Welcome to another week.

A recent article in the New Zealand Herald calls out a practice in the country’s Family Court called ‘uplifting’. (WARNING: article features highly distressing video footage).

The practice can involve physically removing a child from persons or premises in order to return them to a parent whose custodial rights have been breached.

There may be no warning that the uplift is going to take place, and police are often called in to remove children.

Uplifts occur after an aggrieved parent applies for a warrant to have their child returned. The use of ‘reasonable force’  is allowed where considered appropriate. The element of force and a sharp rise in the use of uplifts, are causing concern.

Video footage showing children in acute distress during the removal process has sparked outrage in New Zealand. New Zealand Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern called the recordings “horrific” and observed that being forcibly removed from the home was clearly traumatic for children.

Professor Mark Henaghan, who is Dean of the faculty of Law at the University of Otago, said the Family Court had lost sight of their duty to place children’s welfare first and that the uplifts were ‘terrorising the children involved.’ He goes on to say:

“It’s become a battle of enforcement between the parents, courts, saying we’ve made an order, therefore it has to be enforced otherwise the court’s not carrying out its job…But the primary job of the [Family] Court is the welfare of the child. And I think if they saw some of the consequences of some of these warrants they may look at it differently.”

Speaking about the role of the police in uplifts, Police Association president Chris Cahill said the measure was also hard on police as officers were effectively “pawns” in the “wider games by parents”. He goes on to say:

“Often the police doing [uplifts] are the younger ones and they are only five or six years older than the children they are removing and that is tough on them.”

Cahill suggests that social workers should be tasked with carrying out uplifts.

The Labour party in New Zealand has continuously called for a review of the country’s Family Court, and more informed decision making before judges grant warrants to remove children.

Our question this week then, is just this: do you think the use of reasonable force to remove a child is ever ok?

Welcome to another week.

Well known vigilante group Dark Justice were interviewed on LBC earlier this year, claiming that their work is vital in stopping child abusers.

Another interview on LBC over the weekend featured a victim of child abuse who said vigilante groups were responsible for catching paedophiles the police had been unable to arrest.

This latest interview comes after police called on vigilante groups to take a step back, alleging that their activities were frustrating police operations. Senior officers have also expressed concern at the methods vigilantes used.

The warning comes as Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced £20 million funding in March to extend an initiative allowing undercover detectives to operate in internet chat rooms and forums used by suspected offenders. The government would not comment on how its operatives would conduct themselves within these operations.

In June this year, Angus McPherson, Crime Commissioner for Wiltshire, invited vigilantes to come and work for him. 

A ruling in April confirmed that vigilante groups could pose as children online in order to catch paedophiles. The judgment allows vigilante groups to operate without regulation.

Our question this week then, is just this: do you think vigilantes should be allowed to operate independently of the police?

Welcome to another week.

In an unusual article, a Christian publication has accused a local authority of intimidating tactics aimed at parents who refuse to agree to care plans and adoption orders.

The piece begins by detailing a case in which the council in question is now trying to send a mother to prison for speaking out about losing her children to care, even though the children are now adults and the care proceedings are over.

The story goes on to talk about a father who is currently trying to get his son back from care after complaining that the council’s actions have emotionally harmed his son.

Medway Council has repeatedly threatened the father with jail for naming child protection professionals on social media and publicly talking about his son on the internet. The judge in the case has previously stated that the only reason he has not imprisoned the father is to avoid him ‘becoming a martyr’. We’re not sure how sound that logic is, but there you are.

Interesting information is also offered in relation to a psychologist who worked on the mother’s case on behalf of the council. Her children were home schooled. Medway council argued that the mother had harmed her children by removing them from a conventional education: one child had special needs and the other was confirmed to be of above average intelligence.

Mr Graham Flatman told the court that the mother, ‘had provided (‘D’) only with a limited and possibly distorted social experience’ and had ‘missed the opportunities offered by school for extended social contacts, extra curricular activities and the benefit of experiencing how a society of children and adults can function’.

This judgment may highlight councils’ prejudices about home schooling generally which could be being bolstered or may originate from professional expert opinions, which vary considerably on the issue.  A proposed Bill in the House of Lords aiming to regulate home schooling further, could aggravate any bias that already exists.

Our question this week, then, is just this: do you think bias within child protection practice exists and if so, why?

Many thanks to the father in this piece for sharing the story with us.

Welcome to another week.

A thought provoking article in Open Democracy has criticised the way government uses child safeguarding policies.

In the piece, Jen Persson, who is the Director of defenddigitalme, an independent, non-partisan organisation which calls for fair, transparent, and safe use of children’s data in education, says the government is using child safeguarding laws and guidelines as a way to access children’s private information round the clock. She also calls out the lack of transparency in relation to who is accessing this data, for what purpose and which government departments are being given the information.

Our question this week then, is this: have you had personal experience of government departments taking information from your children which you believed to be protected, in the name of safeguarding?

Welcome to another week.

Abusive initiation ceremonies in sport where children are being sexually assaulted by peers are still viewed as ‘the norm’ by parents and sporting professionals.

It has also been reported that high profile and well connected parents have been trying to convince police receiving complaints that this kind of behaviour is ‘just a bit of fun’. A sharp increase in reports of child sexual abuse in sport raises serious questions about British culture and the pressure on children to ‘agree’ to being assaulted in order to be part of clubs and elite teams.

Our question this week then is this: how can we ensure this kind of abuse in sport is stopped? 

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.