A discussion about children and domestic abuse is taking place today in the House of Commons.
The debate was set up by Labour MP Liz Twist, and will look at the effects of domestic violence on children, contact disagreements between mothers and fathers, parental alienation and the implementation of the Domestic Abuse Bill.
The Domestic Abuse Bill, which was included in the Queen’s Speech, will be re-introduced by the current government after falling through during the last General Election.
The Bill establishes a Domestic Abuse Commissioner, bans cross-examination in person in family proceedings in certain circumstances and makes provision for violent or sexual offences, and offences involving other abusive behaviour.
Councils requesting care and supervision orders will be required to upload every document relating to a child’s case onto a new online portal, HMCTS (Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service) has said.
The confirmation came after this site sent in a series of questions to HMCTS, for an online event the court body held on 23 January highlighting digital reforms in child protection and adoption cases.
The panel included Ed Owen, HMCTS’s Communications Director, Emma Petty, the Service Manager for the HMCTS reform project and Deputy Service Manager Jason Lewellyn.
Answering our question about whether local authorities would need to upload every document relating to a public family law case throughout the life of that case to make sure records were accurate and complete, Emma Petty said:
“It’s certainly our aim. By looking at the demo, you can see how easy it is just to go to your browser and upload the relevant documents.”
She added, “It’s really important to treat that case management system they have access to as the digital file, and have all of the information in the one place that everyone can access.”
We also asked whether public family law applications would have to go through an online vetting process to make sure they were appropriate. In response to this question, Emma explained that it would be the local authority who would submit the application and as part of the online process there would be “an element of validation”, and “mandatory fields” which local authorities would have to fill out during the submission process.
However, emergency applications would be unrestricted, allowing councils to submit these with little to no scrutiny during the uploading stage. Emma went on to say that once the digital service was in place, emergency applications would continue to be vetted by the court in the first instance.
We sent in two further questions which were not answered live:
If councils upload documents, what recourse will there be if any errors are found inside those documents, and if they can be edited, how will those changes be recorded?
There is an enormous challenge at the moment with factual inaccuracies inside family court documentation, which can have life altering effects on families and children, as the system currently does not offer a proper pathway to rectify those errors. Will the new system aim to address that challenge and if so, how?
During the conference the HMCTs panel confirmed that the service could not be used for all child proceedings. Only requests for care orders, supervision orders and emergency protection orders will be able to be submitted through the portal.
This piecemeal approach is likely to cause concern among researchers, as elements of a child’s case could go unseen, or get overlooked during proceedings.
Several more questions were asked during the event, and included whether the new online system would require councils to input form data manually rather than the ability to upload that form as a whole document.
Miss Petty said that manual input for forms was often required to unlock the various tools available inside the new portal but that the digital team at HMCTS would be responsive to feedback about whether the measure increased councils’ workloads.
Jason Lewellyn explained that while the process may initially be more time consuming, it would speed up the life cycle of the case as all of the data would then be available in one place and much quicker to find.
Another question asked was how the service planned to deter judges from printing out bundles and using the new portal in a system where, culturally, digital innovation had been resisted. Emma said the service had been engaging with a judicial working group to try to provide an online service that was user friendly to everyone.
Not all of the questions sent in were answered during the session, but HMCTS has confirmed via email that answers to those questions will be offered in writing on the HMCTS website shortly, with a first draft of those answers expected next week.
While the service is still only running pilots in selected areas and courts, the next phase of the reform programme will begin in March, with HMCTS sending out email notifications to councils nationwide about when the service will be ready for use, and information on how to register.
Many thanks to the panel for answering our questions, and to Indie at HMCTS who helped us send the questions through and answered our queries about the event.
Legal Action for Women (LAW) have scheduled another demonstration outside the Central Family Court in London, to raise awareness around unjust removal of children from their mothers by social services.
The demonstrations, organised under LAW’s ‘Support Not Separation’ initiative, are held on the first Wednesday of every month outside the Family Court in Holborn, and take place from 12.30-1.30pm.
LAW offers interesting facts in their email blasts for the protests. The latest message contains the following information:
Women are primary carers in 90% of households. 28% of children live in poverty.
There are more children ‘in care’ now, than at any time since 1985 – 75,420 by 2018. Children from poor areas are 10 times more likely to be taken. Of families whose children are taken, 75% are single mothers.
90% of adoptions are without parental consent.
While mothers are denied support, it costs £56k p.a. to keep a child ‘in care’.
