Child welfare items in the news and other publications which should be right on your radar:

• Teachers and foster carers accused of child abuse in South Gloucestershire
• Over half of social workers yet to meet CPD requirement one month out from registration deadline
• Mothers’ details on marriage certificates (House of Commons Library)

Many thanks to TumTum for sharing the first item.

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

• Children as young as 13 are repeatedly raped in residential care, inquiry finds (Australia)
• Child sexual exploitation a hidden crime, public protection officer says (Scotland)
• Family court statistics quarterly: January to March 2021 (England and Wales)

A report published by the Nuffield Foundation’s Family Justice Observatory looking at remote family court hearings, has confirmed that mothers have had children removed from their care during telephone hearings – sometimes without the mothers in attendance.

The document, which was finalised in September and published on Tuesday, was sent to President of the Family Division Andrew McFarlane after he asked to see the report before it was released, according to several reliable sources with knowledge of the matter.

Views on remote hearings in the family courts during the coronavirus pandemic were collected from 1,300 individuals, with most of the respondents being legal professionals. Parents and family members made up just 10% of those who submitted feedback.

The findings from the Nuffield Foundation’s research are worrying, and suggest that remote hearings are, in many cases, breaching parents’ and children’s right to a fair trial, and in several instances causing significant harm to children and their families.

The research reveals that 40% of parents did not understand what was happening during their remote hearings, while 66% said their cases had not been dealt with well through the online hearing process. Only 12% of parents and relatives polled said they had no concerns about their remote hearing.

And despite court-ordered and agreed face-to-face child contact being allowed during the pandemic – and confirmed by the government to be the default position during lockdown – social workers were still reporting that this form of contact was being blocked by their local authorities.

One social worker who was quoted in the Nuffield Foundation’s report, said, “It’s horrendous – every week I go to a managers’ meeting and argue that the lockdown/COVID regs and government regs don’t prevent direct contact but we have only just begun to run it again. So contact virtual unless I can argue child is in family placement and was already moving between the two households before lockdown. I spent money on a laser thermometer as part of risk management but still no contact took place until recently.”

A barrister who had experienced remote hearings during lockdown said, “[The hearing was] virtual, but with a 12 month-old baby this was all but pointless. The baby was removed at four months, COVID lockdown happened at 10 months and no direct contact then for six months. It was completely inhumane.”

Another barrister noted, “Virtual contact. it was absolutely terrible, M posed no risk to the child and the LA was incredibly slow to even think about facilitating in-person contact, relying on the lack of resources. The judge was sympathetic to the lack of resources issue and told me that she could not make facilities available that simply weren’t available. I accept that, but this child was under one year old and had not seen its mother for five months.”

Other complaints made by parents, which clearly compromise the right to a fair trial, included an inability to speak with their lawyers or lay advisors during remote hearings, and an inability to see parties to the case during phone hearings, or the judge being able to see the parents’ faces, and a complete lack of support before, during and after the proceedings.

Parents also raised concerns about not being able to engage fully with the hearings because they simultaneously had to care for children in the home, and feeling excluded from the process after not being given even basic information about their case, or their hearing.

The findings have led the Parent, Family and Allies Network (PFAN), who were contracted by the Nuffield Foundation to gather views from parents for the survey, to call for a ban on telephone hearings.

PFAN interviewed 21 parents for the report but noted in their own documentation that several other parents in crisis reached out to them after feeling unable to carry on without emotional support.

PFAN’s notes on the interviews they conducted include deeply traumatic experiences of parents whose children were removed from their care.

One mother contacted the Network five days after her son was removed from hospital after birth. The mother was given the news by telephone from the social worker, but only after a hearing had taken place.

The mother had not been notified that a hearing was scheduled, and she had no legal representation or support. Her baby was taken just hours after she received the news from a social worker who was not known to the mother.

The mother did not know who to call or where her baby had gone.

PFAN make three key recommendations in their own report: remote hearings should only take place where face-to-face hearings are impossible and the matter is urgent, no telephone hearings at all for family cases, and better support for parents and family members who engage in remote hearings where they are deemed to be necessary.

Researching Reform supports these recommendations, and would also encourage the government to implement the following policies:

All child welfare professionals designated as key workers to ensure family courts and child contact centres remain fully open during tiered restrictions and lockdowns

We now have enough information about how to contain the spread of the virus. Court rooms should be regularly disinfected, seating should be safely distanced and masks should be worn but drop-down or hand-held microphones (used safely) should be available to ensure people are heard clearly. Temperature checks and symptom checks should be carried out before hearings start. Hand sanitiser should be made available in every room and at the front door.

Contact centres and child contact venues should be wiped down after every meeting. Mothers, fathers and family members visiting children should wear masks while being allowed to hold and play with their children. Temperature checks and symptom checks should be carried out before contact. Hand sanitiser should be made available in every room and at the front door.

Local authorities must be made aware that face-to-face contact during the pandemic is still allowed during lockdowns and tiered restrictions.

