Welcome to another week.

The nation’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has once again caused an uproar by suggesting that it will be dropping another investigation, this time looking into alleged abuse at two schools run by Ealing Abbey Monks.

The allegations stemming from these two schools are some of the worst the Catholic Church has seen, and survivors and victims of child abuse are furious, accusing Chair Alexis Jay of failing to keep the Inquiry’s original scope and damaging its credibility at the same time.

Almost a week has gone by since this story broke and the Inquiry has not yet addressed the decision. No comment has been sent to the media and no statement published on its website.

Our question this week then, is this: do you think the Inquiry knows what it’s doing? 

Welcome to another week.

Leaked guidelines from Facebook have emerged which confirm that the social media platform will not delete videos of abortion, self harm or violent death. However, it will remove controversial materials under certain circumstances.

The guidelines, whilst designed to protect freedom of expression, could be viewed as contradictory. The leaked documents reveal that whilst Facebook will allow videos of abortions, it will only allow such videos if there is no nudity. They also conform that ‘handmade’ art showing nudity and sexual activity is also allowed, but digitally made art showing sexual activity is not.

Comments such as “Little girl needs to keep to herself before daddy breaks her face,” are allowed because Facebook takes the view that “violent language is most often not credible until specificity of language gives us a reasonable ground to accept that there is no longer simply an expression of emotion but a transition to a plot or design…. From this perspective language such as ‘I’m going to kill you’ or ‘F*** off and die’ is not credible and is a violent expression of dislike and frustration.”

The Telegraph reports that:

“Yvette Cooper, a former Labour Cabinet minister who chaired the House of Commons home affairs select committee in the last parliament, said the leaks “show why we were right to call on social media companies to urgently review their community guidelines as too much harmful and dangerous content is getting through”.

She said: “In most cases the reality of sharing vile and violent images of violence and child abuse simply perpetuates the humiliation and abuse of a child. 

“Images should be given to the police and removed instead. Facebook are getting this wrong and need to urgently change.”

Our question this week then is just this: do you agree with Facebook’s guidelines, or Ms Cooper? 

Welcome to Mental Health Awareness Week.

Often, when we talk about mental health we use familiar contexts like post natal depression, soldiers’ PTSD and the impact of modern pressures on children, such as exams and harmful online content, so we often miss the damage done in quieter corners of modern life.

This week, Researching Reform would like to highlight the impact of our current child protection system on families’ and children’s mental health.

Whilst family policies and legislation try hard to keep up with scientific advancements in the fields of psychology and child development, the lag combined with too many competing financial and management interests within child protection focused departments mean that what we have in place today to respond to vulnerable children and their needs is still not good enough, by a long way.

We already know that foster care can cause Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in children. In fact, according to a Harvard Medical School study, they are almost twice as likely to suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as war veterans.  Needless to say, this has long term implications for a child’s educational, and later on, career success.

One of the biggest factors which leads to PTSD in foster children is the number of placements they endure. As many as one in five foster placements break down, which leads to high levels of stress, anxiety and interrupted development. This research from the Social Care Institute For Excellence is still an important read – for the data on how often children bounce around from placement to placement to the excellent suggestions for stemming this phenomenon.

From foster care to forced adoption, and here the long term effects of the practice are well documented too. This research from Australia which looks at the removal of children from parents without their consent concludes that the psychological impact ranges from complex and pathological grief and loss to self-identity and attachment issues, anxiety and attachment disorders, personality disorders, and once again symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

So, this Mental Health Awareness Week, we are asking child protection professionals and families to come together to raise awareness of the current policies in place which we could improve on to protect families’ mental health and really make sure we’re putting children and their wellbeing first.

Our question to you then, is just this: what aspects of the family justice and child protection system do you think negatively affects mental health and how can we make those processes more humane? 

Welcome to another week.

As we begin National Stalking Awareness Week here in the UK, new figures have been published which suggest that stalkers are unlikely to be jailed, even if they are repeat offenders. 

Ministry of Justice data reveal that almost two-thirds of those who breached their orders received a non-custodial sentence. The report also confirmed that even when the offender had committed multiple breaches, a custodial term was unlikely.

Furthermore, almost 60% of offenders who breached a second time avoided a custodial sentence and nearly half of those who breached a third time (49%) avoided jail, as did 38% of those who breached on four occasions.

