A new protocol issued by the the Designated Family Judges in ​London and the South East, offers guidance on  how to process domestic abuse applications being made outside the applicant’s area.

A good summary of the key points in the protocol, produced by Lexis Nexis, is added below:

• an applicant for an urgent order under the Family Law Act 1996 (FLA 1996) is entitled to go to any court, ie the first available judge of the family court

• an applicant for an order under the FLA 1996 and the Children Act 1989 ​may be living in an area unknown to the respondent and may wish to apply in a court in a different area to maintain that confidentiality

• the courts in the South East and London will assist any applicant with good reason to apply in their court of choice and will not encourage or direct that the applications should be issued in or transferred to the local court

• where confidentiality is claimed by an applicant, before the application is issued, the court shall confirm with the applicant their choice of court and note the file to avoid any unnecessary transfers to any other courts

• where confidentiality is claimed by any party, the court will not transfer the case to another court without first receiving a formal application for transfer (Form C2) which has been served on all of the relevant parties

Further links:

Domestic Abuse Protocol (Full text)

Support for Victims of Domestic Abuse (House of Commons Library)

Welcome to another week.

The government’s decision to extend the relaxation of some social care regulations impacting the rights of children in social care, means that local authorities can continue to stop face-to-face contact between birth families and children who have been removed from their care.

The extension sits alongside confirmation from the government that such contact was still allowed during the pandemic and needed to be enabled wherever possible.

Our question this week, then, is just this: have you found that contact has been stopped without good reason for your family?

Fresh concerns about the government’s decision to extend controversial easements allowing local authorities to set aside fundamental rights for children in care during the Coronavirus pandemic, have been raised by members of the House of Lords in a new report.

The report, published on 21 April by the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee – a House of Lords Select Committee which assesses the merits of laws and other types of secondary legislation subject to parliamentary procedure – criticised the Department for Education’s decision to extend the easements for a further six months.

“We are concerned about the length of this further extension, especially as children have now returned to school. We consider that a three-month extension may have been more appropriate, given the vulnerability of the children affected and the benefits of face-to-face contact, especially over the summer holidays,” the peers said.

“The House may wish to press the Minister for an assurance that the Department will make every effort to bring to an end the temporary measures and return to regular face-to-face visits and meetings at the earliest opportunity.”

While the majority of the easements in place during the pandemic expired in September 2020, a remaining number of regulations were extended until 31 March 2021, and have now been extended further by the government after allegedly consulting with stakeholders.

The decision to extend the relaxation of important rights for children in care for a further six months, until 30 September, follows a landmark case which found the government had broken the law by failing to consult the Children’s Commissioner and other child welfare bodies before amending rules and regulations which could significantly impact children’s welfare in the sector.

Judges in the Court of Appeal also laid out the reasons for a consultation, which they said was necessary to improve the quality of decision making; to ensure those affected were consulted; and that a consultation was part of a wider democratic process that needed to be followed.

The extended easements, enabled through the Adoption and Children (Coronavirus) (Amendment) Regulations 2021 (SI 2021/261) include;

• Allowing social workers to make virtual visits to looked after children via video conference, telephone, or any other electronic means;
• Virtual visits of residential family centres and virtual interviews with residents and staff to form an opinion on the standard of care provided; and
• Virtual meetings of children and young people in children’s homes with their families, social workers and others.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Care Leavers Facing ‘Vile’ Assessments in Postcode Lottery when Becoming Mothers
• ‘Ella’s Law’ urgently needed to save children’s lives from toxic air pollution, says mother
• Marcus Rashford’s favourite childhood meal featured in cooking tutorials to end food poverty

What happens when a domestically abusive parent asks for contact with their child following a separation or divorce in the family courts?

And is the family court in its current form the best place to process child contact requests in cases where there are allegations of domestic abuse, or where one parent has already been convicted of at least one violent offence?

