Author Archives: Sarah Phillimore

I want to take a photograph of my child but I am told I cannot

This is a post by Sarah Phillimore arising out of her own recent experiences.

I want to focus on the single issue of when a parent can be prevented from taking a photograph of their own child, for their own private use or for publishing on a social networking site.

It is an issue that causes significant difficulties as the law that supports such prohibition does not seem to be either clearly set out or understood. It has the potential to cause trouble for parents in a variety of environments such as school events, sporting events or during supported/supervised contact with their children. These are all occasions when parents may wish to take a photograph or film their children but may be told they cannot.

It seems that the difficulties have largely arisen because a variety of different worries converge to make people worried about parents taking photographs and some would appear to have stronger foundation than others.

What is a growing issue of concern for me is the lack of understanding about what laws and legal principles actually underpin any prohibition of a parent taking a photograph of his or her own child. This must inevitably have a detrimental impact on how child protection policies are devised and implemented.

This issue crystalized for me after my daughter attended a drama festival recently and a general announcement was made at the beginning that no photography in the building would be permitted due to the ‘Child Protection Act’.

This caused me immediate consternation, as this wasn’t an Act I had ever heard of. Further investigation of what informed the festival’s child protection policy showed that they relied upon The Children Act 1989; The Police Act 1997; The Data Protection Act 1998; The Human Rights Act 1998, The Protection of Children Act 1999; The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000.

There are immediate problems with this list as a basis for a ‘no photos’ rule

The Data Protection Act does not apply to photographs taken for purely personal reasons, for example by parents or grandparents at sports days or school plays (a photo album is fine but there might be a question mark over whether or not a photo published on a Facebook timeline with no privacy settings could be ‘purely personal’) See the guidance from the Information Commission.

The Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 does mention photographs but only to increase the penalties for possession of indecent photographs at section 41.

The Police Act 1997 appears utterly irrelevant from looking at its table of contents. I confess I have not sat down and read the whole Act but I note what Archbold said about it at the time

The Act has five parts: Part I puts the existing National Criminal Intelligence Service on a statutory footing; Part II creates a new national squad, the National Crime Squad; Part III gives wide-ranging powers of intrusive surveillance to the police and customs; Part IV creates the Police Information Technology Organisation … and Part V develops a wholly new system to provide access to criminal records for employment purposes.

The Protection of Children Act 1999 appears to be equally irrelevant, being an Act:

to require a list to be kept of persons considered unsuitable to work with children; to extend the power to make regulations under section 218(6) of the Education Reform Act 1988; to make further provision with respect to that list and the list kept for the purposes of such regulations; to enable the protection afforded to children to be afforded to persons suffering from mental impairment; and for connected purposes.

The Child Protection Act?

This was referred to by the organisers in their announcement but did not feature in the written list of primary legislation. I originally dismissed it as made up legislation but a bit more digging revealed the Child Protection Act of 1978 which is an Act:

to prevent the exploitation of children by making indecent photographs of them; and to penalize the distribution, showing and advertisement of such indecent photographs.

I am unable to understand how this Act could ever apply to a parent who wished to take a photograph of his or her own fully clothed child to record an event in that child’s life.

The Human Rights Act 1998 and the Children Act 1989

With regard to the Human Rights Act I don’t know what article of the ECHR I would be breaching by taking a photograph of my fully clothed child. If anything, refusing to allow me to indulge such a parental desire to celebrate and commemorate my chlid’s experiences is arguably a breach of my right to respect to my family and private life pursuant to Article 8.

Any such breach of my right to respect to my family life must be necessary and in accordance with the law: it must be proportionate.

This seems to lead to the only statutory foundation for the organisation’s prohibition on photography, that under section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989 .

This makes it an offence to publish any material which is intended or likely to identify any child involved in any proceedings in which any power may be exercised regarding that child under the Children Act 1989 or the Adoption and Children Act 2002.

You do have a defence if you can prove that you did not know and had no reason to suspect that the published material was intended, or likely to identify the child. So it would seem very unlikely that a parent would fall foul of this section if they wished to take a photograph of their child, another child wanders unnoticed into shot, turns out to be involved in care proceedings and is subsequently identified from the photograph if the parent publishes it on social networking sites.

So what’s going on?

Why are people so nervous about photographs? The concerns appear to fall within the following domains.

Fear that a vulnerable child might be identified
A wish to protect commercial profit making if a school/organization wishes to sell its own photographs of an event.
A wish to prevent an event being disrupted by intrusive efforts to take photographs/film videos.
An expectation of privacy
Fear of paedophilia

Identification of vulnerable children

Given the ubiquity of social media and the tendency now for parents to wish to publish on line photographs or videos of their children, I accept this is a real fear, particularly as use of social networking sites increases and facial recognition grows ever more sophisticated. I have discussed the inexorable rise of Facebook and the implications this has for adopted children in another post.

I agree that schools and other organizations need a clear policy setting out what is and is not acceptable with regard to photography at events so that vulnerable children can be protected from being indentified by people from whom they need to be kept safe.

But reliance on the Child Protection Act 1978 will not assist with this sensible aim and may well hinder it; if the law is constantly framed in terms that photographs are risky because they are indecent, many parents are likely to ‘switch off’ and become irritated by such constraints on their innocent wish to photograph their child.

Intrusive photography and protection of commercial interests

I can also understand and accept that efforts by parents to record the achievements of their children has the potential to be disruptive to the event and the children’s enjoyment of it. There need to be rules about what is or is not acceptable. If a school or other organization goes to the trouble of organizing an event they may wish to make some money on the sale of photographs or use photographs to publicise the event.

Provided the organisers make it clear to parents before hand so they can decide whether or not they wish to attend in the light of such restrictions, this would appear to be a reasonable policy Hopefully individual schools/organisations would have a policy sufficiently flexible to give some opportunities to individual parents who wanted to take a photograph at some point in the proceedings of their child and their child alone.

But again, a focus on the potential indecency of photographs does not assist anyone’s understanding or compliance with such policies.

An expectation of privacy under Article 8 ECHR

The case law around this, unsurprisingly, usually involves celebrities or others in the public eye who find themselves being photographed when they go about their day to day business. The case of Weller v Associated Newspapers [2015] concerned the musician Paul Weller’s objections to photographs taken of his children on a street on their way to a cafe in the USA; these photographs were lated published by the Mail Online without any attempts to obscure the children’s faces and despite Mr Weller’s objections at the time. Mr Weller succeeded at his first court hearing where the Judge found that his children did have a reasonable expectation of privacy and that the Mail On line could not argue that it was justified in breaching their privacy by claiming freedom of speech or expression. The Mail Online appealed.

The Court of Appeal considered the concept of ‘a reasonable expectation of privacy’ and the various strands of case law. At para 29 the Master of the Rolls commented:

First, a child does not have a separate right to privacy merely by virtue of being a child. Secondly, however, although the broad approach that must be adopted to answering the question whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy is the same for children and adults, there are several considerations which are relevant to children (but not to adults) which may mean that in a particular case a child has a reasonable expectation of privacy where an adult does not.

