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Researching Reform

Researching Reform

Category Archives: child welfare

Councils Need Parental Consent For Child In Need Assessments, High Case Loads No Excuse for Incompetence – Government Ombudsman

02 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Researching Reform, social work

≈ 2 Comments

Councils seeking to carry out ‘child in need’ assessments must get parental consent first, and must also explain to families that such assessments are not mandatory, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (the Ombudsman) has confirmed.

Crucially, the Ombudsman also made it clear that heavy case loads are never an excuse for poor practice in child welfare cases.

The complaint which gave rise to the Ombudsman’s investigation involved a mother (Ms J) who had sought out counselling services, but was later threatened with a safeguarding investigation by the council.

The counsellor the mother was seeing suggested she contact her local authority to see if she could access the counselling through them, so the council could pay for the service.

The mother felt coerced into accepting the suggestion by the counsellor, who subsequently referred the mother to Hackney Borough council on the grounds that she suspected one of the children was at risk of harm from the mother and requested the council engage with the family.

The request was made in a referral letter which was not shared with the mother, so she did not know the content of the letter at the time.

After Hackney Council received the referral letter, it decided to carry out an assessment on the family. The mother asked for a copy of the letter on two occasions, but it was not sent to her.

When the mother finally received the letter, she was concerned by its contents, which she said were incorrect.

At no time was the mother told that the assessment, which had been carried out under Section 17 of the Children Act 1989, was not mandatory.

Under Section 17, councils have a legal responsibility to safeguard and promote a child’s welfare, and to promote wherever possible their upbringing by their families. 

The mother then discovered that the assessment required her consent and was not mandatory, when the council sent her a letter intended for another family facing the same investigation.

To make matters worse, the mother said she was told she should press ahead with the assessment in order to “clear her name” and get closure. Feeling enormous pressure to continue on, she agreed.

The manager claimed he did not say this, but the Ombudsman took the view that he did, concluding that “on the balance of probabilities, however, given her strength of feeling Ms J would not have wanted to continue unless she felt the assessment would exonerate her.”

What follows next is even more appalling.

An officer came to the mother’s house to interview her son, and wrongly assumed the child was 6, instead of 4 which was the child’s actual age. He then asked the mother why her child was still in pull-up pants at night even though this would not have been unusual given his age. The officer also appears to have misunderstood the child, who had divulged information about an assault at school. The mother said her child was visibly shaken after speaking with the officer. Once a second meeting had taken place, the officer said there would not be a safeguarding investigation, and left.

The ombudsman found several failures by the council in this case.

  • The council was wrong to tell the mother the assessment under Section 17 was mandatory – the mother was never required to comply, rather she needed to give consent. If the mother did not want to give consent, the investigation should  not have been carried out.
  • The council was wrong to tell the mother that doing the assessment would “clear her name” – she should have been told that refusing to continue with the assessment would not lead to any further action.
  • The council should have made sure that its details about the child were accurate before sending out an officer – knowing a child’s age is fundamental. The council blamed a high case load for the error, but the Ombudsman did not accept that as an excuse, saying, “Officers should conduct their work to a high standard irrespective of their caseloads.”
  • The officer should have made sure she understood fully what the child had said before leaving the house.
  • The council should have asked the mother to return the copies of the letter she received in error and investigated the data breach (sending the mother a letter intended for another family) when the mother complained about the incident.

The Ombudsman ordered the Council to do several things, including:

  • Changing its procedures so it ensures parents are asked for consent, where appropriate, prior to assessments. 
  • Ensuring that social workers ask for appropriate information about a family prior to scheduling an assessment.
  • Being clear about what the council will provide after information is requested about a referral and periodically quality manage the response.
  •  Considering whether the information the council provides for Stage One complaint responses is sufficient.

The mother was awarded £450 for her trouble, and offered an apology by the council.

The Working Together To Safeguard Children document, which councils must engage when dealing with child welfare cases says the following, which is worth highlighting:

“All practitioners should aim to gain consent to share information, but should be mindful of situations where to do so would place a child at increased risk of harm. Information may be shared without consent if a practitioner has reason to believe that there is good reason to do so, and that the sharing of information will enhance the safeguarding of a child in a timely manner. When decisions are made to share or withhold information, practitioners should record who has been given the information and why… When you gain consent to share information, it must be explicit, and freely given.”