This week, the Voice of the Child speaks with campaigners Sammy Woodhouse and Victoria Hudson about a new campaign they’ve launched, which proposes some radical changes to the family justice system in England and Wales, and why forcing children to have contact with parents who have been domestically abusive to the other parent is often harmful to them.

You can listen to the podcast here.

Additional links:

• Petition: Stop rapists from accessing children conceived through rape (petition with almost half a million signatures)
• Campaign to end injustice in the family court for domestic abuse survivors gains strength

Glossary of terms used in the podcast:

• Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
• Practice Direction 12J
• Independent Sexual Violence Adviser (ISVA)
• Section 20 agreement

Catch Victoria and Sammy on Twitter @victoria_hudson and @sammywoodhouse1. Social media users can talk about the campaign using the Forgotten Victims Of Family Court hashtag #forgottenvictimsOfFC

If you are a victim of domestic abuse, or worried about someone who you think might be, Women’s Aid offers a number of ways you can get help and support.

The President of the Family Division, Andrew McFarlane, has appointed a judge whose ruling on a controversial case was overturned by the Court of Appeal, to become Family Division Liaison judge for the Midlands Family Court.

Mrs Nathalie Lieven, who was promoted to the role on 13 April, made an order in the Court of Protection in 2019 to force a pregnant Nigerian woman with learning difficulties to have an abortion against her wishes, on the grounds that it was in her best interests.

Lieven’s order caused a national outcry after she delivered a judgment in which she said the woman – whose learning difficulties were considered to be mild – was unlikely to understand what having a baby meant, and that “she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll.”

The order was overturned by Lady Justice King, Lord Justice McCombe, and Lord Justice Jackson in the Court of Appeal. In their judgment, delivered by Lady Justice King, the judges held that, “In the end, the evidence taken as a whole was simply not sufficient to justify the profound invasion of [the woman’s] rights represented by the non-consensual termination of this advanced pregnancy.”

Lieven also failed to hold the government to account over its unlawful behaviour during the pandemic following the Department of Education’s decision to relax central safeguards for children in care. In a judgment handed down last year, she said she would have ruled that the decision was unlawful had it not been made during “a national crisis of such urgency.”

Family Division Liaison judges hold several responsibilities, which include recommending lawyers they select to become Recorders and Circuit Judges to sit as judges of the High Court. The liaison position runs for four years, following which the President of the Family Division appoints a new judge to take up the role.

Lieven, whose background is predominantly in planning law and administrative law, is the chair of the Council of the Inns of Court Pupillage Matched Funding Grants Committee, and a member of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, an independent judicial body which provides support for victims of unlawful covert investigations by public authorities.

More about judge Lieven:

• Father of brain-damaged baby condemns ‘terrible’ court ruling
• Judge: ‘Some people are better at lying, whether remotely or in person’
• High Court judge decides to hear lay evidence remotely in hearing of application by local authority for care order
• Domestic violence victims forced to face abusers in court due to legal aid cuts
• Northern Ireland abortion law can be challenged, court rules
• QC who is shortlisted for ‘Barrister of the year’ is on awards judging panel
• Ian Brady being treated as a ‘special case’ by hospital fighting his transfer tribunal told

Welcome to another week, and thank you for your patience as we dialled down the number of posts over the last couple of weeks. Researching Reform will have some news to share with you shortly, which we hope will be welcomed by families across the UK.

In the meantime, the Children’s Commissioner, Rachel de Souza, has launched a nationwide survey for children aged 4-17 in England, and a survey for 18 year olds and adults, which she hopes will identify the barriers in children’s lives that are stopping them from reaching their full potential.

The press release about the survey, which is called the Big Ask, says the questionnaire is the largest ever consultation undertaken with children in England.

The survey went live today, and will run for one month, until 19 May, when it will be closed.

The Frequently Asked Questions section explains that the survey will be shared with as many children as possible, through schools, youth groups, local authorities, charities who work with children and young people, Children in Care Councils, children’s homes, children’s mental health services, youth justice settings, community groups and other networks which represent or have access to children.