And further at para 61 he explained why he agreed with the first court:

61.The starting point is the place where the activity happened and the nature of the activity. As the judge said, this was a private family outing. It could have been a family visit to a local park or to a public swimming pool. It happened to be an outing to the shops and to a café which was visible from the street. The essential point is that it was a family activity which belongs to that part of life which is protected by the broader right of personal autonomy recognised in the case law of the Strasbourg court: see R (Catt) v Association of Chief Police Officers [2015] UKSC 9, [2015] AC 1065 per Lord Sumption at para 4. The family element of the activity distinguishes it from Naomi Campbell’s popping out to the shops for a bottle of milk and Sir Elton John standing with his driver in a London street, outside the gate to his home wearing a baseball cap and tracksuit (see John v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2006] EMLR 27).
62.It is also relevant that the claimants’ parents did not consent to the taking or publishing of the Photographs.
63.But the critical factor which militates in favour of the claimants having a reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to the Photographs is that they are children and that they were identified by their surname. The twins were less than one year old at the time of publication. They did not “knowingly or accidentally lay [themselves] open to the possibility of having [their] photograph taken in the context of an activity that was likely to be recorded or reported in a public manner” (see Reklos para 37). Nor did their parents court publicity for them.

However, these kinds of circumstances are highly unlikely to arise when you inadvertently include another child in the background of a photograph of your own child. So long as that other child is not identified by name and you are not intruding upon a private family event, it seems improbable that anyone could argue that any publication of the photograph would be an actionable breach of Article 8 in respect of that child. The issue in the Weller case was clearly that the pictures were identified as members of his family as he was a celebrity and the pictures would provoke interest for that reason alone.

Fear of paedophilia

This to me seems the objection without any sensible foundation in fact or law but the one that looms largest over many child protection policies and is probably mainly responsible for infecting such policies around photographs with a sense of unreality and hysteria.

I am alarmed that the recent objections raised against me photographing my child appeared to be based on legislation relating to the possession of indecent photographs. I struggle to see in what possible context photographs of my child taken by me at a school event or other kind of educational/sporting/musical gathering could ever meet the legal requirements for indecency.

The Obscene Publication Act 1959 sets out the test for indecency as – does the material have a tendency to ‘deprave and corrupt’?

I am both angered and saddened that I am being encouraged to consider how a photograph of my fully clothed daughter at a drama festival coud posiibly have a tendency to deprave or corrupt anyone, let alone the limited number of people who have access to my photographs on Facebook. It seems that this belief that pictures of children are likely to invoke some dangerous sexual response from adults is widespread; note this article which suggests that parents taking pictures of their children in the bath could find themselves as a ‘test case’ for prosecution due to taking indecent images!

I am not alone in my criticism of how the spectre of paedophilia has been permitted to corrupt many innocent interactions between adults and children. See for example this article from the Guardian in 2012

The Child Protection in Sport Unit recommends that you “avoid full-face and body shots” and that children in swimming costumes should only be shown “from waist or shoulder up”. These rules create a stilted genre of child photography, where children are pictured on their own or at designated “photo moments” at the end of the play or match, rather than in the thick of events.

Schools often invoke the Data Protection Act 1998, or the Children Act 2004 as the reason for photography bans. “But there is nothing in the Children Act that says ‘Thou shalt not photograph children’,” says Eleanor Coner, information officer at the Scottish Parent Teacher Council. The Information Commissioner’s Office has taken to putting out bi-annual statements refuting the myth that the Data Protection Act prohibits photography. “We call it the ‘data protection duckout’,” says David Smith, director of data protection at the Information Commissioner’s Office. “If there is something people don’t want to do, but they can’t explain it easily, they say it’s because of the Data Protection Act.”

In fact, photography bans cannot be traced to any single event or law. Rather, it seems that there was a shift from the early 2000s, when similar regulations diffused throughout schools and sports organisations.

…. As an example of how attitudes have changed, a manufacturer of children’s play equipment asked a photographer, John Robertson, to photograph its apparatus at a variety of English sites: he was shouted at and parents snatched away their children in parks in Nottingham, Cambridge and the Isle of Wight.

The spread of photo bans is not really a response to child abusers stalking school sports days. Instead, it reflects the contamination of everyday adult-child relations – and the new assumption, as the children’s author Philip Pullman put it, that “the default position of one human being to another is predatory rather than kindness”. Any adult looking through the viewfinder at a child is viewed as potentially sinister and in need of regulation.

I don’t doubt that parents do need to be more aware than many are, that photographs published on social media may end up being published elsewhere. This was demonstrated quite horribly recently when parents in the UK discovered that pictures of their children had ended up on a Russian site where they were used for sexual gratification of those viewing.

But the focus here is probably better put on teaching people more about protecting their on line privacy (these pictures were taken from the ‘open’ profile of one of the children’s grandparents) than encouraging hysteria over what happens to pictures on Facebook and using this as justification to curtail the actions of all parents who wish to take photographs of their own children outside their own home.

So why does this matter?

Why am I getting annoyed by this issue? Does it really matter? I took a photograph of my daughter outside the venue, put it on Facebook, lots of my friends ‘liked’ it: I was able to share her special moment and show that I was proud of her and could keep a record for her to remember in future. Neither she nor I suffered in any way because of the restriction placed on photography within the building at the time.

But to dismiss this as a concern simply because at this particular time and at this particular event it had no or only trivial consequences is to miss a very important point.

That point is that a justification was given to interfere in my innocent interactions with my own child on what appears to be spurious or very poorly understood legal grounds.

And this matters. To rely upon an Act which prohibits taking indecent photographs during an event where the possibility that any indecent photographs would be taken was close to zero, suggests very strongly to me that the child protection policies devised by these organisers were not based on any clear understanding of the relevant law or what is involved in assessing risk.

If you do not understand the law which underpins your policies, how can we have any faith in these policies? How can we respect these policies? And ultimately, how will you enforce them? If you don’t understand what a risk is and how to assess it, how can we have any confidence that you have identified the relevant risks and set up proper safeguarding procedures?

This is not the only time I have been referred to ‘the Child Protection Act’. A laminated sign at Cardiff ice rink also relies upon it – or at least it did in 2013 when I was last there. Interestingly and alarmingly, it also appears in an article in the Telegraph from 2008 which suggests it has made its way very firmly into consideration of child protection policies.

Polices about something as important as child protection should not be made by reeling off a list of primary legislation which appears to have very little relevance to the issue in hand or relying on an Act which can’t possibly apply to parents who want to record their children at school or sporting events. Setting us all up as potential paedophiles does not make children any safer. Taking a photograh of a child should not be considered by default either an indecent or dangerous act.

Families and Schools Together

FREE HALF DAY SEMINAR

Delivered by Save the Children

Families and Schools Together (FAST)

Introduction to how the FAST programme supports a family therapy, attachment theory approach to improving child/family outcomes through its evidence based community engagement programme.

Aimed at members of the children’s workforce – front line, management or commissioning role in any service which supports children or families.

Voluntary & Community Sector, NHS, Social Care, and Education all welcome.

The seminar will include:

Brain development research
Ecological theory
Family therapy & attachment theory
Building resilience in families & communities
Introduction to the FAST programme

Date: Tuesday 31^st March, 9.30am-12.30pm

Location: The Elton Room, Armada House, Telephone Avenue, Bristol, BS1 4BQ

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE SEMINAR

An opportunity to increase your understanding and knowledge of the impact of parenting approaches on the child’s social, psychological and educational outcomes with a specific focus on brain development.

