This is a post by Sarah Phillimore ‘Good practice’ would be to commission serious and proper research into the actual nature of the problem, rather than inviting personal anecdote to take the place of robust data. I am very concerned about the nature of this Inquiry; the manner of its inception and the choice of its […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore. This is the text of a talk I gave at the Bristol Civil Justice Centre on April 15th 2019 as part of a debate entitled ‘We make unnecessary use of care proceedings’. The situation regarding care proceedings in England and Wales is dire. There are various reports and […]
I am grateful for Emma Sutcliffe for this guest post. Its been an interesting month for thinking and talking about why the family court seems to inspire such strong and invariably negative feelings. I first wrote about this on January 8th where I shared two narratives from two parents – a mother and a father, […]
But have you stood the test of time? “Is the Act fit for purpose? Overwhelmingly yes. Able to use its basic structure to allow us to embrace changing concepts in society. Where it is failing is not where its ethos is flawed but because its ethos required it to be funded – to deliver services […]
This post originally appeared on The Transparency Project but objections were raised to my use of the feature image. So I repost it here. This post is to comment on the latest ramifications of the long journey of two parents who faced the same accusation in both criminal and family courts but with very […]
Machine learning is becoming a methodological substrate for knowledge and action. But machine learning is not ethically neutral. It is skewed by data and obfuscated by nature… Dan McQuillan ‘People’s Councils for Ethical Machine Learning’ The use of Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) and relying on algorithms to determine what children are at risk of harm have […]
This is a post by Sarah Phillimore ‘A patient is the most important person in our hospital. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our hospital, he is part of it. We are doing a favour by serving him, he is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity […]
Today, June 13th the Family Rights Group published the Care Crisis Review report. The email sending out the press release states: The Review confirms there is a crisis in Children’s Social Care and Family Justice Sector, explores the reasons why and sets out 20 options for change. Over 2000 people and organisations contributed to the […]
When ‘knowing your rights’ equates to ‘sense of entitlement’ and what this says about child protection practices today. It is a frequent complaint made to me that parents from poor backgrounds are targeted in care proceedings because they are poor. That the struggles they have in parenting are reflections of their alienation from more affluent […]
This is the text of a seminar delivered at St Johns Chambers in Bristol on March 21st 2018 Financial Remedies in Children Proceedings 1. What we will examine this evening are possible routes down which might enable you to get a financial remedy for a child who has suffered harm or loss. A typical example […]