Further reading:

  • The Complaint in full against London Borough of Hackney
  • Working Together To Safeguard Children 2018
  • Financial Assistance Section 17 (s17) Children Act 1989

HC

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Government U-Turns on Adoption Drive, and other Interesting Things

24 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, child abuse, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 7 Comments

The government’s acting Children’s Minister, Michelle Donelan, made a dramatic U-turn on Wednesday over a policy pushing adoptions for children in care after this site published a post explaining the proposal was illegal.

Donelan had asked all councils in a letter sent on January 16, to prioritise adoptions in every child protection case, and to ignore court judgments which approved alternative forms of care.

The proposal was met with strong resistance by several key stakeholders inside the child welfare sector, including fostering agencies who were concerned that the policy would lead to a reduction in business.

Children’s charities and child welfare professionals with no vested interest in fostering or adoption also expressed concerns that the minister’s demand was out of touch with reality, and overly simplistic.

But on January 22, Donelan released a video statement through the Department of Education’s (DfE) Twitter feed, expressing a different view.

In the video, the acting Children’s Minister, who is filling in for Kemi Badenoch while she is on maternity leave, said that all forms of care should be considered, including kinship care.

Donelan also unveiled a new project in an answer she gave to a written question sent to the House of Commons on January 23, which asked what recent assessment the DfE had made on the effectiveness of contextual safeguarding.

Answering the query, Donelan announced that the government had been looking at this issue in a pilot to test “contextual safeguarding theory”. Contextual safeguarding examines the way councils respond to vulnerable children who may be being exploited outside of a family setting. She confirmed that the DfE had given Hackney Council up to £2 million to work on the project.

The pilot has been running since 2017, and focuses on phenomena like county lines exploitation and is led by Professor Michelle Lefevre at the University of Sussex, Dr Carlene Firmin from the UoB Contextual Safeguarding team, as well as Professor Gillian Ruch and Dr Kristie Hickle from the University of Sussex.

 

We need more people to open their homes to a vulnerable child, whether through adoption, fostering or kinship care. To get behind this, Children's Minister @michelledonelan visited @Coram in London to talk about adoption and is supporting @barnardos Fostering Week. 👇 pic.twitter.com/B6Zsr0exrX

— DfE (@educationgovuk) January 22, 2020

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Concerns Raised Over Quality of Care Children Receive in Fostering and Adoption Placements

22 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

A growing number of parents with children in care have become concerned that their children are being left to play violent video games while in fostering and adoption settings.

Children as young as seven are being left alone by carers to play video games with graphic violence, which birth parents say have led to their children displaying increased levels of aggression and anger.

A father told this site, “My son desperately wanted to stay in my care, but his wishes and feelings were ignored. After some time in foster care, he was a changed person. He began to show signs of aggression and depression after he became addicted to a violent video game. I was blamed for this happening, even though I was not looking after him.”

A mother whose son is no longer in care, said that she was initially penalised in child protection assessments for allowing her son to play non violent video games.

Another mother whose 7 year-old son is still in care, explained that she had asked her son’s foster carers not to let him play violent video games, but the foster carers ignored her request.

Violent video games and music with aggressive lyrics have sparked a global debate about whether this kind of content can alter children’s behaviour. That debate has given rise to a large volume of research which concludes that there is no definitive evidence to suggest that violent content is a key factor for aggressive behaviour in adults or children.

However, research suggests that external factors like abuse, neglect and emotional difficulties can make children more susceptible to violent content.

Children in care can often feel neglected and alone. Unable to express their feelings with people they feel safe with, some children in care appear to be lashing out in home and school settings after playing games like Halo, Fortnite and Call Of Duty.

Other children are finding comfort in music bands whose lyrics share anti-establishment messages. This kind of music is popular with young people, and should not be banned in a free society, but questions could arise when looking at some of these lyrics in the context of vulnerable children.

