29 Friday Jun 2018
Posted in child abuse, Family Law, Researching Reform
A new book has been published, which charts a mother’s journey through the family courts, in the hope that the system will protect her child from abuse. The novel, “Allegation 17”, was released on June 26th.
Author, Fiona Padfield, based the fictionalised drama on her own experience of the family courts.
We’re adding the press release below:
Many thanks to Maggie Tuttle for sharing this item with us.
28 Thursday Jun 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, social services, social work
A social worker who has chosen to remain anonymous, has told online social work magazine Community Care that child protection professionals break the law in order to do what’s best for children inside the family justice system.
The piece comes after a family court ruling highlighted the widespread misuse of Section 20 arrangements , which were being used to keep children detained in state care, illegally and for lengthy periods. Social workers were also failing to obtain court orders to implement these arrangements.
Section 20 arrangements are voluntary agreements which give parents the option of placing their children in state care, where the parents need respite or are unable to look after their children for short periods. Children can leave the accommodation provided for them at any time, and without notice. Parents can also remove their children from the accommodation without requiring local authority consent to do so.
Outgoing President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby, was so concerned by the misuse of Section 20 agreements, that in 2015 he published Guidance on the arrangement which explicitly forbid social workers from using S.20s to illegally detain children.
The piece comes at a delicate moment in Britain’s social work history. As local authorities continue to ignore Guidance and best practice, ongoing failings and high profile cases exposing malpractice and misconduct sit at odds with a growing number of social workers who want to develop best practice and ethical policies inside child protection. The author of the piece, who is allegedly a children’s social worker, tries to suggest that social workers breaking the law are doing so because they want to do what’s best for the children inside the system. Unfortunately, the system is so broken, and resources so scarce, that most of the time, finding out what that might be is virtually impossible. Social workers are only too aware of this.
The author is also careful not to call out malpractice and law breaking, instead choosing to refer to these abuses as “misuses of power”, or a desire to “act around the law”. And whilst the idea that social workers may try to break the law to protect children is plausible – and we think this may happen, but in very small percentage terms compared to routine law breaking which facilitates council adoption targets for example – the author never tells us how that plays out in practice. There is a small paragraph on cost cutting and speeding up processes, but in real terms, none of these things actually benefit children inside the sector.
Whether the author understands that the law is being broken and wants to improve things for children, or simply wants to defend the sector against a floodgate of lawsuits, the strange back and forth in the piece on malpractice and its origins inside the sector, remains unconvincing.
Researching Reform reached out to Community Care for comment on Twitter, and they kindly responded. You can follow the conversation, here.
27 Wednesday Jun 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, social services, social work
The Local Government And Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) has just released the latest complaints filed with the monitoring body, which oversees councils, adult social care providers and other organisations which provide local public services. Of the 31 new child protection and education cases published, 19 involve child protection matters.
Several cases raise concerns about councils’ handling of safeguarding procedures and failure to protect children from harm, unjust adoption placements, and unprofessional conduct by social workers. Interestingly, once complaint asks the LGSCO to look at harm caused by foster carers in the 70s. The LGSCO will not investigate claims which are more than 12 months old, though it does have discretion to disapply the late complaint rule if they consider the case meets the threshold. Their Guidance Note tells us the how the LGSCO assesses these kinds of complaints:
“The reasons for exercising discretion to investigate (or not) must be noted on the file and detailed in the decision. The following guidelines should be taken into account.
In R v Local Commissioner for Administration, ex parte Bradford Metropolitan City Council (1979) QB287 in the Court of Appeal, Lord Denning said:
“time bars are not to be enforced rigidly against a complainant where justice
requires that the time be extended and his complaint heard”.
It may not have been reasonable for the complainant to have come to us within 12 months if s/he:
• was ill or through some other incapacity was unable to act in time;
• was taking the complaint through the body’s complaints procedure;
• believed that action was being taken on the complaint by the council or its
contractors;
• believed a solicitor or other adviser was taking up the complaint on his/her behalf;
• has not at any time allowed the matter to rest for more than a few months.”
