Child welfare news and trends to watch this week:

• Launch of the Black Country Family, Drug and Alcohol Court
• Kinship carers are doing the right thing by their families, it’s time the state does right by them
• Boris Johnson set 6 tests to stop child abuse as paedophiles’ online crimes rise

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• ‘Definite jump’ as hotline sees 50% increase in public reports of online child sexual abuse during lockdown
• The Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2020 (latest update)
• Judge bars journalists from child care trial after father said press would make him ‘anxious’

Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service is launching its 4th annual public user event, with a conference dedicated to family court reforms.

The online event spans three days, with the final day focusing on an update for family court reforms which are part of a £1bn Programme to modernise the justice system.

Members of the public will be able to learn more about the reform programme and how it is addressing challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The invitation says, “Each day will begin with an introduction from the deputy directors of each service area. Throughout the day there will be an opportunity for Q&A sessions, live demonstrations of online services, and much more.”

Attendees do not have to register for a full day, and can opt to select which sessions they would like to attend.

Registrants will be given a more detailed programme over the coming weeks and the chance to choose and book the sessions they would like to attend.

The family court session is scheduled for Thursday 5 November, and will be hosted through Microsoft Teams.

The event and all its sessions are free.

You can register for the event here.

A senior judge has decided to make adoption orders for three siblings, even though he found the parents to be more than able to care for their children.

Justice Keehan made the order after concluding that the parents had lied to the court, social services and the children’s guardian, citing what he called the parents’ “extreme over-reaction to the involvement of professionals in their lives and those of their children, most especially social workers,” as grounds for removal.

In the judgment, Keehan also said, “The parents deeply love their children and the children love them. There is no question, and never has been, that the parents are more than able to meet the basic care needs of the children.”

The case centered around a bruise sustained by one of the children, who was almost three months old at the time. The bruise was located just above the baby’s right eyebrow, and the judge concluded that it had been inflicted by one of the parents.

There were allegations of domestic abuse between the parents and it was claimed that the baby sustained his injury during a domestic abuse incident, although the child was not intended to be a target of the abuse.

The judgment contains a detailed account of how the children were taken into care, the alleged lies the parents were found to have told and several incidents involving the parents, including an attempt at concealing the mother’s pregnancy with her third child.

This is a deeply concerning judgment, which highlights several misunderstandings within child protection investigations, which we outline here.

In the judgment, Keehan says, “the parents’ failure to engage with the local authority or with any professionals with whom they have had contact is wholly irrational and is not founded on any objectively reasonable grounds.”

This is very rarely the case. Families in the UK are now aware that involvement with social services can lead to the removal of their children on inappropriate grounds. So, quite understandably, parents are very frightened when there is intervention from the state.

That perception is entirely the government’s fault, for failing to ensure that these services are of the highest quality, and that people who run such services and provide support can engage effectively with parents.

The judgment also gives the impression that the parents were at fault for non-engagement, but it remains unclear whether the individuals involved with the family communicated with compassion and understanding. Training for this kind of work is poor, and given the sophisticated nature of the work, the training programmes should be far, far, more robust than they are.

Our judges need to be better trained all round too. There is a bizarre moment in the judgment where we learn that, despite the father being the main suspect for the baby’s injury, the judge overseeing this case initially ordered the local authority to put together a rehabilitation plan for the baby who was injured, to live with his father.

It is also difficult to conclude whether injuries of this nature are non-accidental, as research tells us pre-mobile babies are able to sustain bruising on their own. Judges are not trained to the right standards for this medical area, which sits at the forefront of medicine today. And there are not enough doctors around the country with the necessary level of expertise to make the right judgment calls on these injuries.

Of equal importance in this case is that the parents may have engaged in a domestically abuse relationship, which may well have put their children at risk. This issue should have been the focus of the case, and every effort made to find a way to help the parents, while keeping the children safe.

The fear the parents felt as a result of the way social services intervened was most likely the catalyst for the lies that followed, but to remove three children from parents without exhausting all avenues, or elevating the case to the best teams available to ensure the family’s wellbeing, is inexcusable.

You can read the judgment in full here.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Children accommodated in secure children’s homes (latest data)
• Man jailed for fake DNA test to deny parentage of two sons
• Retirement of Sir Ernest Ryder, Senior President of Tribunals

Welcome to another week.

