A free online seminar about child protection and the family justice system being held today will feature former President of the Family Division, Sir James Munby.
The open event, organised by Royal Holloway university and entitled, “Inequality & Rights: Child Protection & the Family Justice System”, will include a presentation by James on the social work sector’s treatment of vulnerable families and children, and experiences of parents inside the child protection system during the pandemic.
The symposium will be opened by Robert Jago, Head of Law and Criminology, & Social Work at Royal Holloway.
The Parent, Family and Allies Network, Professor Brid Featherstone and Professor Anna Gupta at Royal Holloway, will also be speaking at the event.
The Eventbrite page for the symposium includes a statement which says the conference has been launched so that child welfare professionals can, “reflect on the important concerns facing children and families and professions who work with them in these challenging times. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated existing social and economic inequalities facing marginalised groups. The rights of individuals, and groups in such a context present a keen challenge for professionals working in the child protection and family justice systems.”
The statement adds, “This symposium, organised jointly by the Departments of Law and Criminology, & Social Work, brings together important debates to discuss key issues of concern. Located within a framework of human rights and social justice, the symposium seeks to contribute to scholarly, and policy and practice understandings.”
You can register for the event here.
Researching Reform 
I note, once again, that there appears to be a sad lack of communication with parents being listed as possible speakers.
When are these so called professionals going to realise that the parents affected have more experience in the Family Court system than all the university staff put together.
This is just another talking shop where the same people talk but get nowhere in terms of what is wrong with the system. It’s the system, and those within it, especially the social workers and legals, that need to be properly educated regarding the plethora of faults of the system.
Until the fundamental faults in the Family Court are addressed, such as proper jury trials, with the application of proper factual evidence being presented under oath, nothing will change. It will continue to muddle along issuing fair ground crystal ball JUSTICE where children suffer as a result.
Regards [edited]
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“Punishment without crime”.should be banned.That is to say that children should never be removed forcibly from law abiding parent(s) . To say ,as the courts do say “More likely than not “these parents will cause significant harm to their children or allow it to happen some vague time in the future is a crime in itself . So called experts who claim to predict the future get it wrong more often than not so it is a terrible thing to break up families based on guesswork.Family courts should be replaced by criminal courts where “innocent until proved guilty ” prevails and parents are only “condemned” by evidence” beyond reasonable doubt.”
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Sadly this was sold out when I got to it . The break up families seems to still be going on! four-year olds are being taken and the systemic rot is still there! The current new children’s minister still has not published her email. Social worker in my children’s mother’s case made up events as they went along creating their own version of the truth based on lies allegedly purjere in family court, which does not seem to be a noted crime . It is all to create a steady stealth abduction of four year olds for placing the children with unrelated families with the new parents that have no parental ability or income relying on LAC payments. The system is currently still a disgrace.. Please don’t get me started on family court . If they are set up to act as a court it is not effective given opportunity to record events. How can they lose or forget to turn the machine on this is nonsense as it runs all the time. Such untruthful consequences is building a society that is resentful or has a chip on their shoulder.
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I’m concerned that a few people have now said the event was sold out. It was an online event. I’ve contacted an organisation featured at the event to ask if they know anything about this.
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Yes, I was concerned too. I registered with event bright and the notice said it was over subscribed sadly when it was an opportunity to address these matters lost. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/inequality-rights-child-protection-the-family-justice-system-tickets-141453694809#
You can see the screen image I took after the event had finished today still saying I was sold out :
https://gyazo.com/1739137aaf9646eb6f4f379aafa6a585
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Hi, this is the reply I got on Twitter from an event organiser for the seminar: “Hi Natasha – I don’t know why it came up as sold out for some people on the eventbrite. There were spaces.”
I’m not really convinced by this. In future, if online events say they are “sold out”, don’t be shy to contact the organisers straight away and keep pressing for a response. If you’d like me to investigate at the same time, just let me know.
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What annoys me is the fact that Munby knew for years that injustices were taking place in the family courts and within the SS. he even stated that LA’s were unlawfully obtaining S20 agreements from parents and using them to launch court proceedings against parents.
being of a higher educated background and at that time president of the family division of the high court why didnt he call for a Police investigation into what is clearly premeditated Criminal wrongdoing.
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