A mother said that her son had been traumatised deeply by his experience in care. She believes that his mental health difficulties, for which he takes medication, were aggravated by that experience, and he is now turning to bands like Suicideboys, which she says offers her son a connection.

“When my son started going downhill, it came out he’d been doing a lot of negative things he’d picked up from a band or group called Suicideboys. I only realised because he said he’d been listening to a song called “Kill Yourself Part III” by this band, and he’s even got a tattoo done called grey 59 connected up his lower arm.”

“He told us he likes listening to Suicideboys a lot because they help him. He said they get across a message not to take tablets as they’re the devil. I said don’t listen to that band, you need to trust the nurses and me instead and the people looking out for you, ” she said.

Suicideboys has received criticism by mainstream music critics for its aggressive image, lyrics and behaviour. Several of the band’s songs contain themes around devil worship. The band’s musicians have claimed that the use of satanic imagery in their lyrics is nothing more than a substitute for the negative effects of money and drugs.

The mother went on to explain that her son’s adoptive parents felt that video games could also be worsening his frail mental health.

“His adoptive parent thinks my son sometimes believes he’s been shot in real life. I think this is to do with video games. She mentioned to me that he plays a game where one gets shot and gets back up, when of course in real life that doesn’t happen.”

Research suggests that parents and carers can influence whether or not a child plays violent video games. The study, which was produced by Iowa State University in 2015, found that carers who were more anxious and emotional could affect the amount of violent video games their children played.

Further reading:

  • Amazing games guide for families
  • Video Games and Children: Playing with Violence
  • Children’s violent video game play associated with increased physical aggressive behaviour
  • Violent Video Games: What Parents Need to Know
  • Does exposure to violent movies or video games make kids more aggressive?

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Interesting Things

10 Friday Jan 2020

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 1 Comment

Interesting and important items on child welfare we found this week:

Review of Parent and Family Engagement in Child Protection

“While social work practices emphasise people’s self-determination as fundamental to evoking change in parents when care falters, there is global acknowledgment of the struggle child protection authorities have to meaningfully engage parents and families.”

This research paper from 2013, written by Mary Ivec, a researcher at the Australian National University is a must-read for anyone engaged with or working in child welfare.

The paper offers powerful insights into national and international models of engagement with parents going through child protection proceedings and makes a strong case for why, and how, these models need to change.

The summary offers six key recommendations for making child protection processes inclusive and effective:

  1. Think in context (be it the family, the community or the wider system) and do not impose a preconceived theory;
  2. Listen actively by engaging all stakeholders; be clear on what is to be expected; be outcome focused and problem-solving; build commitment by having families find their own motivations to improve; communicate staying power and belief that change is possible;
  3. Engage fairly and respectfully including with dissenting voices, whose experiences can often lead to improved ways of operating;
  4. Embrace systemic approaches — multiple decision-makers and problem-solvers (networked governance) make better decisions than sole decision-makers removed from the front lines. Community collaborations with a coalition of key and diverse partners can assist at a family or a systems level;
  5. Be collaborative in capacity building — shared responsibility requires shared decision-making. The key to the success of many of the models of engagement is to think through all major decisions and to bring the authority for decision-making as close to the family as possible; and
  6. Learn, evaluate and share what is learnt.

You can read the paper here. 

Court orders change in living arrangements for child following parental alienation

A robust summary of this case (Re H (parental alienation) PA v TT and H [2019] EWHC 2723 (Fam)) has been published on Lexis Nexis, which has been produced by solicitor Jenny Bowden.

The case involves a 12 year old boy whose parents were embroiled in a custody battle, which included domestic violence allegations made by the mother, and parental alienation allegations by the father.

This is a complex case, both for the lines being crossed by both parents and the impact of the court’s decision on the child.

You can read the summary here.

Conference on organised sexual abuse 

A one day conference being held in London in March, will look at organised sexual abuse, including ritual abuse, prolonged incest and the intergenerational transmission of sexual violence.

The session is being led by Dr Michael Salter, who we consider to be an excellent academic in this field, and is being co-hosted by the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation.

