28 Wednesday Nov 2018
Posted in News, Researching Reform
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
27 Tuesday Nov 2018
Posted in Family Law, Researching Reform
Researching Reform’s open letter to the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, which asks the senior judge to overhaul the family courts’ approach to cases has been published by The Times.
The letter asks the President to remove the adversarial process inside the family courts, and explains that the culture inside the system is responsible for the system’s deterioration rather than austerity measures.
The letter outlines how the adversarial process increases conflict, allows lawyers to profit from the chaos that follows and as a result leaves law firms with no incentive to address the courts’ underlying issues. In the open letter, Researching Reform uses private family law processes to highlight the damage the current approach causes, and how an adversarial justice system for family cases has ultimately destroyed the legal profession.
The letter is behind a pay wall but is available to read at no cost by registering your details with The Times.
For those interested in legal issues, The Times Law daily newsletter, The Brief, sends everything straight to your inbox so you don’t have to fish around for the latest developments within the family justice system and elsewhere. Twitter users can also follow The Brief over at @JudgeJohnHack.
Very many thanks to The Times for publishing our letter.
27 Tuesday Nov 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:
26 Monday Nov 2018
Posted in child welfare, event, Researching Reform, social work
A debate on children’s social care promised by the government seems to have been set aside, as updates on the discussion come to a halt. Parents going through child protection proceedings called the decision not to host the debate cowardly on social media after the debate sparked nationwide interest. The discussion, which had been scheduled by the Backbench Business Committee to take place in October, was pulled without warning.
Parents going through the family courts reacted with suspicion on social media at the surprise cancellation last month. Mothers and fathers left several comments on Facebook about the decision to pull the debate, with some suggesting that the government had become fearful over service users’ growing interest in the discussion after this site published details about the event. Some parents had set aside petrol money and re-organised their working day to make long distance trips down to the House of Commons to listen to the debate.
On 9th October, the day the debate was set to take place, Researching Reform reached out to Tim Loughton MP, the member of Parliament who organised the event. We tweeted Tim at around 9.15pm, several hours after the debate should have started. We asked Tim what had happened to the debate, and he told us that the discussion had been postponed. We then asked Tim if the debate had been rescheduled. Tim replied that any new date would be dependant on the Committee being able to find a slot for the discussion.
It’s been over a month since the debate was cancelled, so we reached out to Tim again last Friday, to ask whether there had been any developments on a date for the debate. This time, Tim did not respond.
There has been significant government push back over the last few weeks on the very serious concerns about children’s social care raised by this site and several other child welfare campaigners. The Ministry of Education’s ongoing resistance to addressing breaches in law over practices like forced adoption and the online marketing of children in care appears to stem from a concern that reforms in these areas would likely reduce profits inside a sector already buckling under austerity measures. That our government refuses to talk about the very real damage the child welfare sector is doing to children and families is a disgrace.
23 Friday Nov 2018
Posted in child welfare, CSA, CSE, Researching Reform
Iran holds the largest Afghan diaspora in the world, and of the three million Afghans in Iran, one million are estimated to be children. Emerging reports of undocumented Afghan girls being sold into sexual slavery, and research showing that boys are being forced to fight in Syria on behalf of the Iranian government are hugely worrying developments. They are also developments that this site feels deserve more coverage.
The piece was published this week on Kayhan Life, a fully independent media outlet focusing on news about the Middle East. By way of disclosure, Researching Reform’s editor is the managing editor for the newspaper, which also has a strong focus on child rights. If you are interested in child welfare and would like to know more about the obstacles children in Iran face day to day, you can access those articles here.
Our story this week highlights the sexual exploitation of Afghan girls in Iran and the forced conscription of Afghan boys, who are coerced into fighting in Syria by Iran’s government. You can read the article here.
We wish you a safe, and happy weekend.
21 Wednesday Nov 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The latest child welfare stories that should be right on your radar:
20 Tuesday Nov 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, Voice of the Child
November 20th is International Children’s Day, an annual event launched to celebrate children, and to highlight the difficulties they face in today’s world.