Explore how environmental systems supports building resilience in families, across the wider community and impacts on building social capital leading to increased cohesive communities.

Understand how environmental factors and ecological theories builds bridges between home, schools and communities within a community asset based approach to achieve ecological systemic change.

If you would like to attend please contact x.******@*****************rg.uk for a booking form

My child hasn’t been born yet but I have been referred to children’s services

Referring an Unborn Baby

If some one is worried that you or your baby may need help after the baby is born, they can refer this to children’s services. It is good practice for the person who wants to refer – for e.g. a midwife – to let you know he/she wants to do this and to get your agreement. However, if there are reasons to think this might put the baby at risk – for e.g. they are worried you might leave the country – then you may not be told.

See this fact sheet from ‘Birthrights.org’ for more information.
You may also be interested in our posts on how child protection issues get reported
And our post about the legal framework for referrals and investigations.

What would worry people enough to refer me?

Below are some examples of situations that might make someone worried enough to want to refer you. This isn’t an exhaustive list. Basically, if there is a fear that your baby might be at risk of significant harm once he or she is born, then a referral should be made.

Existing concerns about either parent’s ability to keep the child safe – for e.g. because the parents are drug users
If the parents have had other children removed from their care
If the parents have criminal convictions for an offence against children, or the parents are associating with people who have such convictions.

Ideally referrals should be made no later than the 18th week of the pregnancy so a proper pre birth assessment can be carried out – see below.

What happens after the referral is made?

There should be a Pre Birth Assessment. The courts cannot make a care order before a child is born, so if there are worries about how safe that child will be once born, there needs to be some thought and planning about what will happen after the birth.

There should be a meeting to plan the pre-birth assessment, ideally no later than 20th week of the pregnancy. Any professional or agency who has had significant dealings with the family should be invited, such as the midwife and family GP. If the police have any information about the family, it is useful to have that at the meeting.

Parents should be involved in the planning as far as possible. The assessment should be completed with 35 days of starting.

Depending on the outcome of that pre-birth assessment, there may be a need for further meetings. For example if the pre-birth assessments showed that the baby was at high risk of harm when born. In such cases, a strategy meeting will need to happen in order to decide whether or not care proceedings need to be issued once the baby is born.

The pre-proceedings process

For more information about pre-proceedings, see this post.

The pre-proceedings process for care proceedings was introduced with the original Public Law Outline in 2008. The aim of this process is:

to try and stop cases turning into care proceedings by engaging with the parents at an early stage; or
if that isn’t possible, to encourage everyone to think early about the issues so that cases would run more efficiently.

The local authority is required to take legal advice to establish whether the requirements for court applications and orders are met. It should then send a ‘letter before proceedings’ to the parents, outlining its concerns and inviting them to a pre-proceedings meeting.

The letter entitles parents to legal aid so that they can obtain legal advice and be accompanied by their lawyer to the meeting.

Following the meeting, the local authority was required to send a revised plan for the child, setting out what the parents must do to safeguard the child and the action the local authority would take if they do not keep to this.

The pre-proceedings process seems to be used often with unborn babies as it sets out a useful framework for discussion and allows the parents access to legal advice.

See the article in Family Law Week by Professor Judith Masson and Dr Jonathan Dickens in 2013:

Two features were common in cases where the pre-proceedings process was used: (1) Almost all the children had child protection plans; this was true for less than half of the cases taken directly to court. Local authorities used the pre-proceedings process as ‘a step up’ from ordinary child protection planning, to mark the seriousness of their concerns or where parents had not responded sufficiently to the child protection plan. (2) Thirty per cent of the cases related to unborn babies; the pre-proceedings process provided a framework for working with parents in these cases and enabled parents to have legal advice when crucial matters were discussed such as co-operation with pre-birth assessment or the baby’s care after discharge from hospital. These are high risk cases; the vulnerability of new babies means that lack of parental co-operation with a protection plan may lead to a decision to remove the child. Criticism of local authorities for using Children Act 1989, s.20 accommodation (R (G) v Nottingham CC [2008] EWHC 152 (Admin), Coventry CC v C [2012] EWHC 2190 (Fam)) has made it more important for the local authority to ensure that parents have legal advice.

For further discussion about the possible difficulties of using section 20 accommodation for new born babies, see this post about the meaning of section 20 and when it should be used.

The Children Act 1989 – deeply flawed legislation?

We are grateful for this post from Patrick Philips, a retired child protection social worker of many years experience who was prompted to write this response to our post – A system in continual crisis. He is concerned that the Children Act 1989 has created poorly evidenced definitions of ‘abuse’ which can lead to children being removed from their parents when they should not have been.

It’s enough to make one ask what is driving the maintenance of such a system in the absence of evidence that it makes matters better for children rather than worse.

The 1989 Children Act and decision making – do we need to protect children from the child protection system?

I worked in Social / Children’s services, particularly in Child Protection, between 1971 and 2013 and I suggest that the approach of the 1989 Children Act is deeply flawed.

I do not dispute that children should be protected: the question is how, given that many well meaning efforts make matters worse for children, not better. Crucially, how are abused children to be discovered and how are decisions to be made for their protection?

Whilst I have extensive first hand experience of the system and do not accept that decisions are made according to a conspiracy, I can well see why some people might resort to such an explanation.

Some of the most important research, in my view, in social work decision making has largely been ignored, as well as changes which have taken place since that research was done. Dingwall R, Eekelaar J and Murray T of the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal studies found that the only member of the child protection network who actually focussed on evidence (by which I mean forensic evidence, not research ‘evidence’) was the Local Authority Solicitor.

Her/His filtering of cases / insistence on hard evidence constituted an important barrier so that a large proportion of cases never made it to court. A great deal of pressure had to build up in the inter-agency network before action was likely to be taken (‘The Fruit Machine’). This involved the development of a good deal of consensus (though this could involve ‘dominant ideas’ rather than proper appraisal of evidence, as Stevenson and Hallett later identified).

The Dingwall research was first published in 1983 (‘The Protection of Children’). The 1969 Children and Young Persons Act was then the principal act governing child protection (with other acts).

The 1989 Children Act; the end of reliance on ‘forensic’ evidence

The Oxford studies noted that there seemed to be little difference between the circumstances of abused and neglected children remaining with their families and that of children who were removed. So long as decision making processes are erratic, one would expect this to be the case. The extent to which Child Protection authorities are prepared to remove children should affect the number of children left in abuse and neglect with their families. However, if it is not based on effective decision making processes it may have increase the number of children removed from their ‘natural’ families who were not being neglected or abused, or whose neglect and abuse will be even worse once removed than it was at ‘home’ instead of increasing protective removal.

In my experience, Local Authority Solicitors now, operating under the 1989 Children Act, hardly question the extent of evidence available to show that a child is being abused or neglected. This is understandable: the 1989 Act is drawn so widely that the mere opinion of a social worker (or their manager, more likely), that action is required is sufficient to meet it’s requirements. After all, if the professional social work manager’s opinion is that the child is being emotionally abused, the local authority Solicitor is hardly in a position to dispute that opinion, and may be instructed to take it as so anyway? I have presented cases to Local Authority legal representatives thinking the evidence to be questionable, only to find that the legal representative is pressing action even more than I was.