Additional speakers and participants include Margot Sunderland, Adah Sachs, Kathryn Livingston, Mark Linington, Sue Richardson, Valerie Sinason, and Nancy Borrett.

While this conference is geared at child welfare professionals (and cannot be attended without paying a registration fee), we are adding it here as it may be of interest to our readers. A discounted fee is being offered to students.

The conference takes place on 5 March 2020, at the Centre for Child Mental Health in London, from 10am-5pm.

Michael and other attendees may also tweet during the conference, for anyone who might like to know more about this subject but cannot get to the meeting. You can tweet with Michael at @Mike_Salter. 

You can access the conference schedule and registration page here.

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Welsh Councillor Who Claimed To Have Child Protection Qualifications Fails To Offer Proof

09 Thursday Jan 2020

Posted by Natasha in child abuse, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 2 Comments

A Welsh councillor being investigated over his handling of a child protection case has failed to offer evidence that he has child protection qualifications, after claiming he had been trained in the field.

Neil McEvoy contacted Researching Reform after reading a piece we wrote on a child protection case he had taken on, claiming that the report contained several factual inaccuracies.

This site offered to amend its original report upon Mr McEvoy furnishing the site with evidence.

Mr McEvoy told this site in a message exchange on Facebook that we were wrong in suggesting that he had no child protection training, and that he had not offered evidence of Welsh Women’s Aid encouraging women to breach court orders involving contact with fathers, or other women’s groups who he claimed had done the same.

He also said that he had not been removed from the party for bullying members as both this site and the BBC reported, but was expelled “for not discouraging people clapping me into a conference.”

Mr McEvoy did not send any evidence to this site about his claims in relation to Welsh Women’s Aid, or other women’s groups, and failed to offer any documentary evidence to confirm his alleged child protection qualifications.

We also asked McEvoy to explain his opposition to a Welsh Bill banning all forms of corporal punishment against children. McEvoy declined to comment.

While the site has received an expulsion letter written to Mr McEvoy by the Welsh Party Hearing Panel, the letter does not say that the Assembly Member was expelled for preventing people from clapping for him. There is no mention of clapping in the letter.

The letter says that McEvoy was expelled for “actions or statements, damaging or potentially damaging the public reputation of the party”, breaches of confidentiality and a series of tweets which Mr McEvoy posted after being found guilty of bullying by a disciplinary panel at the Local Government Ombudsman.

According to a report by the BBC in March 2018, the Welsh Party Panel also issued a statement about the councillor’s hearing, which said that the Panel “found him guilty of conduct in party meetings or against party members during party-organised events, or in correspondence dealing with party business, that was intimidating, harassing or that caused distress or disillusionment among party members and/or staff.”

The Assembly Member is now being investigated by the Standards & Ethics Committee at Cardiff Council, where he is a councillor, amid claims that he bullied care home staff while woking on a child protection case. McEvoy denies the allegations.

In 2011, Neil McEvoy accused Welsh Women’s Aid of “publicly funded child abuse”, claiming the group helped women break court orders involving fathers’ access to children, in a series of tweets he sent out on International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

McEvoy apologised  for his outburst shortly before he was suspended from the party saying:

“I apologise for any offence caused and accept I should have used less emotional language than the words I used.”

“I regret letting my emotional baggage of being a father who has experienced what, I believe, are the inadequacies of the family law system to guide my political actions.”

He added, “I particularly regret that the tweeting of comments – originally made 18 months ago – on this sensitive day have allowed the matter to become more about me than the issue itself.”

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New Podcasts Featuring Care Leavers Launched by Children’s Commissioner

14 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 3 Comments

Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield has launched a podcast series which features children and care leavers being interviewed about their experiences in care.

In a press release offering more information on the series, which to date includes four podcasts, the Children’s Commissioner calls the interviews ‘open and honest conversations with care leavers’ and says care leavers are able to talk about any subject they like.

You can access the podcasts in the following ways:

  • The Children’s Commissioner’s IMO website (scroll down to see the episodes)
  • Apple Podcasts
  • Google Podcasts

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Children Suicidal After Being Denied Access to Birth Parents by Family Courts

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Family Law Cases, Researching Reform

≈ 21 Comments

Children’s requests to remain in contact with their birth families as they go through family court proceedings are routinely being ignored by the family courts, leading to children threatening to commit suicide.