This year, Researching Reform has chosen to honour Children’s Day by asking the UK government to address three pressing issues affecting children in care:
1. Give all children engaged in child welfare proceedings an automatic right to speak to the judges overseeing their cases.
Researching Reform started campaigning for this right in 2014, after the government failed to make good on its promise to give children going through the family courts the chance to speak to judges about their cases. When we made a Freedom Of Information request in 2017 to find out what had happened to the plans, we discovered that the Ministry of Justice never enacted the policy. After writing an article for Lexis Nexis on the findings, we were then contacted by the BBC, who interviewed us about our Voice of the Child campaign. It’s very simple – if a court is meant to place a child’s best interests at the heart of every decision it makes, and a child wants to share their point of view with a judge, that request should never be denied.
2. End Forced Adoption in the UK and replace it with consensual adoption instead.
There’s a reason most countries around the world don’t use forced adoption. The practice causes significant distress, re-traumatises already vulnerable parents and children, and is completely unnecessary. If you feel the way we do, please sign our petition.
3. Stop councils advertising children online for adoption and fostering purposes.
It’s illegal, it’s dangerous and it doesn’t actually work. That’s our take on the routine marketing of babies and children by councils and agencies looking to put children up for adoption or fostering placements. It seems to be the view of most people we asked on Twitter, as well. If you’d like to find out more about why the practice is breaking the law, our article on the subject offers more information. If you’re a smarty pants and you already know, skip a step and sign our petition asking the government to stop the practice.
While there’s a great deal more that needs to be done, these issues are a good place to start. We know the government is listening. And the public is watching you.
19 Monday Nov 2018
Posted in forced adoption, Researching Reform
A father who lost his daughter through care proceedings has started a campaign to raise awareness of the problems around forced adoption. The campaign features small rocks with slogans about forced adoption, which have been placed outside local authority buildings, hospitals, and adoption and fostering agencies in Norfolk. Some stones include the names of children in Norfolk county council waiting to be adopted.
Forced adoption is a nationwide practice. The policy means that parental consent does not need to be asked for by local authorities when deciding to place a child up for adoption in the UK. The practice is in decline around the world, as emerging research begins to shed light on the damaging effects of forced adoption, on birth families, adoptive families, and the children being adopted through the policy.
The father, who asked to remain anonymous, wanted to use art as a platform to highlight failures by social workers to engage with birth families, who are often disregarded when decisions about a child is being made. As well as painting stones, the father has made hearts containing poems, which he has hung up in areas within Norfolk.
The campaign is an open one, which the father hopes will be extended across the country. He told Researching Reform, “It would be good to encourage people to join in, they don’t have to be in Norfolk to do this. It’s easy to do, peaceful and accessible”.
The father is hoping to launch a new campaign around forced adoption over Christmas.
If you believe that forced adoption should be banned in the UK, please consider signing Researching Reform’s petition.
16 Friday Nov 2018
Posted in child welfare, Researching Reform
A new survey produced by the University of Bristol and Coram Voice, reveals that of the 3,000 children interviewed, 49% of 4-7 year olds and 33% of 8-11 year olds did not understand why they were in care.
Other findings conclude that over a quarter (27%) of 11-18 year olds had three or more social workers over the last year and a fifth (20 %) of 4-7 year olds didn’t know who their social worker was.
The survey, which has not been made publicly available, is part of the organisations’ ‘Our Lives, Our Care’ study.
While the survey is nothing more than a marketing opportunity for Coram – Brigid Robinson, Managing Director of Coram Voice, makes that clear in the press release for the survey when she says, “For us to improve outcomes for children and young people in care it is vital that we understand their experiences and learn from what they tell us. Our Bright Spots Programme gives local authorities this opportunity” – it is just one more piece of evidence highlighting the lack of child centered care inside the system.
Have a good weekend.
15 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Researching Reform, The Buzz
The child welfare developments that should be right on your radar:
