High profile child welfare professionals in Britain have called on Education Minister Gavin Williamson, to launch a government review into the children’s care system in England and Wales.

The review would be the widest in scope that England and Wales have ever seen, and would allow for an investigation into the use of forced, or non-consensual adoption, which is currently only used by a small number of countries around the world.

The inquiry also hopes to emphasise the voices of children and families who have experienced the care system.

The call comes after the Conservatives promised to review the care system in its election manifesto this year.

The letter, which was authored by John Radoux, a child psychotherapeutic counsellor, has already been signed by 60 people, including the CEO of Children England Kathy Evans, Article 39’s Director Carolyn Willow, the Chair of Nagalro  Sukhchandan P Kaur, and Brigid Featherstone, and asks the government to ensure that the review meets six targets:

1. Creating a fully independent review, commissioned by central government but separate from the state;
2. Ensuring the review is non-partisan and looks at long-term reforms supported by every party, now and in the future;
3. Implementing broad frames of reference which are able to consider all aspects of children’s social care;
4. Resourcing the review properly, with as much time as is needed to gather evidence and draw up reports with recommendations;
5. Engaging as many voices as possible, with an emphasis on input from people who have been in care or are currently experiencing care and;
6. Meeting the UK’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and existing research and good practice.

The letter outlines the current problems inside children’s social care, acknowledges past reviews, as well as arguing for the need to investigate the challenges in a more comprehensive way, and asks the government to help reform the system so that it works in the best interests of the children it is meant to support.

Here is an extract from the letter:

“The signatories of this letter are individuals with personal or professional experience of children’s social care – some of us have both.  We are writing because we fully support the need for such a review, and want to urge you to be ambitious regarding its scope. As ambitious as we should be for every child in care today, and long into the future. 

When the state decides to look after a child, because he or she cannot live with family, it takes on an exceptional responsibility for that child in the most formative years of life.  Unfortunately, we have been failing in this responsibility with too many children for too long. Significant concerns that have been highlighted through research, the courts and in the media over recent months, include:

Insufficient, and geographically incoherent, capacity in foster care and children’s homes to meet the needs of increasing numbers of children; rising numbers of children being moved too far from their local areas; children and young people living in unregulated homes; rising care bills contributing to ubiquitous council ‘overspends’ alongside concerns about profit-extraction by private equity companies; insufficient specialist therapeutic care (including secure provision) for very traumatised and/or vulnerable children; disproportionate numbers of children in care and care leavers in custody; children being moved chaotically to different foster and children’s homes multiple times – too often in double digits.  These problems, and there are many more in children’s social care, have been known to most of us for years – indeed, experienced as a painful reality by some of us as children. 

The unpalatable truth is this: many thousands of children are being harmed by a system intended to protect, nurture and care for them.  Harmed by inadequate or inconsistent care, harmed by the lack of stable, ongoing relationships as they are moved around the care system and into adulthood, harmed by the abuse and exploitation they are made vulnerable to. This has to change – we, as a society, must do better.”

You can read, and sign, the letter, here. 

Tweet with John Radoux at @JohnRadoux.

An inquiry looking into whether details of convicted sex offenders should be made public has been confirmed in Australia, after a new report found that sex offenders got less supervision than other offenders even when they had a higher risk of reoffending.

The Upper House in the state of Victoria agreed to the inquiry on Wednesday, which was overwhelmingly voted through in a motion, with 35 members voting in favour of the inquiry and four against the proposal.

The inquiry was also called for by Stuart Grimley of Derryn Hinch’s Justice Party, a political party which focuses on reforms to the justice system. The Justice Party is named after its founder, Derryn Hinch. Hinch would like to see sex offenders’ full postal addresses made public rather than just their postcodes.

Victoria Police has been asked by the state’s auditor-general to provide further details about its processes for handling registered sex offenders.

Data confirms that there were 8,286 registered sex offenders in Victoria in May 2019, 54 per cent of whom were required to report regularly to police.

Some politicians do not agree with making registered sex offenders’ details public, and say there is no evidence that making this kind of information available to the public reduces reoffending.

The government has launched a consultation into the state of children’s social care.

The Education Committee’s inquiry will look at children’s social workers engaged in children’s social care with a view to trying to understand how to give children and families the best support possible.

The inquiry will explore the possibilities for early intervention, social work reform and training for children’s social workers. It will also investigate the extent to which social workers carry out and uphold their legal responsibilities as social work professionals.