When the 1989 Act was in the process of enactment and implementation, I think the general view in social work was, in effect, that it was promising heaven on earth, and would never really be implemented. At the time I was responsible for policy and policy implementation, with others, in a very large Social Services Department. I was surprised that suggestions I made for the systematic identification of children “in need”, for whom the department now had formal legal duties, were completely ignored. However, after the death of ‘Baby P’ in 2007 a serious expectation that the 1989 Act could and should be literally implemented seemed to take hold. From then on the status of social work decision making also seemed to take a dive. Instead, managers increasingly made snap decisions on minimal and second hand information, instructing social workers accordingly.

Conspiracy?

I very much support the views expressed in Child Protection Resource that conspiracy theories in regard to adoption and child removal are wrong. However, the dynamics of the current system is bound to give the impression that there is a conspiracy, particularly as decision making today is just as erratic as in the Oxford research. The difference is that there is no back pressure from local authority solicitors as there used to be: cases are taken according to social work availability to take cases, and results are even more quirky, because there does not have to be the same build up of multi-agency pressure on Children’s Services as there used to have to be to produce action. Besides, there is a wider variety of people who may drive cases forward, usually (as Dingwall identified) because they regard the parents or family as discredited in some way.

I have experienced individual Judges, Children’s Guardians,Local Authority Solicitors, Doctors, Nurses as well as Social Work managers as driving cases forward for child removal on the basis of their own particular point of view rather than of collective assessment or evidence. Others involved are unable or unwilling to resist and to risk being discredited along with the parent if they do, however unjustified that discredit may be. Management domination of practice Social Workers are bound by a code of practice; breaching that code can lose them their job. However, that code of practice is only advisory on Social Work managers. Social Workers believing they are being instructed to take action which breaches their code of practice are advised that they may present the fact that they have been instructed to take that action in their defence, but action can still be taken against them.

Departments have to be very concerned with their own reputation, particularly considering the risk presented by government inspection. Workers may be instructed, for example, to make positive comment, or non at all, to inspectors. Whistle blowers are usually ‘discredited’ and dismissed. Another feature which is bound to enhance the belief in conspiracy theory is the way in which Social Workers etc are bound by gagging agreements during and following disputes with their employers. I have heard rumours that Local Authorities are spending very large sums of money in paying suspended workers and in settlements in disputed dismissal proceedings. I am not personally aware of any Freedom of Information requests in this area, nor what might the results indicate.

Consider the concerns raised by the Appeal Judges in re B-S , about the extent to which case presentation lacks proper evidence and exploration of options. I gathered from legal colleagues in court that they were surprised to encounter well researched and hard evidenced social work presentation in court. I suppose this indicates that the Appeal Judges’ concerns in re B-S were no surprise to lawyers operating in the system. However, a system in which the social worker’s first hand assessment and evidence is over-ruled by snap managerial decisions and in which social workers risk all in presenting any objection their instructions hardly encourages conscientious reflective working and organisation.

Social Work Training and the abuse of children by wrongful removal

This is ironic, given the extent of attention ostensibly given to ‘reflective working’ in social work training. However, my recent experience of social work training is that it is actually based on a narrow set of precepts and power relations.

There have been some hopeful signs; guidance issued about research to be regarded in Care Proceedings just before I left my department emphasises recent neuro-social approaches. These, and other newer ways of considering child development etc seem to me to have been of almost no attention in training taking place within only the last few years.

The extent to which social work can pretend to have an established basis for its practice remains debatable. Challenges to orthodox ways of seeing child development, for example, were not welcome. Ethical considerations and the impact on the child of ‘child observation’ by social workers in training were regarded as eccentricity on my part rather than as any appreciation of the child’s experience and perspective. To me, it is no wonder that social workers trained in that way can regard it as more satisfactory to remove children by the use of strangers in the middle of the night on suspicion of danger rather than to manage anxiety, assess properly and manage necessary removals with regard to the impact of the removal on the child as well as the need for safeguarding.

Attention to the negative impact of social work action on children has been shortlived in the past. In the late 1990’s it became commonplace in my experience to identify families in trouble because parents no longer felt they could set any kind of limits on their children’s behaviour as a result of their experience of child protection investigations. The ‘re-focussing’ exercise of the period attempted to reduce the extent to which almost all investigations began and ended as investigations without any family service or protective processes following. Within 5 years the emphasis had swung right back the other way and the re-focussing exercise seemed forgotten. It’s enough to make one ask what is driving the maintenance of such a system in the absence of evidence that it makes matters better for children rather than worse.

As I was leaving the job in 2013 the training pendulum had once again swung against University involvement in social work training, due to widespread dissatisfaction with their success in providing appropriate social work training. Employer domination of training processes must be equally suspect in light of the current system of employment and social work decision making. Social Work clients often find it astonishing that social workers and their managers make rapid judgements about matters as hard to define as ’emotional abuse,’ when they have no personal experience of child care or even family life.

In my earliest days as a Social Work Manager I was intrigued to try to identify the proportion of young social workers who thought that they had had any idea about what being a parent was really like before they had children. I only ever found one. This does not prevent most people, social workers and others, having very decided ideas other people not being good parents, views which are often mutual! Give such people the power, and other people loose their children.

Protecting children from the child protection system

I congratulate Child Protection Resource for the work it is doing, and I am impressed by the extent to which views are changing, even if that is no comfort to the latest generation of rescued children. In the UK we have, after all, a long and continuing history of ‘rescuing’ children from their parents to every variety of often abysmal future, from Barnardo, through other efforts at mass shipping of children to Australia, Canada, and to the specious identification of children to be removed in to care or placed in non-consensual adoption. Following re B -S, there must at least be less people now saying, as they were in 2013, that children from poor families not placed for adoption were being denied a great opportunity in their lives!

I am not suggesting that children should never be removed, and I see the ever swinging pendulum in the process of swinging away from child removal again. However, in my view the 1989 Children Act is pie in the sky and needs to be replaced with legal standards which more nearly reflect those expressed in re B-S, that is to set realistically measurable standards to govern the protection of children, rather than to push the law into ever less measurable levels of ‘abuse’ as Robert Buckland, QC, MP, Solicitor General curiously seems to advocate (The Times, 15 January 2015). Any reliable system also needs to recognise the impossibility of predicting abuse, a lesson one may draw from Eileen Munro’s early works in which she draws attention to the mathematics of risk assessment, false positives and negatives etc, but which she proceeds to ignore in her own advocacy of its use in social work (reference needed). The mathematics of ‘false positive’ identification would indicate even higher levels of mistaken removal than some of the conspiracy theorists in the field would have us believe, but not in the least due to ‘conspiracy’.

Knowing the fear that permeates the family lives of ordinary and especially materially poorer people of ‘Social Services’, I have been surprised at the extent to which that daily reality is hidden from view now that I am following an ‘ordinary’ life outside social work. Effectively this field of practice is shrouded in secrecy, occasionally breached by items such as BBC South East ‘Inside Out’on 2.2.2015 . In that piece Andrew Webb, Immediate Past President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said “the criticisms of our adoption system isn’t based on any evidence I can see that relates to children and their outcomes, it’s more a concern about whether parents should be given more chances”.

