The Children and Families Truth Commission  (CFCTC) published the first ever human rights-focused survey for children and families going through Britain’s child protection system in November, and it has now set a deadline for the questionnaire.

The survey will stop accepting submissions on 28th February, 2023.

Produced in collaboration with child-protection experienced parents, it has received hundreds of responses so far and will remain open to families and children who would like to take the survey until the end of February.

The survey asks families in Britain about their experiences of children’s social care and the courts, including times when they felt that their human rights were not supported. It uses clear and straightforward language.

The commission created this survey so that it can better understand which human rights are being breached inside the system, and how.

If you are a child or child-protection experienced parent or relative and you have some time to spare, we would love you to complete the survey. The more feedback we get the more we can understand the problems, so please help us ramp up the survey responses if you can by filling it out or sharing with your groups.

If you have any questions about, or problems with, the survey, you are very welcome to email the Commission at truthcommissionuk@gmail.com

You can access the survey here: https://bham.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3ZTjBjnJPwukVbE 

The Commission is also very happy to announce that another guide for families written by a parent will be published shortly, so stay tuned for more details.

We thought this inquiry might be of interest to parent-led organisations who are doing some really important research on why children don’t go to conventional school.

We are little rushed today, so we’re just going to lift some of the information on the inquiry from its own web page onto this post:

A new inquiry by the Education Committee will investigate causes and possible solutions to the growing issue of children’s absence from school.

Government statistics have shown that covid-19 is likely to have had a damaging effect on school attendance. In the 2021 autumn term, the most recent period for which data is available, 23.5% of all pupils were persistently absent (defined as missing 10% or more of sessions) and 1.4% were severely absent (meaning they missed at least 50% of sessions). In the 2018/19 academic year, the figures for persistent and severe absence were 10.9% and 0.8% respectively. 

The cross-party Committee of MPs will also examine links between pupil absence and factors such as economic disadvantage, special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), ethnic background, and whether a child or a family member is clinically vulnerable to covid-19. Rates of attendance at alternative provision schools, typically for pupils who cannot attend a mainstream school due to behavioural or SEND-related issues, will also be considered. 

The Committee will question experts and education sector leaders on the Government’s proposals to improve schools’ data collection on attendance. Ministers also propose introducing a new national framework for the use of fines for absence. 

The inquiry will look for ways to better support pupils and their families both inside and beyond the school system to improve attendance. It will also examine whether schools providing breakfast clubs, free meals, and after-school or holiday activities can have a positive impact. The Committee has previously supported the use of attendance mentors and will seek evidence on how the Government’s pilots of attendance mentoring could help. 

Disadvantaged pupils are more likely to miss school. The latest national statistics showed 33.6% of pupils who were eligible for free school meals were persistently absent in Autumn 2021, compared to 20.0% of pupils who were not eligible. 

Furthermore, 30.6% of pupils who receive SEND support were persistently absent in Autumn 2021, compared with 21.5% for pupils who are not identified with SEND. 

Gypsy Roma pupils and pupils of Irish Traveller heritage had the highest rates of persistent absence in autumn 2021 (55.7% and 63.3% respectively), while Black African and Chinese pupils had the lowest rates (10.8% and 9.9%). Inner London had the lowest rates of persistent absence (19%) and the South West had the highest (26%). 

Terms of Reference  

The Committee invites written submissions addressing any, or all, of the following bullet points. Evidence should be submitted here by Thursday, 9 February 2023. Written evidence should be no more than 3,000 words.    

• The factors causing persistent and severe absence among different groups of pupils, in particular:
  • Disadvantaged pupils  
  • Pupils from minority ethnic backgrounds  
  • Pupils with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND), and those who are clinically vulnerable to covid-19 
  • Pupils in alternative provision  
• How schools and families can be better supported to improve attendance, and how this affects pupils and families who are clinically vulnerable to covid-19. 
• The impact of the Department for Education’s proposed reforms to improve attendance.  
• The impact of school breakfast clubs and free school meals on improving attendance for disadvantaged pupils.  
• The role of the Holiday Activities and Food programme and other after-school and holiday clubs, such as sports, in improving attendance and engagement with school. 

You can access the page and full details here.

You can access the inquiry page here.

These are the latest family court items that should be right on your radar:

• I was not allowed to give evidence or cross-examine in family court: can I appeal? (Becket Chambers)
• Where are we with S. 65 (preventing cross-examination in person) of the Domestic Abuse Act? (Garden Court Chambers)
• Report Summary – Children and Families Act 2014: A failure of implementation (Spire Barristers)

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Canadian novel ‘Probably Ruby’ explores legacy of forced Indigenous adoption and residential schools (Canada)
• Government confirms ‘basic’ data about children in family courts not formally recorded (England and Wales)
• Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry warned Scotland may have a ‘problem’ similar to the scale of Rotherham scandal (Scotland)

The Children and Families Truth Commission  (CFCTC) published the first human rights-focused survey for children and families going through Britain’s child protection system in November. The response so far has been hugely generous – but the commission would love to hear from more families.

The survey was produced in collaboration with child-protection experienced parents and it has been designed to be accessible and easy to fill out.

The survey asks families in Britain about their experiences of children’s social care and the courts, including times when they felt that their human rights were not supported. 

The commission created this survey so that it can better understand which human rights are being breached inside the system, and how.

If you are a child or child-protection experienced parent or relative and you have some time to spare, we would love you to complete the survey. The more feedback we get the more we can understand the problems, so please help us ramp up the survey responses if you can.

You can do this by filling out this survey, and sharing it with others who may want to complete it.

The commission is going to set a closing date for the survey in the coming weeks, so if you have been thinking about filling it out this is just a heads up.

