There has been a great deal of talk recently about police investigations which start from a premise of ‘believing’ the ‘victim’ and a great deal of reasonable concern about what happens to those investigations if they begin from the premise that the ‘victim’ is telling the truth. See for example the independent review carried out […]
https://twitter.com/SVPhillimore/status/954039101757493250 The social work profession has shown itself willing to grapple with the issues of concern arising out of current practices around adoption and its consequences. The British Association of Social Workers launched the results of its Enquiry into the role of the social worker in Adoption on January 18th 2018. BASW set the […]
I am grateful to this post from one of CPR’s readers, who is parent to an autistic child. She writes about her difficulties in getting help and support for her son and the problems families experience in a system which does not seem set up to identify difficulties and offer support. What happens when […]
On July 10th the Family Rights Group launched their report ‘Co-operation or Coercion? Children coming into the care system under voluntary arrangements’ . I wrote a brief summary of the speakers’ contributions and the report’s recommendations for The Transparency Project. I commented that this was a very important report, with very sobering findings and it […]
Who holds the risk, how risk is assessed and how brave or risk averse those who make decisions for children? This is a post by Sarah Phillimore On March 9th 2017 Lord Justice McFarlane delivered the first of the Bridget Lindley OBE Memorial Lectures. He began by paying tribute to the memory of Bridget Lindley […]
This post is my formal complaint about the activities of the organisation Justice for Families, which I made to its Chairman John Hemming on 8th January 2017. My name is Sarah Phillimore and I am a barrister specialising in child protection law. My concerns about Mr Hemming and his organisation are long standing. You can […]
This exchange began after I read a press release for the documentary The Stolen Children of England (Les Enfants Voles D’Angleterre), that was shown on French TV Canal 5 on 15 November 2016. I commented about how uneasy that made me here. I was then sent a English language version of the documentary which I […]
2016 has been a terrible year but perhaps a necessary year. Just as the boil has to burst or be lanced before it can heal, we do need to confront why so many people are so angry and so unhappy and so willing not only to embrace distortions and misrepresentations of what is true, but […]
This post arises out of a recent discussion on Twitter about effective strategies for dealing with on line behaviour from others that you perceive as harassing or threatening. This is the product of my years of exposure to some very harsh on line environments. I hope its helpful, but of course, it is the result of […]
For some time now, a group of us who attending CPConf2016 have been discussing if it might help parents to have a short leaflet which attempts to explain what’s going on, at the very outset of proceedings. A lot of the problems which arise, or get worse, in care proceedings can be linked to poor […]