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Researching Reform

Researching Reform

Daily Archives: March 26, 2015

Ask Our Leaders What They Will Do For Children In Care!

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Natasha in child welfare

≈ 2 Comments

Some of our most vulnerable children are in care today, their voice often drowned out by other competing interests inside the system, so a recent call backed by children’s charities and support groups on our government leaders to pledge their support for these children during the Leaders’ Debate broadcast on 2nd April is a great idea.

You can read the Open Letter to our senior politicians here, which calls on the country’s leaders to tell the nation on 2nd April what they will do for children in care. Sadly, if pledges are made during the broadcast there is no way of enforcing them, but at least our politicians will be aware of what is important to the public moving forward. And we will all be watching them.

So how can we get involved? Children England, who have spear-headed this invitation to our leaders through their Children at Heart campaign, have also created a petition, which you can sign. The petition asks our leaders to discuss children in care live on 2nd April and to pledge support for those 68,000 children in care.

If you feel every child should be loved and given the support they need to flourish, please consider signing this petition, and let’s see if we can get the numbers rolling!

A big thank you to Children in England CEO Kathy Evans for sharing this petition with us.

Children-at-Heart-v06_AW-300x276

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The Buzz

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Natasha in The Buzz

≈ 2 Comments

These are the news items and stories we feel should be right on the radar:

  • Family court statistics quarterly: October to December 2014
  • Legal aid statistics: October to December 2014
  • Stop international terrorists preying on young British citizens

Buzz

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Voice of the Child: Government Response To Dispute Resolution Advisory Group Report

26 Thursday Mar 2015

Posted by Natasha in Researching Reform

≈ 11 Comments

This just in. The Government has this morning published its response to the Dispute Resolution Advisory Group’s report on making family proceedings more child friendly and amplifying the voice of the child in such proceedings.

It’s worth noting that Minister for Justice Simon Hughes’ enthusiastic response to the report and his overarching endorsement of it come just before the election. Indeed, he makes it clear in his covering letter that he cannot commit to any reforms in the report because of this inconvenient fact. As a result, we probably shouldn’t get too excited about this latest response to the Group’s proposed child welfare reforms.

However, the government appears to welcome some good initiatives, which include making the sector more ‘digital’, more accessible and better informed, offering kite marks for those services which actively implement Voice of the Child policies and raising the standard when it comes to understanding children and giving their voice due weight.

Silly suggestions include the continued desire to force parents to attend Information Programmes (a push which highlights a lack of understanding regarding the underlying problems), pointless flow charts no doubt designed to keep people from doing actual work and the continued call to get professionals to play nice with each other inside the sector (simply asking for this to happen isn’t enough).

We predicted at the beginning of the year that the Voice of the Child movement would be a major player inside the family justice system in 2015, and so this report is a must-read, not only for its significance, but for its largely positive contribution to increasing our understanding of children and their needs.

You can access the Group’s Report here, and the Government’s response here.

(Click on the image below to access a short film on the Voice of the Child).

voice_of_the_child_DVD_cover

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