How can one explain such a statement from such a person? Is it possible he is really unaware of the harmful impact of wrongful removal from families of children, for the children? Has he never seen adoption and fostering breakdown statistics, nor heard of the Cleveland Enquiry Report or the consequences for children of the shipping children abroad? His approach in that interview demonstrates that some social work managers are prepared to say whatever they think will justify their position, sometimes in direct contravention of contrary evidence. I say this from direct experience over many years and in several situations. Under pressure, social workers also make up information to fill the gaps in their knowledge; a perfectly human thing to do, but which may have something to do with why parents so often think that their social workers are lying. Andrew Webb is facing neither the understandable pain of parents when children are removed, rightly and wrongly, nor the problem of making decisions at the right time and in the right way.

Andrew Webb’s approach gives the impression that his interest is in maintaining the Child Protection Industry and his own status within it. This may not be a feature of conspiracy, but social workers and their managers need jobs (and empires) in order to earn their living. They don’t get paid bonuses for removing children, but they do have to demonstrate that they are ‘protecting children’. Very often that simply means that if the child is thought to be ‘at risk’ at home that they have to be removed, without regard to whether this will make the child’s life better or worse. The long term suffering of a wrongly removed child is much less tangible than the immediate risk of yet another case in which ‘social workers did nothing’. In my experience, the requirement that the child must be removed because of risk, without considering whether this will make life any better for them has been quite explicit. On other occasions, I have been able to present the pros and cons so as to achieve the best solution, or at least the ‘least worst solution’.

In the same broadcast Peter Dale, who has long influenced my approach to Child Protection, says that he believes the British Government will have to apologise in future for the damage that is being done to children in England. Another scandalous era in British child protection practice is happening right now, ready to be exposed in future years. I hope that childprotectionresource.org.uk will contribute to the development of ideas about how that system might be replaced with one which is more likely to protect indubitably abused children without perpetrating terrible abuse on children whose circumstances may be less than ideal, but whose very real abuse is created by the very system which is supposed to protect them.

Patrick W Phillips, MA, LRCC

Parents’ views of the proceedings – we have lost faith in the process

I find it almost impossible to believe that justice will prevail.

This is a contribution from one of our readers ‘M’ about how her partner saw the system unfolding around then and how it made them lose faith in the proceedings and to feel very unfairly treated. It is very sad to read this, as a lawyer and wonder why these parents felt so unsupported by their own legal team. What should parents’ lawyers be doing differently or better, to have a positive impact for these parents?

Support for Parents in Care Proceedings

When a child is taken into care the parents are often left completely in the dark as to where they should go and who they should approach. The only thing you are told is that you should get legal representation as soon as you can.

Emergency Protection Order

In the case where your child is taken on an Emergency Protection Order you have less than a week to organise any legal representation. Additionally on an EPO the first hearing for an Interim Care Order it seems is often heard at a magistrates court which means you have no chance of getting the order reversed. If you are lucky enough to find a good solicitor in the few days it still seems to make no difference. As in our case the ICO hearing was scheduled in a magistrate’s court and was given enough time only for the ICO to be granted stopping us from challenging the order. We then find that we can only contest the ICO at a hearing at the end of August some 6 weeks after M’s son was taken into care. Even then the hearing was postponed for a further 2 weeks.

Care Proceedings 6 Month Limit

The 6 month limit on care proceedings starts from the moment the child is taken into care. This is clearly grossly unfair in the situation where your child is taken into care on an EPO and you are not allowed to challenge this for 2 months. It is particularly unfair in the situation where the child is taken into care in July as the 6 month period would end late December / early January and it was clear in our case that there was no intention and that finishing the case within 5 months became the target. Given the late start due to the summer and wanting to finish within 6 months we had barely 2 months to go through any assessment’s or possible solutions. It is hardly surprising the local authority took the “easy” approach and stuck with their original plan to keep M’s son in care and seek a placement order.

No-Win For Parents

Everything you say during the period you are in proceedings is used against you no matter what it is. If you are emotional when seeing your child then you are deemed to be harming them and if you are not then you are uncaring. It seems that once a decision has been made by Social Services to pursue a course of action you have almost no chance of getting a fair hearing. I can barely believe that we were not allowed to challenge much of the case that Social Services put forward. It may be that we were poorly represented in court – I cannot be sure as I only have this experience to go on. M was criticised for considering a move to B as if B was somehow an inappropriate place to live and yet M’s son is placed in G where Primary school education is one of the poorest in the UK.

The Basic Fault in the System

The underlying fault in the system as it stands is that you are assumed to be “guilty” unless you can prove you are innocent. Justice has been turned on its head in the drive to protect children and can only lead to many miscarriages. Considering the damage taking a child into care can do to the child and to the parents it should very much be a last resort. However I believe our case demonstrates that it is being used as anything but a last resort and possibly in […] in particular is being used to excess as can be seen by the Local Authority now finding it has neither the finances nor the numbers of foster parents needed. I don’t believe there is any independence in the courts as M’s son was taken on an EPO on two grounds which we proved were incorrect. There seems to be no restraint on the Local Authority if it decides to pursue parents. Documents were presented in court with outright lies in them and M was told several times that the Local Authority have to put these statements in even though they know them to be “untrue” because they would otherwise “weaken” the Local Authority case.

Aggressive Questioning in the Final Hearing

During the Final Hearing I was subjected to the most aggressive questioning I’ve ever witnessed. I have twice done Jury service and have never seen such questioning used in the criminal cases there. I felt I was being attacked as if I was somehow guilty of some serious offence like murder. I had previously made it quite clear to the Social Services that I wouldn’t put myself forward to care for M’s son unless I honestly believed I could do this. The people that know me know that I am a very honest person. I produced a couple of witness statements from people I know and have worked with to this effect. Before this hearing I had believed that justice would prevail but I find this almost impossible to believe now.

Local Authority Policy on Keeping Children in Care

I had thought the Local Authority would take a realistic look at the options for returning M’s son but instead they’ve taken a hard line attitude which seems to be at odds with the stated objectives of keeping families together. Given M’s sons cultural background they should have made efforts to keep up his language skills which would have put him ahead of his peers at school. Instead they seem to have made a conscious effort to remove this heritage and made no effort to keep his language skills. M was banned from speaking to him in anything other than English during our contact sessions.

Missed Contact Sessions

We missed 2 contact sessions in August last year as I had to be in E for work. I know M could have stayed in K and gone to the contact sessions but she was not coping well at the time and also the contact locations were far away in G.

Placement of M’s Son in Foster Care in far away location

We were told that G was the only place that M’s son could be placed but from our conversations with the contact supervisors it seems to have been an unusual foster placement. How many other children in care are placed an hour’s drive away or 2 hours by public transport? It may be that the foster placement was the only choice but along with the later statements and lack of support from Social Services it’s hard not to believe that the intention was to make things as hard as possible for M. Applying extra pressure to both M and me while we were already under pressure is completely immoral and has destroyed my trust in Social Services. All along it seems the actions of Social Services have been aimed at justifying taking M’s son into care and making life as difficult as possible for both of us in the hope we would give up. I can no longer believe they have the best interests of children at heart but are pursuing their own targets and objectives. Speaking as an honest person who finds lying virtually impossible I cannot understand how the Social Worker can stand in court and say that M’s son has suffered “emotional harm” when there is nothing to suggest this. All along the “expert” legal advice has been to accept the findings and agree a plan with Social Services to return M’s son but following this got us nowhere as at no time would Social Services offer us any credible option.