70-90% of court cases feature domestic abuse yet less than 1% of child contact applications are refused – violent fathers nearly always get contact.
The email also offers helpful advice on rights, resources and reading materials, including a Self Help Guide which has been published on the Support Not Separation blog.
The advice offered this month is added below:
Courts and social services must prioritise the welfare of the child by keeping children with their mother or other primary carer wherever possible.
Section 17 of the Children Act (1989) instructs local authorities to assess what resources they should offer ‘children in need’, including what support (financial and other) mothers need to keep children safe in the family. This should happen BEFORE any care plan. If it doesn’t, a lawyer can challenge it (by judicial review).
Disabled mothers are entitled to further help under the Care Act (2014).
Victims of domestic violence have a right to be protected in court and NOT to be cross-examined by their abuser. Lawyers and judges should follow the guidelines in Practice Direction 12J.
Mothers have a right to REFUSEto sign a Section 20 allowing their children to be taken into care. S20 is‘voluntary’ but once signed it’s very hard to get the children back.No one should sign ANYTHING they don’t agree with.
Children in foster care areentitled to an Advocate (and possibly their own lawyer). There should be review meetings at least every six months which mothers have the right to attend to discuss how the children are doing.
Mothers denied contact with their children by Children’s Services, the special guardian, or other parent/carer have the right to go back to court.
The next demonstration is taking place on Wednesday 5 February. The address for the Central Family Court is 49 High Holborn, London WC1V 6NP.
A government-funded social work teaching body is launching an initiative to improve child protection in England and Wales, by including parents with experience of the child protection system.
The project will hold its official launch in Birmingham next month, at an event which it hopes will attract families who have been, or are currently inside the care system.
The Social Work Teaching Partnership West Midlands (SWTP) has created what it calls a “Parent Partnership Programme” which aims to develop “a more supportive, collective and compassionate approach to child protection”, according to the event’s invitation page.
The event will act as the official launch for the scheme, and will feature the experiences of professionals working with parents who have been in the care system in the United States, information on how parent partnership can reduce the need for children to be in care, as well as develop better support for families, and how to foster better cooperation between parents and social workers.
The invitation says that some of the speakers at the event will include parents who have experienced the child protection system. Additional speakers confirmed are Professor Andy Bilson, a spokesperson from ATD Fourth World, and members of the Camden Family Group Conferencing and Southwark Parents Panel.
The event will feature speeches, interactive workshops and a decision making panel.
The organisers are actively encouraging families to attend this event, as well as social work managers and practitioners, with a view to developing the parent partnership scheme further once the launch has been held.
The Social Work Teaching Partnership West Midlands is one of 23 accredited social work teaching bodies funded by the Department for Education to raise the level of education and training for social work students.
The 23 partnerships incorporate 113 councils, 54 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and 32 private, voluntary and independent (PVI) partners.
SWTP West Midlands is made up of local authorities, children’s trusts, NHS trusts and universities.
Teaching Partnerships were set up in 2014 to improve social work education, and an evaluation of their impact is set to be published by the Department of Education in March 2020.
An interim report was published in July 2019, which found that while cooperation between social workers and academics had improved in some cases, the sector continued to face ongoing challenges.
The scheme’s launch takes place on Tuesday, February 25 in Birmingham’s Old Library, from 10am – 4pm.
The latest court reform event, which enables child protection professionals to learn more about the modernisation programme for the family courts in England and Wales, invites people to send in questions about the proposed changes.
But the event invite does not extend to service users, whose input is arguably the most important, and says “the session is aimed at local authorities, legal professionals, professional court users (judges and lawyers) and the third sector”, so this site is encouraging families and children to submit questions instead.
The invitation, which doubles up as a registration portal, explains that the webinar will offer insight into the court system’s work modernising the system so far. The session will also provide updates on the latest changes made, which include tests carried out on a new digital process allowing local authorities to make applications for care and supervision orders online.
The new processes were tested at the start of 2019, with a few local authorities and family courts. The invite says the pilots involved working closely with local authorities, CAFCASS/CAFCASS Cymru, the judiciary and “people involved in the family courts”, though it is not clear whether this group includes families and children with family court experience.
During the event, viewers will be able to submit questions and the presenters will then answer a selection of questions in real time. However, questions can also be emailed in advance, to changesomethingthatmatters@justice.gov.uk.
The services that are being tested are set to be rolled out across the whole of England and Wales in the new year.
For anyone unable to watch the webinar on the day, the session will be recorded.