This site was inundated by testimonies of children, and parents who said their children had consistently asked for some form of contact with their families, while others begged social workers to be returned home.

Speaking to Researching Reform, one mother said:

“My children haven’t been put first once. My 7 year old threatened to kill himself last month because they won’t let him come home. My 5 year old asks to come home at every contact. They’ve cut my contact, so I only see my boys 2 hours a week and my little girl 3 hours a week. I’m devastated. I’m a domestic abuse survivor. I’ve done all the courses off my own back but my social worker tells lies and bullies me. Cafcass still hasn’t been out to see my kids 8 months on. My children ask to come home at every contact.”

Another parent described a similar experience:

“My daughter tried to kill herself to get away from ongoing abuse. The Independent Children Lawyer refused to speak to the children. This has been going on for over 7 years in the courts. My daughter’s feelings were never recorded, and our child protection meeting took a grand total of ten minutes. She was ignored by the judge completely, despite violent incidents carried out by her father which had all been formally documented.”

Judges are currently not required to speak to children going through family law proceedings, even if a child requests a meeting with their judge. A Freedom of Information request by this site exposed the then coalition government’s failure to secure the right in 2014, despite pledging to implement a duty on judges to speak to children who wanted to talk about their case.

Guidelines were drawn up in 2010 by the former Family Justice Council’s Voice of the Child sub-committee, which allowed children to speak to judges. But the guidelines were heavily restricted, and only permitted the judge to explain the court process, denying children the right to talk about their feelings and express concerns about their case.

Discussions on implementing the right came to an abrupt halt in May, when the former President of the Family Division James Munby admitted that the government had refused to create a right to speak to judges because it had said the cost of launching the policy was too high. The government’s reasoning was widely criticised by child welfare campaigners and the public.

Instances of judges not listening to social workers in court who recommend contact with birth parents have also been uncovered by this site. One parent described an experience where the social worker had recommended contact but the judge had refused to grant it, despite the child having had positive contact with the parent for several years.

“No one ascertained my daughter’s views. She was nine at the time. We had racked up eight years of really good contact logs and the social services reports said my daughter very much wanted to remain in contact with me. All of that was ignored because the other parent had come off better in court.”

A leading study by British social workers confirmed that children in care need ties to their birth families, which are vital for healthy development. The study’s researchers called on the government to ensure that children retained contact with their birth families wherever possible and urged the government to overhaul the UK’s outdated child protection practices in this area.

A comment in the study said: “Adopted children denied contact can experience serious identity issues and when they are free to seek out their birth families at age 18, adoptive parents can be ill-prepared for the emotional consequences.” 

Professor Brid Featherstone, who co-authored the study explained:

“You should start from the assumption that direct contact with birth parents ought to be considered… Usually, adopted children go searching when they get to 18 and it can store up trouble if they haven’t had previous contact, enabling them to see their birth parents for good or ill.

They can stop having fantasies about these wonderful parents that they were stolen away from, or equally that they were absolutely terrible people. It’s about their identities. Adopted people told us that identity is a lifelong issue for them. Where do I come from? Who do I belong to?”

Children’s feelings are swept under the carpet throughout their lifetime in care, causing them serious harm. A study published in October by University College London, found that children’s voices were often absent from care records, causing them significant distress.

Adults who had grown up in care and who took part in the study criticised a lack of acknowledgment in their care records. Some said their voices were completely absent from their files, while others said words were put into their mouths by child welfare professionals. Redacted files caused a lot of distress too, with care leavers questioning the validity and usefulness of piecemeal information in piecing together their lives.

One father told us about his son’s experience of his Life Story Book, a record intended to log comprehensive details about a child’s life before, during and after care in a sensitive and compassionate way.

“The social workers just ignored the requirement to compile the Life Story Book. It was never done after over 6 years. By then the damage was done. He didn’t remember me. I felt like he had been conditioned to believe whatever he had been told.”