Do you have any additional recommendations? Let our readers know in the comments section.

Apologies for the quick and dirty post, work is a little busy at the moment.

Additional Links:

• Normal Contact Rules For Birth Parents and Children in Care Apply During Lockdowns
• Victims’ Commissioner Urges Government To Scrap Covid Child Contact Policy
• Nightingale courts will be used to hear family cases

A remote conference offering parents, children and child welfare professionals a tutorial on young people’s legal rights has been organised by charity, Article 39.

The online seminar, which costs £10 for adults to attend, with concessions available for people under 25 and unemployed students, will share updates on the legal rights of young people and children under legislation including the Children Act, Children’s and Families Act, Care Act, and the Housing Act.

The conference’s Eventbrite page says the day-long session will also show you how to access help and outline the remedies available if a young person’s legal rights are breached. 

The session is going to be chaired by Article 39 Director Carolyne Willow, and will look at topics such as benefits for families, income maximisation, racial discrimination and housing, under the theme of ‘law in the time of Covid’.

There does not appear to be a segment about children’s rights during the child protection process, so we hope Carolyne will allow for questions on this topic, and perhaps even consider launching a separate seminar for this issue.

The online conference takes place tomorrow from 10am – 4.30pm, and if you have any questions you can contact Article 39 on 020 3195 1906 or at info@youthlegal.org.uk.

To book tickets for the event, and find out more about the day’s seminar, click here.

Many thanks to Nick for alerting us to this conference.

A new family law case has highlighted the need for transparency within adoption, including a stark warning that decisions to terminate adoptions must be set down formally.

Prospective adopters charged with taking care of two sisters, who subsequently sent an email to the local authority to ‘Please come and get the girls’ because they could ‘no longer continue’, have been told by a family court judge that they cannot now ask for one of the girls to be returned to their care.

Mr Justice Mostyn also chastised the local authority for failing to tell the prospective adopters that the placement had been revoked upon receipt of their email.

In the judgment, published on 21 October, Mostyn J said, “Were this situation to arise again in the future it would be better that the decision to terminate the placement should be explicitly set out in a fully reasoned letter rather than being made tacitly. That is my judgment.”

The recommendation is a clear warning to social work teams across the country to ensure that decisions to terminate adoptions are set down and recorded, explicitly.

The case involved two sisters, G, aged nine, and M, aged seven.

G, who was self-harming and clearly traumatised, was attacking her sister M, who was being physically and emotionally harmed by the attacks.

The prospective adopters were unable to cope with the girls, and handed them back to the local authority after sending an email, which read: “Please come and get the girls. And wherever you place them I beg you separate M from G. We are no longer able to continue.”

That email amounted to a legal notice to terminate the adoption and as an adoption order had not been made yet, the local authority still had parental responsibility for the girls and in so doing were able to terminate the placement, and any adoption plans.

The adopters, who wanted to keep M, but not troublesome G, tried to get M back. The council refused the request, but not before separating M and G and placing them in different foster homes, as suggested by the prospective adopters.

This is an important element of the case, which suggests that the council decided to separate the girls rather than provide them with support, after realising potential carers would be put off by the high level of care the girls would need to receive. In short, separation promised faster placements, and less cost.

There are many more concerning aspects of this case:

1. Why don’t we have legislation to address this all-too-common scenario?
2. Were the children deeply traumatised and suffering before the placement and if so, why didn’t the local authority tell the prospective adopters?
3. Where was the emotional and clinical support for the children in this process?
4. What efforts if any have been made to reunite these siblings, safely?
5. Adoption breakdown contradicts the “forever family” narrative, spun by councils and politicians, highlighting a growing phenomenon called adoption disruption
6. What measures have this council put in place to ensure this kind of breakdown does not happen again?

LexisNexis provides an excellent, and more sophisticated summary of this case, if you have access to it, while the judgment itself can be accessed for free on BAILII.

Let us know your thoughts.

Further Reading:

• Disrupted Adoptions – What Councils Don’t Want You To Know (2020)
• Judge slams ‘outstanding’ council for breaches of law and guidance in ‘biased’ adoption application (2020)
• When adoption without parental consent breaches human rights (2013)

A Commons debate looking into the Ministry of Justice’s (MOJ) legal aid funding has been organised by Sir Robert Neill MP.

Sir Neill, who is a barrister and the current chair of Parliament’s Justice Select Committee, tweeted on Wednesday that he wanted access to justice and legal aid to be priorities for the MOJ in the coming months.

In a piece for Politics Home published on 10 October, Neill said, “A reduction in expenditure [for legal aid], coupled with restrictions on eligibility, have raised questions on access to justice, with the reality on the ground indicating that many vulnerable people are encountering difficulties securing advice or representation.”

The House of Commons Library briefing offers a summary on the history of legal aid:

“The state-run legal aid scheme as we know it today came into being in 1949, with the passage of the Legal Aid and Advice Act. This was followed by considerable growth in annual legal aid spending in England & Wales, rising to a peak in 2003-04. Continuing high costs led to calls for reform, from the mid-2000s to the time of the change of Government in 2010.