Theatres and hotels around the country will be turned into makeshift courts to deal with the backlog of family cases made worse by the Coronavirus lockdown, the Ministry of Justice has confirmed.

The so-called Nightingale Courts, which take their name from the Nightingale hospitals set up by the government during the pandemic to support hospitals taking in COVID-19 patients, will open on 28 September in Salford, York, and Middlesborough.

The Nightingale hospitals were closed down after it was revealed that they had admitted very few patients to their wards.

Five more “pop-up courts” (our term), are due to be launched in Bristol, Chester, Cirencester, Liverpool and Winchester.

It is estimated that about half a million cases are still waiting to be heard in England and Wales.

The Hilton hotel in York and the Jury’s Inn in Middlesbrough have been listed to hear family cases.

The MOJ said the total number of pop-up courts now stood at 17, and offered 32 court rooms. Open sites are believed to be operating at 80% capacity, higher than the average court before lockdown.

The government said it would add more technology inside the temporary courts, and install plastic screens for cases which require a jury.

You can access the full list of pop-up courts here.

As the government mulls over a nationwide lockdown after the number of COVID-19 cases spiked this week, we thought it might be helpful to remind our readers of the principles underlying child contact during lockdowns.

The government has made it clear in guidance that the normal rules around child contact and contact applications always apply during lockdown and local authorities should do whatever they can to ensure face to face contact is enabled where it is agreed or set down in a court order.

This policy was also confirmed in the first case of its kind, which looked at children’s right to contact while COVID-19 restrictions were being enforced.

Six months on, we have a much clearer idea of what can be done to prevent the spread of the virus and councils are uniquely positioned to provide “COVID safe” spaces in contact centers and meeting venues, so there is no excuse for failing to facilitate that contact.

The “business as usual” policy implemented by local authorities during the first lockdown is likely to continue on into future lockdowns, and ensures that resources and facilities are or should be, open and available to birth parents and their children.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has now warned the country that a second wave of the virus is on its way, which could see a nationwide lockdown reimposed if cases continue to multiply.

The following resources below are intended to give parents all they need to work with councils in securing and protecting the contact they have with their children.

• Face to Face Contact For Children and Birth Parents Allowed Under Lockdown Regulations
• Family Case Tests Children’s Right To Contact With Birth Parents During Lockdown
• Public law children case update: contact, nationality and stays

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Trump calls for ‘patriotic education,’ says anti-racism teachings are ‘child abuse’
• Leicester film about children’s rights reaches global audience
• Manchester United Foundation teams up with clubs worldwide in support of children

Convicted child killers will spend the rest of their lives in prison, under new reforms announced by the government today.

Whole Life Orders (WLOs), which are only given for the most serious cases of murder, will be imposed on all individuals found guilty of killing a child.

Judges will be able to impose WLOs on 18-20 year olds in exceptional cases involving mass loss of life.

Cases which may fall under this exception could include terror attacks, like the Manchester Arena bombing, which claimed the lives of 22 people, many of them children. The bomber’s brother, who helped plan the attack, was under the age of 21 at the time.

A controversial proposal to prevent adults who committed murder as a child to have their minimum term reviewed is likely to raise concerns among child welfare activists who argue that children cannot be held fully responsible for crimes until they reach adulthood.

The claim is based on scientific research which suggests that a person’s ability to make decisions does not mature fully until they reach 16.

In addition, the changes will see an increase in the starting point for determining sentences for 15-17 year olds who commit murder from a minimum of 12 years to two thirds of the equivalent starting point for an adult.

The Ministry of Justice went on to announce a nationwide call for evidence in its press release, to understand better how the justice system supports offenders with neurological conditions such as autism, ADHD and dyslexia.

The raft of reforms also includes a new sentencing process for sexual and violent offenders who will now have to serve at least two thirds of their prison sentences under the changes.

Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland QC said, “This White Paper is the first step in a fundamental shift in our approach to sentencing, towards one that is fairer, smarter and ultimately better protects the public.”

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Paedophiles will lose houses, cars in new crackdown on child sex offenders
• Primary school deputy head admits watching child rape videos
• U.K. lawsuit seeks $3.2B from YouTube for violating children’s privacy