While the focus appears to be on workloads and high staff turnover, this is a wonderful opportunity for families and children to try once again to explain to the government why a brand new approach, and state of the art social work training is needed. And you can share your thoughts with the committee.

Care experienced families and children can answer a series of questions prepared by the Committee in this file. The questions are:

1. What does/did your social worker need in order to do their job properly?

2. What helped, or didn’t help your social worker have what they need to do their job properly?

3. Do you think the job that social workers do today has changed in the past few years? If so, how has it changed, and why do you think that might be?

4. What does good social work look like to you?

5. Is there anything else that you want to tell us?

You can also submit further thoughts in a file without being restricted by set questions. 

You are entitled to ask that your submission, or just selected parts, are kept confidential. The Committee may also anonymise or redact your submission.

Education Committee Chair Robert Halfon MP explains the background to the inquiry:

“Children, young people and their families receive vital support from social workers. Yet children and their families in receipt of social work support are often those who have the worst outcomes. For example, 14% of looked after children get five good GCSEs, 39% of care leavers are NEET [not in education, employment or training], and one in four women who had a child removed through the family courts is likely to go back to court to have another child removed.

Reports suggest that children are under increasing pressures as they grow up, facing  up to a rise in mental health problems, a rise in knife crime and serious violence, and experiencing a range of challenges in areas such as social media use. We want to explore what social work looks like in 2019 and examine the skills and support that social workers need to keep children and young people safe from harm and to help them grow up to thrive as adults.

This inquiry will build on the Committee’s previous work on fostering, alternative provision and special educational needs, and continue to make the case for greater support for young people as they grow up. We want all children to have the very best start in life, and social workers play vital roles in keeping families together, children and young people safe and providing much needed support.”

The deadline for written submissions is Friday 30 August. 

The Education Committee’s page with all the information on this inquiry can be found here. 

Many thanks to Eugene for alerting us to the inquiry.

The British Association Of Social Work (BASW) is to publish its report on the state of the adoption sector at the end of this year.

The Enquiry, which was launched by the BASW in 2016, has been looking into adoption in England and Wales, the role social work should play in the adoption process and ethics surrounding the practice.

As part of its review, the Enquiry was tasked with examining the non consensual nature of adoption, which is often referred to as forced adoption, social workers’ involvement in the practice of removing children from parents without their consent and the ethical and human rights issues attached.

Researching Reform took to Twitter to ask the BASW and Maggie Mellon, who is a member of the Enquiry’s Steering Group, if they could offer any update on the Enquiry, which had not published any further information since its launch.

Maggie very kindly responded to us on Twitter.

Maggie Mellon, an outspoken and talented social worker who has in the past invited the profession to look at alternative ways of working with families inside the child protection system – like this insightful piece on the impact of current culture and practice inside the system which demonises parents – appeared to suggest that the findings would be launched before Christmas.

Maggie’s tweet does confirm that an update will be published shortly, which we will share once it’s live.

Many thanks to Tom Perkins for gently nudging us about this Enquiry.

As the nation’s Inquiry into child sexual abuse gets underway, Chair Lowell Goddard has released a statement clarifying the Inquiry’s working methods and the strands of its current investigations, as well as confirming that the Inquiry will not only be looking at the impact of child sexual abuse on its victims, but also the effect of false allegations on those accused of abusing children. 

In the wake of former MP Harvey Proctor’s very public outburst at having been investigated over allegations relating to an alleged VIP paedophile ring in Westminster, and conflicting evidence surrounding the late Lord Janner’s involvement in past child sexual abuse, we can see that the issues surrounding false allegations are complex.

But what constitutes a false allegation? Should a lack of evidence automatically allow us to say that the accused is innocent, and if so, should that accused then have the right to compensation? Should we have higher standards of proof when it comes to false allegations, and should we extend those standards to any allegation, including child sexual abuse?

Are our burdens of proof simply out of date and out of touch with modern advances in science and a progressive ethical code which forces us to question the difference between hard evidence and a lack of it?

Another difficult area lies in both how we treat allegations and how we deal with them once proved. Public figures since cleared of abuse, through lack of evidence rather than hard evidence disproving their involvement in many cases, have been very vocal about the way they felt the police treated them during their investigation despite the fact that they would have been treated in much the same way as non high profile members of the public (perhaps treated worse, even). Should we then also be looking at how ‘celebrity’ psychology impacts the effectiveness of police investigations and also, how police handling of suspects in general, whether high profile or not, needs updating?

What do you think? Which issues surrounding false allegations do you think are important and how do you think the Inquiry should approach them?