God like Powers Granted to Social Services without any Checks

It seems we have given God like powers to Social Services but without any checks or balances. Reliance on the courts to provide this is clearly not working and especially so when the system of Guardians is clearly not providing any independence. Considering the cases one reads about and which I have more recently heard about from M’s contacts in Facebook our case seems very unusual and our treatment exceptionally severe.

Current Situation

We are still awaiting the Court’s response to our appeal. Lamentably, the LA solicitor has written to the Royal Court of Justice, submitting that the permission to appeal should be refused. There is obviously no requirement for the Local Authority to provide a response to our Appellant’s Notice, so their attempt to “expedite matters” can be viewed as their attempt to infringe upon our right to a fair and public hearing, guaranteed by Article 6 of the ECHR.

What’s it like going to court? A parent’s perspective

We are grateful to our reader Sam who has been through care proceedings. She gives her view of what happens in court and some suggestions about how to make the experience less stressful.

What happens in court?

Its stressful – so be prepared.

For many people care proceedings are the first time they have been in court . They may have an idea from watching courtroom dramas on TV , after a couple of hearings they quickly realise that the programmes are nothing like the family court.

I can best describe the stress as similar but more severe than attending a very important job interview. In fact it is the same only that you are being assessed as being a suitable candidate to still parent your children, rather than an alternative candidate whether it’s the local authority or a family member taking over the care of them.

Just as you would for a job interview, work out the route to court and how long it will take you to get there. Dress smartly but comfortably. If you bring someone to support you make sure they are someone who will calm you down. If your hearing is early in the morning it may take another 15 minutes or so to get through security so factor this time in as well.

You should be able to find your solicitor,and barrister if you have one who after talking briefly to you and passing any paperwork to you will then be likely disappear to talk the other lawyers in an advocates meeting. Look at the paperwork and see if there is anything you disagree with. The court waiting area may be very busy and if your solicitor has found a private room it may be a good idea to stay in it. After the advocates meeting your lawyer will come back to talk to you and this is when you should point out anything wrong in the paperwork.

Rarely do you actually go into court at the appointed time, there is normally at least an hours wait quite often more and your stress level may rise at this time. It is useful to do something distracting or some relaxation exercises such as deep breathing or simply slowly counting to ten then counting back to one. It pays not to drink coffee as this as the same effect on the body as anxiety does. Keep well away from anyone who may upset you such as social workers or your ex mother in law for example.

When you are called into court ,it is in a rush so no time to pop to the loo or phone your Mum. Your phone must be switched off not put on silent.

Going into the court room

Normally when you go in the judge will not be there , but there will be between one or two members of court staff. You will be told where to sit . If you only have a solicitor you will sit directly behind them. If you have a barrister, sometimes called counsel, as well they will sit in front of your solicitor and the solicitor will sit next to you. After a couple of minutes one of the court staff will go and ask the judge to come in. As the judge comes in they will bow and everyone bows back. The judge will not be wearing a wig and normally does not wear robes but will occasionally. Judges are quite ofton middle aged men. They can be abrupt in their manner to both the lawyers and you. All hearings are recorded so be very careful what you say even as you leave the courtroom.

The local authority solicitor or if they have a barrister will stand up and will introduce everyone to the judge at least at the initial hearing.It all feels very formal and intimidating.

The judge is addressed differently according to what level of court you are in . Do not worry about this , you will soon catch on and you do not have to talk anyway at this stage. The local authority lawyer will make a speech to the judge , then the other lawyers will. The judge will ask some questions. It is a good idea to take a notepad to note down anything you disagree with. You communicate with your lawyer by tapping them, gently, on the back then pass them the note.

The First Hearing

The first hearing is about case management which is basically administration, setting dates, and talking about if experts are needed. There may be discussion on the threshold, which means whether the judge has decided that the legal test for your child being harmed has met. If it has an interim care order will be made which is likely to last to the final hearing.

You do not get to tell your story and you are likely to feel upset at being talked about like this in public. You are also going to be confused about what is happening.

After the judge has listened to the lawyers, for a second time he comes to decisions, including the date of the next hearing. These decisions are called orders

After the hearing , your lawyer will go into a another meeting with the other lawyers to make sure the orders are written down in the way the judge said. Your lawyer will come and speak to you afterwards and explain simply what has actually happened in court.

You may be feeling emotional, once again try and contain these feelings whilst you are in the court building.

The Final Hearing

Care proceedings are now supposed to finish in twenty six weeks and it is not until towards the end and only if there is a final hearing that you will get to tell your story to the judge and even then it will not be what you expected.

You will be cross examined by each of the lawyers including your own. {Edit – when your own lawyer asks you questions this is called ‘examination in chief’ and they are not allowed to ask you leading questions – which is a question which suggests the answer! – but they can do when they cross examine someone}

You stand or sit in a witness box with the court bundles (lever arch files containing all the paperwork) in front of you and the lawyers will ask you to look at certain pages then ask you questions. The court staff will help you find the pages. They ask closed questions, that is basically statements which you can only say yes or no to. Such as your child did not fall off a swing you threw them down the stairs? If they think you are lying or its an important point they will ask the question again. This can go on for several hours. The judge may ask you questions directly or may make observations about you. It will feel as though you are on trial. All other witnesses such as the social worker will also be cross examined.

The lawyers make more speeches, and the judge may then tell of his decision /judgement in a speech there and then or he may decide to do so at a later date.

After the Hearing

Unless your children are kept at home you will be absolutely devastated. Try and get support whether from family or friends or from groups or organisations. You may have the same symptoms as person grieving.

A system in continual crisis – what happens when all you do is try to shift the blame?

The House of Lords – as they then were – discussed the inglorious history of the child protection system in 2002 in the case of S v S & Others [2002] UKHL . See para 29 of that judgment:

The Children Act has now been in operation for ten years. Over the last six years there has been a steady increase in the number of children looked after by local authorities in England and Wales. At present there are 36,400 children accommodated under care orders, compared with 28,500 in 1995, an increase of 27 percent. In addition local authorities provide accommodation for nearly 20,000 children under section 20 orders (children in need of accommodation). A decade’s experience in the operation of the Act, at a time of increasing demands on local authorities, has shown that there are occasions when, with the best will in the world, local authorities’ discharge of their parental responsibilities has not been satisfactory. The system does not always work well. Shortages of money, of suitable trained staff and of suitable foster carers and prospective adopters for difficult children are among the reasons. There have been delays in placing children in accordance with their care plans, unsatisfactory breakdown rates and delays in finding substitute placements.

