite.

And so Dr Laird’s reaction to what appears to be an analysis done presumably at the university of Nottingham on the topic of aggression in social work (or perhaps it was the survey on the Community Care website, a rather basic tool for analysis in itself), is rather telling. Riddled with the defensive culture now so much a part of social work, which is wholly understandable given failings involving children like Baby Peter and Victoria Climbié to name just two, Dr Laird clearly has a one-dimensional view of what is going on and why. Bearing that in mind, such a defensive outlook is bound to skew the reality of what is really happening.

Families who accuse social workers of being racist or homophobic, of victimising them and inviting people to come to meetings to support the families by and large do so with a view to protecting themselves, precisely because the culture of self-preservation and defensiveness amongst social workers is now completely out of control. It is never appropriate for professionals to blame vulnerable parents, or children for that matter, when they react under pressure, and to then penalise them, which is not in their remit, instead of focusing on what’s best for the children, regardless of what parents do, short of physical violence. That is tantamount to a doctor performing an operation on a patient and suggesting, when the operation goes wrong, that the patient was somehow to blame. And then suing the patient.

We simply cannot have that kind of stupidity inside the system; it causes all kinds of irregularities. One such anomaly can be seen in McKenzie Friend support: we will always advise families not to make any kind of formal complaint about their social workers during the life of their case, because we know from professional experience that to do so means they will, most of the time, simply lose their children without any real adjudication of the facts which might merit such action. That is the other side of the coin, the side Dr Laird either does not acknowledge, or, as a full-time academic, simply has no experience of.

And whilst aggression towards social workers is not always justified, it must be understood and managed, for the sake of the social workers, as well as the families. Dr Laird seems to agree on this point, but it appears to be with a view to protecting the social worker, rather than understanding the source and supporting families, too.

Much of the so-called analysis the article mentions seems rather vague. Dr Laird tells us that, “Typically, social workers are led to believe that the expression of hostility or aggression by parents or their partners is attributable to their own mishandling of an interaction.” We would be very interested to know how Dr Laird quantifies ‘typically’. Was there a statistic involved? Did she ask several local authorities on their practice in this area? We would wager not, and it is exactly this kind of sloppy analysis that breeds stigma and mistrust amongst a sector which should be working towards showing the system that it can play a very important part in child protection. We have not, in the time we have been assisting parents, ever come across a social worker who expressed this view.

Social workers do not deal in the removal of furniture. They are trained to protect children and remove them from harm. Most parents, regardless of their capacity to care for their children, love their children very much. Any care order removing a child is bound to cause huge distress. Dr Laird’s seemingly numb attitude to this fact is no small part of a much larger problem when it comes to working out how to support families in this dilemma.

Do have a read of the article in full over tea and a digestive if you have time. There’s lots up for discussion.

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The Buzz

27 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in The Buzz

≈ 1 Comment

As we slowly start to move into Autumn, the net waves are beginning to crank up and we have more interesting items to share with you, which we think are conversation-worthy.

  • Technology meets Missing Children – An inspired project called “Not Found”, allows people to download software so that every time a page on their website comes up with “Page not Found”, a picture of a missing child is added, in order to raise awareness and help locate them. We love this idea. 
  • BBC Radio4 talks Women and Domestic Violence – today’s World At One programme was excellent – a great report on the subject (links and details on the site, including audio)
  • Council facing legal action for failing to protect girls from sexual exploitation – Rotherham Council, a cautionary tale.

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Conference: Children Screaming To Be Heard

26 Monday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Notes

≈ 3 Comments

We have been asked by Maggie Tuttle, founder of Children Screaming To Be Heard to give a mention to a conference they are holding in September, which will focus on the care system. It will be held on 4th September, from 9-6pm, at the Old Barn Hotel in Grantham.

Whilst we are not endorsing the event’s speakers, some of which belong to organisations Researching Reform does not support, we thought it was important to share the information. You can find further details on the flyer below.