Some parents who have children in care believe that judges and child welfare professionals are intentionally stifling children’s voices to stem any potential obstacles or challenges to adoption orders.

One parent told this site that their 17 year-old son had written his wishes and feelings down on paper to give to the judge as he was concerned about the validity of his adoption – some paperwork was missing and some documentation looked as if it had been tampered – but the judge disregarded his concerns.

” I’d taken my son’s written evidence to the family court which outlined his wishes and feelings, and him wanting answers to the very serious concerns over whether his adoption had been registered. I though that perhaps this would make the court order null or void, as I also had significant evidence showing the anomalies.

My evidence was rejected – some were audio recordings from a court clerk which confirmed there were problems with my son’s adoption certificate – and the judge just set them aside and told me to ‘let it go’.

I really do think the judge must have heard the audio recordings, and now I feel as if there has been a cover up. I’ve since been restricted from mentioning specific names and places and my son has never got his answers, and neither have I to this day.”

Further reading:

  • Top Social Workers: Adopted Children Must Have Contact With Their Birth Families.
  • “Children’s voices” omitted from care records, UCL study finds
  • BBC’s Today Programme And Researching Reform On Children’s Right To Speak To Judges
  • Children’s Right To Speak To Judges In Family Cases Shelved Because Of Cost – Former Family Court President
  • Lexis Nexis: Children have no right to speak to family judges

Our thanks go out to Jane Doe, Tum-Tum,  and the many parents and children who shared their experiences with Researching Reform.

 

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Coalition Asks Government To Place Children At The Heart of Politics

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Research, Researching Reform

≈ 4 Comments

A coalition of more than 70 child welfare organisations and experts are calling on the government to transform children’s lives in the UK with a series of pledges they hope ministers will address during the general election.

The 30 pledges include ensuring children in care are not dislocated unnecessarily from their families, removing the ‘reasonable chastisement’ common law defence so that children have the same protection from assault as adults and incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK law.

The document, which is entitled Together For Children, is comprehensive and touches on issues faced by vulnerable children, care leavers, young offenders and families struggling with poverty and homelessness.

It is an excellent set of pledges.

The announcement was made yesterday on coalition member Article 39’s website.

In the press release, Carolyne Willow, Director of children’s rights charity Article 39, said:

“Children have no vote but what’s promised and delivered through this general election will have a massive impact on their lives, happiness and future. We want to see children and their rights at the heart of manifestos – not the odd mention here and there but a systematic strategy for making our country among the best in the world for children’s rights. Five years can make or break a childhood, so the weeks ahead really matter.”

Kathy Evans, Chief Executive of Children England, also added a statement:

“Over the thirty years since we signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child, government policy affecting children has been increasingly fragmented, and departments have struggled to co-operate on a shared, holistic vision for children’s wellbeing. These pledges set out a thorough framework that all departments can use to ensure children are at the heart of policy-making.”

Coalition members include Children England, Children’s Rights Alliance for England, the National Youth Advocacy Service and the Association of Lawyers for Children.

Individual coalition members include Ian Dickson, Chair of the Conference for Care Experienced People (retired) and children’s rights campaigner, Dr Maggie Atkinson, Children’s Commissioner for England 2010-2015, Brid Featherstone, Professor of Social Work, University of Huddersfield and Dr Julia Brophy, Independent Research Consultant and Principal Investigator – Family Justice.

You can see the election pledges here. 

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Dr Gary Clapton: Life Story Work For Adoptees “Riddled” With Birth Parents’ Failures

01 Friday Nov 2019

Posted by Natasha in Adoption, child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

Dr Gary Clapton, a Committee Member of Birthlink, a service which connects adoptees with their birth families, said child welfare professionals’ records of birth families for adopted children were often written more like justifications for removal than a detailed history of a child’s life before their adoption.

The books are intended to hold sensitively written information about a child’s birth family, carers and their life experiences.

In an interview with The Scotsman, Dr Clapton criticised the current practice around record keeping, saying, “Often troubling is the lack of presence of the parent, or at least their side of the story. The records tend to focus solely on the child and their prospect of an adoptive family or the system requirements of a case to be made out for removal of the child from their parents – invariably the latter is an account riddled with all the instances of parental failure. In the files we read, it is difficult to discern the human presence of a parent who has lost their child.”