30. But the problems are more deep-seated than shortage of resources. In November 1997 the Government published Sir William Utting’s review of safeguards for children living away from home. Mr Frank Dobson, then Secretary of State for Health, summarised his reaction to the report :’It covers the lives of children whose home circumstances were so bad that those in authority, to use the jargon, took them into care. The report reveals that in far too many cases not enough care was taken. Elementary safeguards were not in place or not enforced. Many children were harmed rather than helped. The review reveals that these failings were not just the fault of individuals – though individuals were at fault. It reveals the failure of a whole system.’

31. In autumn 1998 the Government published its response to the children’s safeguards review (Cm 4105) and launched its ‘Quality Protects’ programme, aimed at improving the public care system for children. Conferences have also been held, and many research studies undertaken, both private and public, on particular aspects of the problems. Some of the problems were discussed at the bi-annual President’s Interdisciplinary Conference on family law 1997, attended by judges, child psychiatrists, social workers, social services personnel and other experts. The proceedings of the conference were subsequently published in book form, ‘Divided Duties‘ (1998)….

The death of Victoria Climbie and the Laming Report

The pressures on the child protection system increased from the time of Lord Laming’s report in 2003 into the death of Victoria Climbie. Victoria was only 8 in 2000 when she finally died from the many injuries inflicted upon her by her adult carers, despite involvement from four different local authorities, hospitals and the NSPCC. The Laming report

…discovered numerous instances where Climbié could have been saved, noted that many of the organisations involved in her care were badly run, and discussed the racial aspects surrounding the case, as many of the participants were black. The subsequent report by Laming made numerous recommendations related to child protection in England. Climbié’s death was largely responsible for the formation of the Every Child Matters initiative; the introduction of the Children Act 2004; the creation of the ContactPoint project, a government database designed to hold information on all children in England; (now defunct after closure by the government of 2010), and the creation of the Office of the Children’s Commissioner chaired by the Children’s Commissioner for England.

Children’s social care services were combined with education to form children’s services departments, most of which were headed by Directors with no experience of social care (thus it is no longer accurate to refer to ‘the SS’ as many who dislike the system do).

Local authorities were required to introduce the Integrated Children’s System (ICS), a computerised system for recording casework and decision-making for children, with the consequence that social workers spent more time in front of screens and less time with families.

The death of Peter Connolley

In August 2007 Peter Connolley died as a result of the severe injuries he had received over months from his adult carers. He was 17 months old. In 2008 the criminal trial and conviction of the adults who killed him provoked a media storm quite unlike any other that had been seen before, probably because Peter also died under the watch of Haringey, one of the local authorities who did not act to protect Victoria.

Much blame was generated which became focused on Haringey and its social workers, rather than the police or the medical profession, despite their significant contributions to a system that failed to protect Peter.

The first Public Law Outline (PLO) was then introduced in the autumn of 2007 to try and speed up care proceedings. This brought in new and onerous requirements for LAs in terms of case preparation.

As a consequence of all these pressures, some LAs had enormous difficulties in recruiting and keeping social workers. There is still heavy reliance in many areas on expensive agency staff to try and fill high vacancy rates. Of course, it is not just the LAs that are under pressure. The courts are too, there are often difficulties in listing cases quickly or maintaining judicial continuity.

2008 then saw a substantial rise in the number of applications for care orders, called by some ‘the Baby P effect’ – suggesting that LAs were now over cautious and issuing unnecessary proceedings.

However, research from the University of Bristol in 2011 thought it was more likely to be a consequence of the PLO:

The significant increase [in care proceedings] from November 2008 is likely to be a result of the delay of applications occasioned by the introduction of the PLO with its substantial pre-application requirements. The continued increase may reflect a change in the operational threshold but the greater scrutiny which is now required before applications are made means that the local authority will have been advised that the threshold is met, and social work managers will have taken the view that proceedings are required.

Whatever the reason(s) behind the rise, it was significant and had an impact on the entire system. As Baker J commented in 2013, with reference to the serious negative consequences that can flow from failure to appoint a guardian at an early stage in care proceedings:

A crucial feature of the guardian’s role has been the early appointment, right at the outset of the proceedings. So often it is decisions taken at that stage that have a defining influence on the eventual outcome as well as a fundamental impact on the child. An experienced guardian is able to come fresh to a case and bring the wisdom of their expertise to bear on the immediate decisions that have to be made at the outset of proceedings … In cases where the social worker, advocates and the tribunal may lack much experience, the guardian’s role is vital….The rise in public law cases following Baby P accelerated a crisis that had been threatening for some time so that Cafcass was no longer able to provide a service at the outset of proceedings and vital decisions were being taken without their input.

The Munro Report

In June 2010 Professor Eileen Munro was asked by the Department of Education to report on the state of the child protection system in England and Wales. Her third and final report came out in 2011. The first report identified the ‘four key driving forces’ that had shaped problems in the system, following the pressures and challenges outlined above. These forces had:

come together to create a defensive system that puts so much emphasis on procedures and recording that insufficient attention is given to developing and supporting the expertise to work effectively with children…

The Driving Forces

the importance of the safety and welfare of children and young people and the understandable strong reaction when a child is killed or seriously harmed;

a commonly held belief that the complexity and associated uncertainty of child protection work can be eradicated;

a readiness, in high profile public inquiries into the death of a child, to focus on professional error without looking deeply enough into its causes;

the undue importance given to performance indicators and targets which provide only part of the picture of practice, and which have skewed attention to process over the quality and effectiveness of help given.

The Munro report made a variety of recommendations to reform the system particularly to:

remove unnecessary or unhelpful prescription and focus only on essential rules for effective multi-agency working and on the principles that underpin good practice. For example, the prescribed timescales for social work assessments should be removed, since they distort practice.

The Inquiry into the State of Social Work Report 2013

However, there are concerns that the Monro recommendations have simply been sidelined and the system continues along a target driven path which focuses on ‘rescuing’ children rather than trying to support families. See the Inquiry into the State of Social Work Report in 2013 published by the British Association of Social Workers on behalf of the All Parliamentary Group on Social Work. The report commented:

Excessive bureaucracy continues to work against, not in support of, practitioners. ICT systems remain not fit for purpose. Dangerously high caseloads for too many social workers mean serious risks for the people who need their assistance.

Low morale is not unique to social workers but if it is endemic across the profession, as some witnesses describe, then the ability of these practitioners to provide high quality services to families themselves confronting depression, poor self-esteem and even despair, must be questioned.

The inevitable consequences of a culture of blame

The list of children killed when known to children’s services and the inquiries into their deaths is now long indeed. See for example the serious case reviews collected on the NSPCC site.

The same mantra is repeated every time: ‘lessons will be learned’. However, it is difficult to see what lessons are being learned other than how best to attempt to shift blame once a crisis has occurred.

It sadly seems that despite the wealth of investigations and inquiries over the past 20 years, children remain badly served by a system supposedly designed to keep them safe. The most recent depressing example is found in the criticism by the Children’s Services Development Group of the Department of Education not using data to adequately reform the commissioning of children’s services. Spokesperson Lizzie Wills commented that lines of accountability for vulnerable children remained unclear:

“Senior representatives “passed around” responsibility for ensuring placement stability and positive outcomes, revealing an overwhelming and fundamental lack of coherence in the care system for looked after children,” she said.