There is a survey format for children with special needs, and experiences of children under 3 will be gathered in workshops and discussions with parents who have small children rather than through the survey.

Children can complete the survey anonymously. The data collected from every response will be held by the Commissioner’s office for two years and deleted unless there is a compelling reason to keep the data, where, for example, the data could be of assistance to researchers.

There is also a survey for 18 year olds which can be answered by care leavers, parents, or adults who work with children.

The survey takes between 5-10 minutes to complete, according to the Big Ask’s home page.

You can access the surveys, the FAQs and additional resources for sharing the survey here.

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• MPs to debate petition relating to Black maternal healthcare and mortality on 19 April. Watch live here
• Court of Appeal allows appeal over decision by Family Court judge not to separate mother and baby
• Tragic Court of Protection case

The latest child welfare items that should be right on your radar:

• Rare appeal allowed over refusal by judge to adjourn final care hearing
• £280m capital funding boost for children and young people with SEND
• Government offers free Covid testing kits for adults

Welcome to another week.

An online seminar looking at the stigma faced by mothers who lose children to the care system – and who often carry their children with them through body art – is taking place this month.

The event has been put together by the university of Lancaster’s Center for Child & Family Justice Research, and will be hosted by Lisa Morriss (CFJ) who will deliver a seminar for the Morgan Centre, University of Manchester, and Siobhan Beckwith, co-founder of Women Centre’s Mothers Apart- Common Threads Collective.

Lisa and Siobhan will share the initial findings of a pilot project funded by the Sociological Review. The page for the event says the researchers used “a narrative approach alongside arts-based visual methodologies to explore the inscription of tattoos with 8 mothers who live apart from their children. Highly stigmatised and often silenced through the scrutiny of state intervention and personal shame, these mothers carry images and the names of their children on their body in the form of tattoos.”

The page goes on to say, “For these mothers, this is a unique form of loss and trauma as their children are alive, but many mothers are not allowed to know where their children are living. The children are a ‘ghostly presence’; there and not there at the same time (Gordon, 2008). The loss is especially difficult during the pandemic when the mothers are desperate to know that their child is well.”

“The tattoo is a way of embodying motherhood; keeping their child(ren) with them – etched in their skin – until reunification. Thus, their tattoos mark past separation, present connection, and hope for future reunification with their child. The intimacy of tattooing your child(ren) on your body can be seen as a way of challenging the silencing that stigma brings; and enabling the telling of alternative stories.”

The seminar, which takes place on 28 April, from 3-4pm (UK time) is open to everyone and is free to attend.

To register for the seminar, click here.

For more details on the event, you can email Lisa at (lisa.morriss@lancaster.ac.uk).

Bios:

Siobhan Beckwith is co-founder of WomenCentre’s Mothers Apart- Common Threads Collective which takes a collaborative approach to increasing awareness of the lives of mothers who live apart from their children. She is the co-author of In our hearts: Stories and wisdom of mothers living apart from their children and co-editor of I had to dig deep, exploring the isolation experiences of mothers apart during the Covid 19 pandemic. Siobhan is currently studying for her doctorate at the University of Huddersfield exploring the mental health of mothers living apart from their children following removal.

Lisa Morriss is a Lecturer in the Sociology Department at Lancaster University. Lisa developed the concept of ‘haunted motherhood’ after her experiences as a researcher in the archives of the Family Court. She has published work on haunted futures in Imogen Tyler and Tom Slater’s Sociological Review Monograph on Stigma; and has talked about her experiences in the archives on the BBC 4 radio show Thinking Allowed in the episode on Stigma. Lisa received a Sociological Review Kick Start Award to fund the Marking Motherhood project.

Researching Reform apologises for its silence over the last two weeks as we’ve been working behind the scenes on an upcoming project, which we will unveil shortly.