Spending was cut sharply from 2010-11 onwards, at a rate of around 10% per year. This was in the context of reforms associated with the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). LASPO, among other things, greatly reduced the coverage of civil legal aid by removing certain types of case from its scope.

On 30 October 2017 David Lidington, then Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, announced that he had asked officials to commence a post-implementation review of some of the LASPO reforms. The Ministry of Justice published the outcome of the review in February 2019. At the same time, it published an action plan intended to address some of the issues raised during the review.

The response to the review was mixed. Sir Robert Neill, chair of the Justice Committee, described the publication of the review as “a critical moment in the future of legal support in the justice system” and “well overdue”, although cautioned that proposals for further reviews and research “risked being seen as kicking the can down the road.”

On 7 September 2020 the Justice Committee launched an inquiry into ‘The Future of Legal Aid’. The inquiry is accepting evidence until 2 November 2020.”

Legal aid has become increasingly difficult for families and victims of domestic abuse to access despite some easements for domestic violence victims and parents wanting to challenge adoption and placement orders.

The debate takes place today at 3.10pm in Westminster Hall.

You can download a report on the spending of the MOJ on legal aid here.

New draft guidance on how to handle rape cases, produced by the Crown Prosecution Service, includes a myth busting section that is essential reading for family court judges.

We wrote a piece for the Independent on the myth busting chapter, which exposes misconceptions about rape, from the kinds of injuries victims sustain to why child victims of rape who continue to have intimate relationships with their abusers into adulthood should not automatically be viewed as willing participants.

The short chapter is extraordinary for its depth and insight, covering concepts like consent, power and fear through 39 myths outlined in the section.

You can read the article here to find out more about the myth busting guide and what else we think the CPS should be doing to help victims of rape.

An Opposition debate on children’s social care set to take place tomorrow has been cancelled, and has been replaced by a discussion about the provision of free school meals for children during the holidays.

No more information about the new debate has been given. The House of Commons library update also does not mention whether the social care debate will be rescheduled.

While a debate on the funding of free school meals for children is important, it is concerning that the original debate on social care has been set aside with no word on whether it will be rearranged.

This is not the first time a Parliamentary discussion on children’s social care has been set aside.

A discussion about children’s social care promised by the Backbench Business Committee in October 2018 was abruptly cancelled after Researching Reform shared details about the event on its site.

Thousands of families in the UK took to social media to say they would make the journey down to attend the debate peacefully, and with the hope of being able to give feedback on the meeting.

Many parents had paid for train tickets and bus fares which had represented a large chunk of their monthly income, or agreed to take the day off work at personal expense to make the trip.

Researching Reform reached out to the sponsor for the debate, Tim Loughton MP, a month after the debate was set aside to ask what day the debate would now be held, but he did not respond. The MP had previously confirmed the meeting had been postponed rather than cancelled.

The debate was then held in secret, two months later.

We very much hope the Opposition will push to reinstate their debate on children’s social care and ensure that it goes ahead, in public.

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

• Messaging app bans more than 350,000 child abusers and terrorists
• Money being withheld by councils for children attending special schools, including in Sheffield
• New legal guidance for prosecutors helps to tackle rape myths and stereotypes

We’ve spotted a couple of important child welfare debates coming up which we think will be of interest to families, charities and key stakeholders. Read on for more details…

Social Care – Opposition Debate in the House of Commons

This debate is set to take place on Wednesday 21 October, and is likely to include important discussions about the government’s decisions and policies on children’s social care.

Opposition debates, which start with a motion, usually criticise Government policies and decisions.

Twenty days a year are set aside for Opposition debates, on subjects which the Opposition chooses, with 17 of those days set aside for the Opposition Leader and the remaining three days allocated to the third largest party in the House.

No details about the debate have been released yet, but we will update you as soon as we have more information.

“Challenging sexism, racism & class bias in the family courts” – Legal Action For Women

Leading support group Legal Action for Women (LAW) have organised what they’re calling an online workshop to raise awareness about the work they do and to tell people how they can get involved.

Confirmed speakers for the event are Soul Sisters, Support Not Separation, Women Against Rape & Women of Colour, Global Women’s Strike. The discussion will be chaired by LAW.

The workshop will also include a showing of a new film, STOP the Family Courts aiding & abetting domestic abuse.

Their invitation says:

“Most mothers in the family courts are survivors of domestic abuse, the majority are single mothers on low incomes.  Together with women of colour, disabled women and young women, they are at greater risk of having children taken away by the state.  A recent review by the Ministry of Justice confirmed our experiences but nothing is being done to change systemic discrimination within family courts.  The Domestic Abuse Bill which is now in parliament must go further and recognise that victims are overwhelmingly women; extend protections to immigrant and disabled women and stop violent men using the family courts to terrorise children and their mothers.”

The online workshop is being broadcast from the Anarchist Bookfair, on Sunday 18 October, from 2 to 3pm. You can sign up to the event here.