But while the focus after a child’s death remains fixed on finding who we can ‘blame’ – will we ever see a shift? This is well explored by Ray Jones in ‘The Story of Baby P’. He comments:

For the child protection system more generally, it is now creaking at the seams, and at or near the point of collapse. Workloads have rocketed…The fear and threat that was now a burden on every social workers’ shoulders that they, too, could become a target of The Sun and others has, in part, led to more children being removed through the courts from their families. Others then, such as The Times and the Mail castigate social workers for taking children from their families. The media know how to have it both and every way…

…This book reflects my horror at how good people who undertook distressing and difficult – and sometimes dangerous – work to protect children were attacked and abused by powerful media forces, with other powerful forces getting drawn into the process. But the greatest horror is what happened to a little child, Peter Connelly, and my concern is that the campaigning by The Sun and others has done nothing to make it safer for children like Peter.

Is the Child Protection System fit for Purpose?

Proposed Multi Disciplinary Conference, 1st June 2015.

Please see this post from the Transparency Project.

Policing Parents, Protecting Children and Promoting Adoption: Do we get the child protection system we deserve?

The Transparency Project is pleased to announce a proposal for a multi-discliplinary conference, provisionally arranged for 1st June 2015, which will invite views and perspectives from experts, lawyers, social workers, parents and care leavers in an attempt to re-position the current unhealthily polarised debate around the child protection system.
We hope to be joined by Dr Lauren Devine of UWE who is currently undertaking research into the evidence base for our current system and by Brigid Featherstone, co-author of ‘Re Imagining Child Protection’.
The venue and full list of speakers will be confirmed over the coming months.
If you are interested and would like to be kept informed about developments, or if you have any suggestions for topics or speakers please contact sa**************@****************co.uk

EDIT – Topics for afternoon discussion

Suggestions are coming in for the issues most likely require debate/discussion. Please feel free to contact us to add more.

Section 20 agreements – the drift and delay problems. Are there adequate mechanisms in place for review of these? What’s the IRO doing?
The anti-authoritarian parent – does disagreeing with or failing to co-operate with a social worker equate to being a ‘bad parent’? What can be done to improve relationships between parents and social workers? These issues are highlighted in the recent Hertfordshire case and discussions over at suesspcious minds.
Perception of experts as independent – what should happen if experts in a case are on a ‘paid retainer’ with a LA? also an issue raised in the Hertfordshire case above.
Problems with ‘working together’ – example of recent disjunction between family and housing law discussed by Nearly Legal. How do we make sure family courts have the best information about issues they may not be familiar with nor fully understand?
Opening up the family courts – the impact on children. Is it likely to be a serious as some fear? What lessons can we learn from other jurisdictions?

End of Year Review 2014

How did we do? What else can we do?

We think our first nine months have shown a clear demand for this site – and worryingly that some of the most popular searches and posts have been do to with section 20 agreements, which suggests that these are both widespread and not well understood or explained.

We hope to expand the activities of the site next year – The Transparency Project will be hosting a multi-disciplinary conference on June 1st, asking if the child protection system is fit for purpose. CPR will also be going to the 2nd Joint Nordic Conference in Helskini in June where Sarah Phillimore will deliver a paper entitled ‘The courage to communicate and the necessary building of relationships between social workers and parents.’

Please let us know what we could be doing better/differently/more or less.

Contact us at ch*******************@*il.com or via Twitter @C_P_Resource.

This site would not have been possible without the very generous contributions of their time and expertise from a great many people in many different fields. As ever, enormous thanks and gratitude is due to them all.

Overview 1st March – 22 December 2014

Sessions 35,119
Users 25,742
Pageviews 60,763
Pages / Session 1.73
Avg. Session Duration 00:02:25
Bounce Rate 75.07%
% New Sessions 72.68%
New Visitor/Returning Visitor 27.3%/72.7%

Where did our audience come from?

We had visitors from all over the world, but the vast majority from the UK, as reflects the site’s content.

United Kingdom 31,158 (89%)
United States 1,418 (4%)
Australia 371 (1%)
Ireland 232 (0.66%)
Canada 217 (0.62%)
Brazil 193 (0.55%)
Netherlands 108 (0.31%)
Germany 78 (0.22%)
Finland 74 (0.21%)
France 74 (0.21%)

Where in the UK?

London 8,579 (24%)
Bristol 1,551(4.%)
Manchester 843 (2.%)
(not set) 796 (2.%)
Birmingham 712 (2.%)
Newcastle upon Tyne 683 (2%)
Liverpool 582 (2%)
Leeds 546 (1%)
Cardiff 504 (1%)
Sheffield 417 (1%)

How did people find us?

71% of traffic came from internet searches. Other sites have linked to us.

mumsnet.com 1,943 (33%)
Facebook 1,198 (20%)
Twitter 1,066 (18.%)
suesspiciousminds.com 290 (5%)
netmums.com 213 (4%)
familylawweek.co.uk 81 (1%)

What did they want to read about?

What posts were the most popular?

The most popular was not set at 8,817 views (15%).

category/the-law/key-legal-principles/section-20-agreements/ 4,087 (7%)
tag/interim-care-orders-2/ 2,879 (5%)
forced-adoption/ 2,459 (4%)
category/the-law/key-legal-principles/threshold-criteria/ 2,311 (4%)
If I report mental health issues / 2,093 (3%)
category/the-law/key-legal-principles/interim-care-orders/ 1,627 (3%)
category/the-law/key-legal-principles/significant-harm-key-legal-principles/ 1,591 (3%)
common-concerns-we-hear-from-parents/ 1,521 (3%)
category/placement-and-adoption-orders/ 1,057 (2%)

Charity helping families stay together faces closure

On December 16th we got an email from someone who has been helped by Families in Care and who is very worried that they might close due to lack of funding. This is just the kind of initiative that could help people all around the country and we hope that it can achieve its fundraising goal.

Happy Christmas EDIT! as of 22nd December, the charity has raised £5K!

She writes:

This is a very small charity which supports, advocates, and advises North East families who are faced with Child Protection Proceedings. It is a very unique charity, but without which my child would not be in my care now. From the first day I contacted them for help … they have advocated for me – fought my corner when I could not, came to every court hearing – and sat holding my hand throughout – and every meeting with the LA, held me up through the darkest of days when it seemed like all hope was lost … and taught me to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. I receive weekly counselling… Pat, the CEO, has taught me mindfulness, assertiveness, and her unwavering belief in me has had an enormous impact on my self esteem.

Pat has given me confidence enough to apply to University to retrain as a Social Worker, with a view to working as an advocate for Families In Care, and for parents that cannot do it for themselves… Each member of the team has been there day and night, weekdays, weekends and holidays. They have students – both Law and Social Work – who come in on placement, and many stay on to volunteer… There is a Parents Group for parents who have lost children to adoption, gently supporting them through their own disenfranchised grief process, and Families In Care help parents with Letter Box Contact.

I truly believe this service should be rolled out nationwide and intend to dedicate the rest of my working life to that end. In short, this is a rare gem, a beacon of hope to parents faced with the most horrifying of times.

However, Families In Care are struggling. Having had their funding removed from a particular source, they are now in a position where they face imminent closure. This just cannot happen. It just can’t. So many families rely on their presence, their hands to hold, and their commitment to ensuring parents are heard and fairly treated.