So, for this week, we aren’t going to ask you a question. Instead, we’re inviting you to share your thoughts on, or experiences of stalking in order to raise awareness.

Welcome to another week.

A young woman in Wales has made headlines today after a local authority came under fire for putting her baby up for adoption without her consent. A police watchdog also found failings with the police force handling her case.

Despite being a victim of abuse, and evidence clearly showing the abuse, the police and the local authority failed to treat her as such. The girl’s father believes that the shoddy handling of his daughter’s case led to the forced adoption of her child. The local authority in question is now being investigated.

Her father said in a statement:

“It’s true that she became involved with drink and drugs, but her problems were greatly exacerbated by the failure to provide her with proper support.

“Her former partner has been convicted of assaulting her, but initially the police did not see her as a victim of domestic abuse.

“It is heartbreaking that her child has been taken away from her for adoption. It’s an enormous blow that has had a devastating impact on her. At present she is greatly traumatised by what has happened and finding it very difficult to cope.”

Here are some of the findings from the report published by The Independent Police Complaints Commission:

• Police did not arrest the offender at the time of the assault
• The incident of domestic violence was not properly reported or considered

Claims made against Vale of Glamorgan council which will be investigated by The Public Services Ombudsman for Wales include:

• Enrolling the mother on a programme that involved participating in joint counselling sessions with her abusive partner.
• Failure of the council to comply with its legal duty to “assess the care and needs of a child for care and support”

Crucially, the news item reports that the teenage mother did not feel safe during the sessions because her partner was assaulting her afterwards. As a result she was perceived by social workers to be withdrawn and uncooperative.

Our question this week then, is just this: do you think the training for child protection professionals when it comes to domestic abuse and the steps that follow when deciding to remove a child in such a situation are good enough? 

Welcome to another week.

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month in America, but that doesn’t stop the campaign from reaching far and wide as other countries around the world take part.

Our question this week is very short, and it is just this: what do you think is the root cause of child abuse? 

Welcome to another week.

A report by Oxford University’s Rees Centre, based on several international studies looking at placement and outcomes of siblings when they are fostered highlights some serious concerns about the separation of brothers and sisters in social care.

The findings support current government policy which is that siblings should wherever possible, be placed together.

The report tells us that about 19% of children and young people entering care, assessed as needing to be placed with siblings, are placed apart from them. It also offers a call to action, urging social workers and fostering providers to focus on facilitating sibling placements.

Key recommendations include:

For Social workers –
 Involve young people more in placement decisions. Involving young people in their placement
decision leads to better outcomes and this applies equally to sibling group placements.

For Fostering providers – 
 Recruit foster carers who are able and willing to foster sibling groups, such as those with greater housing capacity, and those with more experience in caring for multiple children with a range of needs. Foster carers should help facilitate contact between siblings placed apart where appropriate.
 Identify incentives for foster carers to take sibling groups. Consider financial benefits, training and adequate support.
 To help inform service planning, consider the developing body of evidence around the impact of
intervention programmes designed to support siblings in foster care. The intervention studies in this review show promising early findings in relation to the greater frequency of sibling co-placements, but also improved quality of the sibling relationship for children in foster care.

We think these suggestions are in the main positive, however the offer of financial incentives remains, to our mind, a problematic solution and one we have written about many times in relation to different child welfare topics.

Our question this week then, is this: do you agree with all the suggestions above, and do you have any of your own you would like to add?

Thank you to the National IRO website for sharing this report.

Welcome to another week.

Social worker and Founder of the Migrants Trust, Margaret Humphreys has told the nation’s Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse that the abuse, lies and cover ups involved in children being sent abroad to other Commonwealth countries during the 1940s-1970s, amounted to human rights violations.

The conduct by government organisations and officials which sparked this comment includes:

• Physical and sexual abuse,
• Conditions of slavery and terror,
• Removal of identities, and;
• Lies that suggested the youngsters’ parents were dead
• Collusion and cover-up by institutions and agencies,
• State sanctioned kidnapping of children
• Children being knowingly placed into the hands of paedophiles

A 2015 debate in the House Of Lords in which Lord Blackheath confirms he and others were involved in several of these government initiatives, also confirms Margaret’s experience through her work helping former child migrants find their biological families.

Our question then, is this: who should be held accountable for these crimes – the government or individuals involved, or perhaps both?