The complaint was not allowed, but is an important development in that it may signal a growing appetite to hold the government accountable for maltreatment during childhood whilst in state care.
26 Tuesday Jun 2018
Posted in child abuse, Domestic Violence, Researching Reform
St Albans Film Festival is showing a documentary, entitled, “What Doesn’t Kill Me”, which explores the phenomenon of children being removed from women survivors of domestic violence, this time in the US.
The documentary will be shown on Thursday 28 June, 7pm at Maltings Theatre, St Albans Film Festival. There will then be a Q&A session with the film maker Rachel Meyrick and Women Against Rape.
Women Against Rape very kindly sent Researching Reform further details about the Premiere, which we’re adding below. You can get your ticket here (they are £8 each).
“The film, entitled ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’, is the first feature film of director Rachel Meyrick, who grew up in Harpenden and attended college in St Albans. It aims to shine a light on domestic abuse and the fact that many dangerous men are granted custody of children.
Rachel began filming ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’ in Oklahoma. She was making a short film in the state when she was introduced to a local shelter for abused women, and discovered the injustices they were experiencing.
She said: “Although this is a timely film for America, where radical misogyny is being exposed even in the highest offices and institutions in the country, high profile UK charities have confirmed that this happens in this country too.
“Up to 70 per cent of abusive fathers are getting custody of their children and women are losing all access to them, meaning they can no longer protect them from these dangerous men.”
The film tells the story of women fighting back against the court system, which appears to be biased towards male privilege and wealth. It exposes how the US justice system is letting down women and children and putting children in extreme danger by leaving them with abusive fathers.
In order to get the film made, Rachel had to take on all the roles within the film’s production herself, directing, editing and producing as well as operating the camera and sound.
Lisa Longstaff, spokeswoman for Women Against Rape, said: “What Doesn’t Kill Me is a moving and compelling documentary, which parallels what mothers are facing here in the UK. Domestic violence is now the most common pretext for taking into care and even forcibly adopting the children of women who report rape or domestic violence.
“By exposing the truth about the US, this film is an encouragement to everyone fighting against similar injustice in the UK. Mothers are routinely disbelieved or blamed for causing their children ‘emotional harm’.”
The film will premiere at the Maltings Theatre at 7pm on Thursday, June 28 as part of the fifth St Albans Film Festival this summer, and Rachel will host a Q&A following the screening.”
Many thanks to Women Against Rape for sharing this item with us.
25 Monday Jun 2018
Posted in Question It, Researching Reform
Welcome to another week.
As the ultra successful Family Drug And Alcohol Court (FDAC) looks set to close, Nick Crichton, the judge who pioneered the programme in the UK is calling on the government to keep the scheme alive.
The unit, which is the only family court to date that offers a personal, and proven programme for helping keep families suffering from substance abuse together, has been systematically rejected by local authorities around the country, who claim not to be able to see its value.
FDAC also prevents mothers dealing with addiction from losing their children, and entering an often unbreakable cycle of care proceedings, fostering or adoption plans, and a move to get pregnant again to cope with the loss once the child is taken, which in turn leads to more care proceedings and child removal orders.
The units are also saving the government a lot of money. Research suggests that FDAC saves the government £17,000 per adoption and fostering case. In 2017, there were over 72,000 children in state care. The number of children adopted in 2017, was 4,350. The number of children paced in foster homes in that same year was 53,420.
Conservatively, FDAC could be saving the government over 900 million pounds a year. At full throttle, the savings could reach well over a billion.
There has been the suggestion that local authorities are refusing to implement the units because they don’t see what they get out of the programme. The argument is that FDAC employees and teams reap all the benefits of the scheme and the host council, benefits little. Others, like Researching Reform, take the view that local authorities, whose main streams of revenue include fostering and adoptions, see FDAC as a threat to their income.
Our question this week then, is just this: what do you think should be done?
21 Thursday Jun 2018
Posted in child welfare, Researching Reform
As it’s revealed that the government is shutting down The Family Drug And Alcohol Court (FDAC) – the UK’s most successful family court – Researching Reform decided to make a Freedom Of Information request, to find out which ministers might benefit from the sudden, though not completely unexpected, move.