If you have any questions about, or problems with, the survey, you are very welcome to email the Commission at truthcommissionuk@gmail.com

You can access the survey here: https://bham.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3ZTjBjnJPwukVbE 

We would like to thank the hundreds of parents and extended family members who have already taken part in the survey, it means the world to us and we will make you proud.

A lecturer at the Open University is hoping to speak with victims of intimate partner violence (domestic abuse) for research she is carrying out.

Dr Anna Hopkins invited male and female victims of domestic violence who are over 18 to get in touch, in a tweet posted on 4th January.

The tweet also contained an overview of the research, which aims to explore cases taken forward without victims’ support or evidence, whether they resulted in a conviction or not.

You can contact Anna to find out more via email at: cprl-elp-study@open.ac.uk

The full overview can be found in the document below (you can click on the image to make the writing bigger):

These are the latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board Closes
• New funding to support child victims of abuse
• How the cost of living crisis is damaging children’s health

Advocacy group Support Not Separation is holding its monthly demonstration outside the Central Family Court in London today.

The protests hope to raise awareness about the way mothers and children experiencing poverty are discriminated against inside Britain’s family courts.

SNS is a movement created by support service Legal Action for Women (LAW). The demos take place on the first Wednesday of every month.

LAW says women living under the poverty line are targeted by social services who remove a disproportionate number of children from their care, on grounds which are often questionable. The organisation says the incidence of removal increases when a mother experiences intimate partner violence (domestic abuse).

LAW has found that children in these cases are frequently placed with the abusive parent, against the wishes of the child who is either fearful for their own safety or the safety of the non-abusive parent.

The demonstration takes place today from 12.30pm – 1.30pm, outside the London Family Court: First Ave House, 42-49 High Holborn, WC1V 6NP. Twitter users can engage with the demonstration by following and tweeting @NotSeparation.

Welcome to another year.

Our image of the month series features Paul Brian Tovey, an artist and adult adoptee who was abused by his adoptive parents as a child.

Paul is Researching Reform’s Artist In Residence, and campaigns for adoptees to have the legal right to revert back to their birth identities.

Paul’s paintings reflect his experiences as an adoptee including the effect of his forced adoption on his mental health, including his sense of identity, and his connection with his adoptive family.

This month’s painting is titled, “Going home adoption bridge” and includes a poem by Paul, which is meant to be read alongside the art:

Destroyed At A Christmas Adoption

Some of us only have a single tragic pointed letter

And the tree changes every Xmas; but not for the better

We opened only one lifelong doom of a childhood box:

Courts redly clevered up in some paperwork identity locks:

You were supposed to smile like a costumed puppet,

Become other’s red sighs and slot voiced ventriloquisms:

The thing with fertile wings on the tree of glitter prisms

While the pine needle pricked into your sensitive life

Your eyes hid the divorce of first mom and dad’s strife

You played at adaptive angels though, as the pen

Cut’s off your natural blood and truer family life

Then I knew I was blacked out and not angel white

I was by adults, a missing baby-body all toyed ..

I was not me anymore. I was void . I was void

This is my real name …”Unseen-Destroyed.”

Speaking to Researching Reform, Paul said:

“I am destroyed by Christmases. I was Adopted across November – December 1959,  and January 1960.

I go void. I accept the trauma every year because it’s my false Adoption foundation and child abuse came after it. So I mourn and grieve and pass through the valleys of old social madness. Art helps me. Gifted to see and to feel but only to be real and it is terribly sad.

However it is the cost of “being in being” properly now and accepting what happened and how it can be learned from. The cost is being like a child and each year slowly growing in tolerance of what happened and how it all sent me mad. The cost is pure tears and many buckets of them to carry.

You see, they tried to make me into someone and something else. It was horrifically voiding and terrifying as a kid. I slowly recovered after age 30. I am not going to do anything but show truth, honest pain and the need for a life regained of some authenticity. Some battered authenticity alongside all of you. Stop changing kids identities to suit adult’s needs. It’s not necessary … Validate story and children… May you have a torch bearing New Year.”

As we approach Christmas, Researching Reform would like to thank our readers for their incredible kindness, and their support of other courageous families who came on to the site to share their stories this year.

We feel honoured to host this community, and continue to be inspired by the children, mothers, fathers, and extended family members whose grace under unbearable pressure is astounding.

Researching Reform would also like to thank everyone who filled out the Children and Families Truth Commission survey, which would have been emotionally draining and an act of courage for many.

As we do our yearly roundup of the content on the site, we can see what continues to matter to you. Themes around mental health, forced adoption and mothers’ treatment in the courts were top of your list this year.

Most-read articles included “UK Family Courts Are Harming Children’s and Parent’s Mental Health”, “Victims of recent and non-recent forced adoptions invited to Parliament,” and “Top Court Finds Judge Bullied Mother Into Accepting Care Orders For Her Children.”

Perhaps the most left-field stat for this year is the digital platform which saw the greatest number of shares for Researching Reform’s content. Tens of thousands of shares were made on WhatsApp, a surprise development, followed by Telegram, another surprising platform, and then Facebook. LinkedIn also featured, while thousands of shares were made through Reddit and email.

And on a lighter note, the award for the most comments went to Dr Manhattan, with more than 1,600 posts. A truly impressive score, closely followed by Ian Josephs with more than 1,300 comments on the site. Thank you, gentlemen.

This project could not exist without all of you, something we say every year and mean it, and we remain humbled and deeply grateful for your wisdom and insight.

We know this is a deeply traumatic and challenging time for parents who have lost a child to the care system or through other forms of loss, and although we realise nothing we say can take away the pain, Researching Reform is with you, and thinking of you.

We started this project for you, and it will always be for you.

We wish you strength to carry on and a much better year ahead, and we send our love to every child in care this Christmas,

Natasha (Researching Reform) xxx