28 Friday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
*For information about children in the report, press Control/ Command + F and enter the word child in the search bar.
27 Thursday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, Voice of the Child Podcast
In our fourth podcast, the Voice of the Child speaks with DadsHouse founder Billy McGranaghan on how austerity has hit single fathers and their children.
Offering support and father-focused services to dads who have experienced divorce or bereavement, Billy explains that food bank use among families is on the rise, in the wake of Lord Marmot’s damning review on austerity and poverty.
Billy also shares a controversial theory he holds about why mothers going through family courts may sometimes fabricate domestic abuse allegations.
Listen to the podcast to find out more, and to discover which section of society Billy believes is the UK’s “ghost demographic”.
Tell us what you think of the podcast on Twitter, using the hashtag #VOTC.
26 Wednesday Feb 2020
Posted in Domestic Violence, Researching Reform
A sentence for controlling and coercive behaviour has been increased for the first time, after a scheme which was updated last year allowed sentences for domestic abuse to be reviewed.
Joshua Dalgarno had been regularly violent towards his girlfriend, which included him stabbing her in the leg with a pen knife, trying to pull a drip out of her arm while she was ill in hospital and smashing her head against a windscreen.
His girlfriend had been pregnant during some of the abuse she endured, but later lost the baby.
Dalgarno was initially given a 24-month community order at Taunton crown court in December, after being charged with controlling and coercive behaviour towards his former partner, taking a conveyance without authority and causing criminal damage.
This was not the first time the defendant had been in court. Dalgarno had several convictions dating as far back as 2009, which included four convictions for violence against previous partners.
He had also been arrested several times for domestic abuse incidents relating to his current victim.
After his second arrest for abuse towards the victim, he was released on bail conditions, which stipulated that he could not contact his girlfriend. Dalgarno ignored the stipulation, stole her car, drove to her sister’s house and tried to break down the door.
Concerned by the light sentence Dalgarno was given, the solicitor general, Michael Ellis QC, brought the review of the case under the Unduly Lenient Scheme.
The scheme gives prosecutors, victims of crime, their family, and the public, the power to challenge sentences for offences included in the scheme.
Individuals can ask the Attorney General for a review of certain sentences they believe are too low.
Following on from the Attorney General’s submission to the court of appeal yesterday, Dalgarno was given a custodial sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment.
Responding to the increased sentence, Ellis said, “This is the first of its type and it’s particularly important to send a message that this type behaviour, which was graphic, which was prolonged, which was pernicious, must be met with appropriate criminal sanction.”
“It’s a matter of public policy that this type of appalling domestic abuse, including violence, should be met with a sentence that the general public would expect, namely one of imprisonment, and I’m pleased the court of appeal has increased the sentence accordingly,” he added.
Further reading:
25 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
24 Monday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, Who's Who Cabinet Ministers
Welcome to another week.
Following on from our post on Feb. 18, which detailed Downing Street’s initial announcement on the reshuffling of ministers in government departments, we can now share a fuller list.
As it seems to be taking the government longer than usual to confirm all of the positions, the list below is still only partially complete, and for the sake of this post features only ministerial posts which engage in child welfare.
For a breakdown of all departments and which ministers head them, click here.
Home Office:
Ministry Of Justice:
Department For Education:
Department Of Health & Social Care:
Department For Work & Pensions:
Department For Digital, Culture, Media And Sport:
Department For Housing, Communities And Local Government:
You can also access previous cabinets, to compare and contrast, or just satisfy curiosity, below:
21 Friday Feb 2020
Posted in Interesting Things, Researching Reform
We’ve gathered up some interesting documents on child welfare, which have been published this week.
The House of Commons Library put out two briefings on February 18, which offer information on child protection laws and unregistered accommodation for looked after children, both current topics in the news.
An overview of child protection legislation in England
The briefing summarises the key pieces of legislation in child protection, what each one does and also includes statutory guidance for the sector.