The online event takes place on Thursday January 23, 2020 from 1pm-2pm.
The APPG is asking the government to introduce an Emergency Action Plan to tackle the issue. Key measures the APPG would like to see implemented include funding for councils to develop local provision, including children’s homes and foster placements, as well as regulation and inspection of semi-independent accommodation.
The APPG’s Chair is Ann Coffey, the MP hosting this afternoon’s debate. The Group has two Vice Chairs, Tim Loughton and Sir Peter Bottomley, while the position of Secretariat for the APPG is held jointly by The Children’s Society and Missing People, who were both paid up to £3,000 for their engagement with the APPG. As of the last AGM (October 2018), the group did not publish an income and expenditure statement.
The Courts and Tribunals Service has launched an event to showcase its latest updates to the court system and it has opened the conference to the public.
The changes to the system are part of a £1bn reform programme, which covers family, criminal and civil courts as well as tribunals.
According to the invitation for the event, the programme has now reached its halfway point. It is not clear whether the halfway point refers to the amount of work completed or the time period the reform programme has to complete its updates.
The conference itself will include presentations and market stalls, and will also give people the chance to ask questions to individuals who are leading the programme’s development.
The event takes place on Tuesday 5th November, at the Ministry of Justice in London, and runs from 9.15am to 1.30pm.
The invitation says places are limited and registration is required to express an interest in the first instance. The team will then contact you to confirm attendance or to notify you that you’ve been added to a waiting list.
The first ever conference dedicated specially to children who have experienced the care system has published its report on the event, and it is a must-read for anyone working with children.
The Care Experienced Conference, which is chaired by Ian Dickson, a retired social worker and former Ofsted inspector who grew up in care and now advocates for children’s rights, took place in April and offered 20 workshops touching on a broad range of subjects nominated by care experienced people.
There were 141 care experienced people at the conference ranging from 14 to 82 years old, and attendees came from all walks of life.
The conference also featured outstanding artwork by individuals who have been in care, and many of the pieces are deeply moving. You can see the artwork here.
The conference group has published two documents, one being a summary report on the event and the other being a research report.
We have not had the chance to read the research report yet, but we will as soon as we get the chance. The summary offers quotes about experiences inside the care system shared by people of all ages, and while the sentiments are well known to most of us who have been campaigning to raise awareness around these issues it is wonderful that there is now a conference to represent children inside the system.
Some of the quotes will also be loaded with meaning for some. For example, this one:
“Bin bags.”
This refers to the way in which children’s belongings are ‘packed up’ when they are sent to a placement. They have to carry their possessions around in a plastic bin liner.
The summary also offers a list of the top ten messages delivered at the conference:
Unsurprisingly, the biggest takeaways from the conference were that children in care needed to feel loved, and that the system had failed entirely to provide the nurturing children need.
One of the other important aspects about this summary report is that it includes the names of the core working group for the conference, and the many individuals and organisations who supported the event.
While Researching Reform doesn’t know everyone on those lists, the names we did recognise were all professionals we would call “the good guys” inside the sector, including Ian Dickson, who we have known for some time through the social media platform Twitter.
They are men and women who champion children and believe in pure social work, which places the needs of every child above any other aspect inside the system. These are individuals worth following.
The event, “Children in Care: Preserving Family Connections?” will look at new research from the UK and Australia focusing specifically on questions around family connections for children in care.
The programme includes sessions on trends and patterns relating to children and how they enter the care system in Australia and England; how contact and reunification between birth families and their children are dealt with in both countries; and alternatives to child removal.
There is a session at the end of the day which offers responses from birth parents too.
The event is taking place on 19th September from 10am-5pm at Forrest Hills in Lancashire. The venue is located next to Lancaster University, the institution which currently runs the Centre for Child and Family Justice.
The event marks the first of its kind for the group, which is hoping to hold the protests on the first Wednesday of every month.
The demonstrations are part of a growing number of child welfare-focused protest movements which meet monthly to expose the gaps within the UK’s child protection system.
Legal Action for Women (LAW) has been holding monthly protests outside the London Family Court under their campaign Support Not Separation to highlight issues around wrongful removal of children and discrimination faced by parents experiencing poverty and hardship. The protests are also held on the first Wednesday of every month.
The Facebook page for the protest outside Parliament confirms at least 27 people are attending the protest, with 44 people interested in attending so far.
The protest will be held this month on 7 August, from noon-2pm.
Many thanks to Raul for alerting us to this development.