Dr Clapton, who is a senior lecturer at the University of Edindburgh focusing on adoption and fostering, fathers and fatherhood, children and families social work practice, and moral panics, and a Committee Member of the Fathers Network Scotland, also mentions the importance of keeping physical tokens from birth parents.

Concerns around whether or not these children are able to access tokens and keepsakes left by parents are also raised in the piece.

The article, published today, follows alarming research carried out by adoption agency Coram and The Hadley Centre at the University of Bristol in 2015 which found that Life Story work was not being prioritised by adoption professionals and that there were wide variations in the quality of the storybooks.

The national study noted that over 30% of adopters rated their children’s life storybooks as ‘terrible’, while around 40% said they were ‘good’ or ‘excellent’.

The study also uncovered the following issues:

  • Many of the books were of poor quality, and often had to be ‘redone’ by their adoptive parents;
  • Adoptive parents reported that the stories were often not child-centred and lacked narrative and explanation;
  • Many adoptive parents also found that the level of detail in the books was inappropriate:
  • Some adoptive parents said there was either too much emphasis on one part of the story, too little detail or too much unnecessary detail;
  • Other concerns centered around a frustration that the books could not be updated as the children grew up.

BBC Radio 4 covered the research in their You and Yours series the year the study was published, interviewing Coram’s Director of Operations, Renuka Jeyarajah-Dent on the findings.

Jeyarajah-Dent said, “Adopted children cannot start with a blank slate. Their past is significant and should be valued. Understanding life history becomes particularly important when young people reach adolescence and develop and define their sense of self.”

Ofsted has also repeatedly criticised Life Story work, and has noted that adoption agencies who needed to improve also needed to produce better life story books. As a bare minimum, Ofsted recommended that Life Story work should represent a realistic account of a child’s circumstances and that there should be a dedicated Life Story Worker in every adoption team.

LSB

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Ministers And Children’s Policy – Who’s Who In 2019

18 Friday Oct 2019

Posted by Natasha in child welfare, Researching Reform

≈ 4 Comments

It seems as if Researching Reform is constantly updating this segment, but we feel it’s worth sharing the latest on all things ministerial in child welfare.

Here is the current list of ministers involved in children’s policy, and the new posts the government has created, as well as positions the government has scrapped:

Home Office:

  • Minister of State for Countering Extremism, Baroness Williams of Trafford
  • Minister of State for Immigration, Seema Kennedy MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Vulnerability, Victoria Atkins MP

Ministry Of Justice:

  • Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice, Robert Buckland QC MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Youth Justice, Victims, Female Offenders and Offender Health – this position no longer exists

Department For Education:

  • Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities – this position no longer exists
  • Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, Chris Skidmore MP
  • Minister of State for School Standards, Nick Gibb MP
  • Minister of State for Children and Families, Kemi Badenoch MP – the position is currently being covered by Michelle Donelan MP, while Kemi is on maternity leave
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the School System (Unpaid), Lord Nash

Department Of Health & Social Care:

  • Secretary of State for Health, Matt Hancock MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Prevention, Public Health and Primary Care, Jo Churchill MP
  • Minister of State for Health, Edward Argar MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Mental Health, Suicide Prevention and Patient Safety, Nadine Dorries MP
  • Minister for Care, Caroline Dinenage MP

Department For Work & Pensions:

  • Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Thérèse Coffey MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Employment, Mims Davies MP
  • Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, Justin Tomlinson MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Pensions and Financial Inclusion, Guy Opperman MP
  • Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance – this position no longer exists

Department For Digital, Culture, Media And Sport:

  • Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Nicky Morgan

Department For Housing, Communities And Local Government:

  • Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick MP
  • Minister of State for Housing, Esther McVey MP
  • Minister for Local Government and Homelessness, Luke Hall MP

For a full breakdown of departments and which ministers head them, click here. 

Child Welfare in 2018A Government Department Breakdown#WhosWho (3)

 

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