A full review, which is 13 pages long, is also added in downloadable PDF format at the bottom of the page.
Looked after children: out of area, unregulated and unregistered accommodation (England)
This briefing paper explains out of area placements for looked after children in England, and the developments around placements for looked after children in unregulated and unregistered accommodation.
The paper sets out the current position in relation to what local authorities can and can’t do when it comes to organising accommodation for children in care, and highlights the recent concerns over children being placed outside of their local area.
The document also offers information on a review of children’s residential care which took place in 2016. The two paragraphs in this section are an important read for anyone concerned about the government’s focus on profits rather than people inside the sector.
The paper also outlines the ongoing government consultation into unregulated care homes for children, which sets out proposals for change. This review is open until April 8, and wants to hear from children, young people and families with experience of care.
The proposals as set out, are:
20 Thursday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, Voice of the Child Podcast
In our third podcast, the Voice of the Child speaks with Legal Action for Women’s Anne Neale and Tracey Norton, on emerging themes and patterns they are seeing in child welfare cases.
Assisting women who have experienced domestic violence, and lost their children to forced adoption, Anne and Tracey come across dangerous levels of malpractice in the divorce and child protection proceedings they assist on.
LAW says the trauma suffered by the children and mothers in these cases is never taken into account by judges or child welfare professionals.
In this interview, we discuss the phenomenon of children and mothers being unjustly separated in family law proceedings, and the growing movement around post adoption contact applications being made by birth families.
Many thanks to Anne and Tracey for coming on to the programme.
#VOTC
You can listen to the podcast here.
Further Reading
Do No Harm – a grandmother against forced adoption
19 Wednesday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
18 Tuesday Feb 2020
Posted in Researching Reform, Who's Who Cabinet Ministers
As we experience yet another cabinet reshuffle, we’ve added a list of names for those positions which include elements of child welfare.
These appointments were announced on February 13, 2020, in a statement issued by Downing Street.
The official page which houses full details of ministers by department has not yet been updated, so it is possible that some changes may take place between now, and when the page is finalised.
Noteworthy developments include the removal of Kemi Badenoch as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education, to Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Equalities) in the Department for International Trade.
Badenoch’s stand-in, Michelle Donelan, who covered for Kemi while she was on maternity leave, remains at the Department for Education and has been promoted to a ministerial position.
Home Office:
Ministry Of Justice:
Department For Education:
Department Of Health & Social Care:
Department For Work & Pensions:
Department For Digital, Culture, Media And Sport:
Department For Housing, Communities And Local Government:
For a full breakdown of departments and which ministers head them, when available, click here.
You can also access previous cabinets, to compare and contrast, or just satisfy curiosity, below:
17 Monday Feb 2020
Posted in Foster Care, Researching Reform
Foster care adversely affects children in both the short term and the long term, new research from Sweden confirms.
Written by Christian Munthe, a bioethics professor at Gothenburg University, and eight additional researchers, the paper also calls on social care organisations around the world to systematically collect data about the effects and side effects of out-of-home placements for children.
The paper pulls together a substantial amount of research from Europe (including England) and the United States, in order to try to take a long term view of foster care and its impact on children.
The conclusions the researchers come to in the paper are damning.
Overall, 28 publications about 18 interventions, including 5,357 children, were identified, but only three interventions were sufficiently evidence-based.
Alarmingly, they also found that not one study had assessed the tools used for foster parent selection, or had evaluated pre-service programs related to outcomes.
They also discovered that hardly any study concluded that young adults who had grown up in foster care had better outcomes when compared to peers raised in ‘adverse’ birth family environments.
Of those studies attempting to establish causal effects, the long-term developmental effects of out-of-home care seemed to be neutral at best.
Analysis of foster care and its effect on children is severely limited, so it’s no surprise that the researchers chose to highlight the need to address this lack of evidence in their paper.
The study looked at four central questions:
Researching Reform 