FDAC is the only family court to date that has a proven, long term track record of helping parents kick addiction habits. FDAC is also more effective than local authority driven, care proceedings.
It is also the only court in England which actively prevents children from entering the care system. And it repeatedly saves the government money. A lot of money. Because the unit helps more children return safely to their families, £17,000 less per case is spent on adoption and fostering.
What seems at first glance like irrational government decision making, becomes clearer if we look at the patterns from a profit-driven perspective. FDAC is in direct competition with government ministers and child protection professionals, who outnumber FDAC supporters and team members, invested in a system which farms children and processes them through care homes and fostering agencies for cash.
Research published in 2015 by Corporate Watch revealed that eight commercial fostering agencies made around £41m profit between them, from providing foster placements to local authorities. An expose by ITV in December of last year confirmed the worst – whilst children in care are given the bare minimum under these kinds of arrangements, private companies are siphoning off the majority of the funds. Many of these agencies are being run by social workers and other child welfare professionals already operating inside the system. It’s a growing financial opportunity inside a broken and bankrupt sector, which could still produce dividends if it fails – some companies and stakeholders make even larger profits if the care homes implode.
At the end of last year, the Education Committee produced a report, in which it confirmed that a vast number of foster placements were made for financial reasons rather than best interest ones. FDAC stands on its own, as an exception to the rule. It is saving the government money, and keeping children at home.
And that’s no good if you’re trying to make money out of placing children in adoption and foster placements. Recent figures by the Local Government Authority tell us that at least six classrooms worth of children are placed on child protection plans every day. If FDAC units were rolled out across the country, that would change.
FDAC’s success, and its ethos, sit in stark contrast to the failings, and motivations, of local authorities, who are increasingly being called out for routinely breaking the law, and wrongfully removing children from their parents. In a letter to The Guardian, Legal Action For Women criticised the government for attempting to cash in on adoption and fostering incentives, by allowing its councils to unjustly remove children from their parents.
But who has financial interests in these care homes and fostering agencies? Our Freedom Of Information request tries to answer that question. Split up into five requests – we had to write to each relevant cabinet department separately for this information – this is what we asked:
Each request we made asked the same question of each department, and they can be accessed below:
We also made the same request to each department asking for details about adoption agencies.
Researching Reform had the privilege of being there at the start of FDAC, and we have followed its journey to the present. Judge Crichton, the family court judge who pioneered the unit in the UK, after exporting it from America where he had seen it in practice, is something of a renegade. Unwilling to play by the rules for the sake of judicial promotion, Crichton set out to make a difference for children and families. We watched his frustration in meetings and in private, over the government’s bizarre reluctance to fund a system which was actually working. It’s a frustration we still share.
In a world where cash comes before kids, we desperately need an army of people like Judge Crichton and FDAC professionals, to join together and tip the balance. The closure of FDAC isn’t just about social care, it’s about all of us.
20 Wednesday Jun 2018
Posted in child welfare, Foster Care, Researching Reform
In a letter published in The Guardian today, Legal Action For Women has called out the government on their child protection policies, accusing it of using vulnerable families to enable vast profits through the privatisation of children’s homes and fostering agencies.
They very kindly sent us the article, which was co written by the Support Not Separation Coalition and Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, so we are adding it below:
“There is widespread condemnation (Letters, 20 June) at Trump separating immigrant children from their families. But in the UK, away from the public gaze, social workers escorted by police take terrified children from their mothers every day. Louise Tickle urges a “complete reset of attitudes in children’s social care away from removing children and towards supporting families” (Opinion, 15 June).
Our self-help mothers’ group receives calls daily from desperate women whose children or grandchildren have been removed or are being adopted against their will – forced adoptions are the highest in Europe – on speculative and biased assumptions of “emotional harm and neglect”.