Children Screaming to be Heard - Flyer Ver 9

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Best of The Rest

25 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in News

≈ 1 Comment

Good morning, and welcome to the end of Summer. We have some interesting news items to go with your coffee and jammy dodger….

  • Interesting advice on how to talk to your parents about their divorce, as an adult
  • Children’s Homes Don’t employ the right people – from the mouths of babes (and the rest of us, who are tired of seeing children ignored).
  • Verbal and physical abuse in the care sector – some interesting stats.

News

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Children and Families Bill – Update

17 Saturday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Children, Family Law, Update

≈ 7 Comments

Some more proposed amendments from the House of Lords, this time, offerings from Baroness Howe and Lord Low…

  • Publication: Amendments to be moved in Grand Committee
  • Publication: Amendment to be moved in Grand Committee

portcullis3

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The Buzz

14 Wednesday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in The Buzz

≈ 12 Comments

We’ve got some interesting news items for you, ranging from high-profile child sex abuse convictions which look like they could get quashed, to an alleged paedophile ring where prison officers have been accused of routinely raping boys in a borstal in County Durham. These pieces make for sobering and rather concerning reading.

Our final news item focuses on women in Swaziland who were kidnapped and coerced into marriage not being allowed to divorce the men responsible, because, as King Mswati tells them, divorce is not an option.

  • 2002 conviction of P for child sex abuse goes to appeal: Mr P pleaded not guilty but was convicted of several counts of sexual offences against a child. He was sentenced to a total of 12 years’ imprisonment and required to sign the Sex Offender Register for life.
  • Senior Officers launch an inquiry into alleged paedophile ring
  • The women in Swaziland, forced into marriage, denied divorce

Many thanks to Maggie Tuttle for alerting us to the paedophile ring story.

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Some Interesting Research

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Research, Update

≈ 4 Comments

We’ve just come across a trio of independent studies relating to divorce, carried out in places across the globe and thought they were rather interesting. Have a look below to find out what the various studies found:

  • Having more siblings may reduce the chance of getting divorced in adulthood
  • Putting on weight may mean you are less likely to divorce…. the findings are not what you might think…
  • Long commutes may be a factor in divorce

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Transparency in the Family Courts – Moving in The Right Direction

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by Natasha in Family Law

≈ 13 Comments

At Researching Reform, we are strong advocates of a much more transparent family justice system, notwithstanding the fact that we view a balance between transparency and child welfare as they key to ensuring children are protected where necessary, and so the latest Guidance from The President of The Family Division, James Munby, makes for an interesting read on the matter. It focuses on media reporting of family law cases.

Sir Munby is very keen to make the courts more open in this respect and has always been a big voice for reform in this area. His Guidance Note reiterates this.

It’s well worth a gander, and we’d love to hear what you think. The draft Practice Guidance is a baby step – Munby himself makes the point that he wishes to go steady and slow on the matter of transparency, but one area where publicised judgments will now be made as of right, can be found at Number 16 of the Practice Guidance, and states the following:

In cases brought by local authorities under Part 4 of the Children Act 1989 or
under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and cases involving the personal welfare jurisdiction of either the High Court or the Court of Protection, where the judgment relates to the making or refusal of:
(i) any emergency protection order, contested interim supervision order,
contested interim care order, supervision order, care order, placement
order or adoption order or any order for the discharge of any such
order;
(ii) any order authorising a change of the placement of an adult from one
with a family member to a home;
(iii) any order arguably involving a deprivation of liberty;
(iv) any order involving the giving or withholding of significant medical
treatment; or
(v) any order involving a restraint on publication of information relating to
the proceedings,
the starting point from now on is that the judgment should be published unless there are compelling reasons why it should not.

There are other, very interesting new developments in the Guidance too which may have the effect of increasing the volume of publicised judgments, but with some discretion being left to the judges as to whether a case should be published or not, there may be some wrangles in court over whether a judge has chosen not to publish, for the wrong reasons, shall we say.

For those who wish to view the 2011 content linked up on the Guidance Note, we’ve added the correct link for you here, as it does not seem to work on the Note itself.

 

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