In a recent ruling, Judge Mostyn was scathing about a, “44-page witness statement”, by a Carmarthenshire social worker “very long on rhetoric … but very short indeed on any concrete examples of where and how the mother’s judgment had been deficient”. Examples of “emotional harm” he rejected as “inconsequential and trivial” included failing to take her son out for ice cream and to arrange for him to have the hair cut he liked.
What drives social workers to prioritise taking children on such heartbreakingly spurious grounds? The practice follows the money. Tickle says that “half of the country’s entire public spending on children is going on those 73,000 children [in care]”. But she doesn’t say that 80% of children’s homes and 40% of foster care have been privatised. Thus millions are spent on feeding an increasingly privatised and growing child protection industry: over £2,000 a week for each child in institutional care; at least £450 for foster care.
The law offers a humane alternative. Section 17 of the Children Act 1989 instructs local authorities to provide support, including financial, to families so they can stay together; the Care Act 2014 entitles disabled mothers to extra help. But these provisions are hardly ever applied. Thus the “corporate parent” is paid vast sums to replace the impoverished mother (86% of austerity cuts have fallen on women). The way the law is implemented is an abuse of power and must be stopped.”
Nina Lopez Jones Support Not Separation Coalition, Anne Neale Legal Action for Women, Kim Sparrow Single Mothers’ Self-Defence
20 Wednesday Jun 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
18 Monday Jun 2018
Posted in child welfare, News, Researching Reform
Researching Reform is hugely humbled to announce that its editor is working for a new online newspaper, launched today, which focuses on Iranian politics. The site also has a dedicated section for child welfare.
Kayhan Life is an impartial news outlet offering breaking, exclusive and important stories about Iran and its people. Its publisher, acclaimed journalist Nazenin Ansari, is passionate about child rights, and works with several children’s organisations around the world. The newspaper itself is fully independent, and is not funded by any government or political organisation. Kayhan Life is part of the Kayhan Media Group, which has a distinguished journalistic history , starting out in Iran as the most widely circulated newspaper in the country, before it was confiscated by the regime and turned from a liberal paper into a hard line mouth piece for the government.
Iran has, of course, become a regular feature in the news. Its relationship with the West, and its often controversial, and increasingly powerful moves on the world stage have made it an important country to watch. Once closed and virtually impossible to understand, Iran has found itself the subject of intense speculation, and criticism, as its citizens and its displaced population have increasingly used social media to shed light on the struggles, and successes, of its people. An emerging child rights focus has taken on a life of its own, with Kayhan at the forefront of this development.
We would love to invite you to take a look around the newspaper, which we hope you will find to be interesting, thought provoking, and a window into the hearts and minds of Iranians.
We are hugely privileged to be able to write for this outlet. Our first two pieces for Kayhan Life look at child executions in Iran –Iran sentences more children to death than any other country in the world – and the similarities between Iran and the UK in the ways each country treats its child sex offenders.
The newspaper also has a blogging platform for those who are passionate about Iran, and want to write about its politics, or its arts and culture. Anyone interested in blogging for the outlet can get in touch and pitch an idea, using the link in this paragraph.
Come and say hi to the Kayhan Life team over on social media – you can find them on Twitter and Facebook, sharing all the latest:
Stay tuned for the newspaper’s official launch, which is coming soon…
18 Monday Jun 2018
Posted in child welfare, Researching Reform
UK Government officials, including Prime Minister Theresa May, look set to make massive profits from legislation that will legalise cannabis for medicinal purposes. The case of 12 year old Billy Caldwell, who needs Cannabis oil to treat his epileptic seizures, made the headlines after the Home Office confiscated his medicine, and has reignited calls to legalise the class B drug in the UK.
The cannabis was taken from Billy’s parents at Heathrow Airport as the family returned from a trip to Canada, where the drug is cleared for medicinal use.
After the medicine was confiscated, Billy suffered two seizures that could not be controlled by any other medication and was driven to Chelsea and Westminster hospital by ambulance. The Home Office then decided to return the cannabis oil to the family, so that Billy could be treated. The reason for the government’s U-Turn on what has been a strictly enforced policy for decades, remains unclear. Other children with similar conditions to Billy’s in the UK have in the past been denied treatment with the drug.
Prime Minister Theresa May has now vowed to put legislation in place to make medicinal cannabis available to those who need it.
The government move, likely to have been years in the making, is not an altruistic one.
Prime Minister May’s husband’s company, Capital Group, is the largest investor in GW Pharmaceuticals, which has been mass producing cannabis in the UK, for the foreign market. GW chairman Geoffrey Guy is also a Conservative party donor.
A UN body report published in 2017 found the UK to be the world’s largest producer, and exporter, of legalised cannabis. The report confirms that the UK produced 95 tonnes of marijuana in 2016, accounting for almost 50% of the world total. It also exported 2.1 tonnes in that same year, which is around 70% of the world’s total. Several advocacy groups have called out the UK government on its production of cannabis, criticising it for its prolific output whilst banning the substance in its own country. Evidence exists which shows that the drug can relieve symptoms of multiple sclerosis, chemotherapy, glaucoma, and epilepsy in children.
The amount of cannabis seized in the UK every year, offers another incentive for the government to push on with legalising the drug, and make enormous financial gains from a change in the law. The latest figures tell us that over 123 tonnes of cannabis have been seized by the police, which is more than the total combined amount of cocaine, heroin and opium confiscated.
But who is buying all this cannabis?
A survey carried out by The United Patients Alliance found that around 37% of patients in the UK use cannabis to ease their symptoms, with 72% of those surveyed saying they bought their cannabis on the street. This won’t be news to companies like British Sugar, which has had a licence to produce cannabis since 2016. Now, companies, along with the government, may be looking to profit from the demand. The two are not mutually exclusive, either.
British Sugar has serious political connections. The company is run by Paul Kenward, who is the husband of MP, Victoria Atkins. Atkins, a barrister and former criminal drugs prosecutor, was made a Home Office minister this year, in charge of crime, safeguarding and vulnerability. Whilst she has actively spoken out against legalising cannabis in the UK, she has at the same time chosen to recuse herself from debates looking into cannabis use. Campaigners in favour of legalising cannabis have called her decision, “hypocrisy on a grand scale.”
Peter Reynolds, who is the president of Clear, which campaigns for cannabis law reform said, “what is appalling is [that Victoria] doesn’t just want to support it for policy reasons, quite evidently, she wants to support it because her husband and family are directly benefiting from [the regulation of] it.”
Another controversial figure involved in the production of cannabis, is Dr George Hibbert, the disgraced family court psychiatrist who surrendered his licence to practice after co-workers and patients made several complaints about his treatment of vulnerable mothers, including the allegation that he was deliberately misdiagnosing parents in order to allow social services to remove children from them and place the children in care.
Dr Hibbert, whose father, Sir Reginald Hibbert was the UK ambassador to France and counted several high level officials as friends, has been a shareholder in GW since its floatation on the stock market in 2001 – the company which Theresa May’s husband is also the majority investor in, through Capital Group. A piece in the Guardian tells us that, “documents filed at Companies House, show that GW was supported prior to its £175m flotation in June by a list of prominent people, many of whom saw the value of their investments surge five-fold in the public offering.” The Guardian story also mentions that GW’s flotation angered analysts and fund managers, who claimed that the offering had been hyped and over-priced.
These revelations are, of course, deeply concerning. Should the production of medicinal cannabis be legalised for UK patients, safeguards would need to be introduced to ensure that the cost of the cannabis was not inflated and those in greatest need were not priced out of being able to afford the medicine. It also can’t be right that government officials, either by affiliation or engagement, have a majority stake in the production of cannabis, certainly in the UK.
At Researching Reform, we are in favour of legalising cannabis, however we are not in favour of government monopolies. Billy’s case may have been just the headline grabber the government needed to put legislation allowing the consumption of cannabis in the UK in place. The more cynical might say that the government’s decision to confiscate the cannabis was calculated, callous, and designed to bring about a change in the law.
Very many thanks to Jane Doe for sharing Dr Hibbert’s involvement with GW, with Researching Reform.
Researching Reform 