This is a plea for help. Think baby kitten up a tree. Or @seethrujustice between funding streams.
Seriously, we’re trying out new ideas to keep our Family Court Reporting Watch Project going between funding streams, while we put our energy into funding applications. (In the meantime, media stories of the family courts and newly published judgments, crying out for comment or explanation, keep on flying in, and we still depend largely on volunteers).
Family Court Reporting Watch Roundup – We’re temporarily putting the weekly Roundups on hold, to use our time differently (sob):
Asking you to help – We’re also turning to you, our supporters and regular twitter and facebook commentators to ask if you can help us a bit more.
Flagging material for our Family Court Reporting Watch project? – You often flag family court stories (eg here and here) that the media have got wrong or that need some context, engaging in (often cross-silo) interesting twitter conversations and @ing us as you go. You do the same with some interesting family court judgments (not just the legally interesting but also those that interest families and non legal professionals). From pioneering ways of writing judgments for families, to eye-of-the-storm topics like medical treatment of children or how courts treat domestic abuse, to things we can and often should, learn from):
Could you write for us too? – We’re asking you to more actively keep an eye out for these opportunities now and @ us with the questions they provoke or why you’d like to see them covered. But we’re also asking that some of you consider writing them up for us too.
Practising lawyers – We have a particular need for practising lawyers to write from time to time – to analyse a media report against a published judgment or explain a family court judgment for our broad readership, from a practice perspective.
Experts –We also need more academic lawyers and non-legal experts who are reasonably confident about writing accessibly for a range of readers. From those expert by lived experience, to those with professional expertise in relevant areas like social work, journalism or giving evidence in court.
There’s no obligation to write often or on anything that doesn’t interest you. If you are a practising lawyer who can envisage writing accessibly for the public and other professionals, or a non-lawyer with knowledge / expertise and would like to write for us, we’d love to hear from you. You can tweet us @seethrujustice, or email us at info@transparencyproject.org.uk. Please provide your contact details, a bit about your experience and your suggestion for what you are offering to write on and why (We are happy to host a range of varying opinions but seek to ensure balance across the range of posts on the site. All posts are reviewed by our team before posting to ensure accuracy, and that we comply with legal restrictions around privacy.)
Do you value what we do? –We know that many of our readers are not in a position to make a financial contribution to the work of the project, but if you are able (even if its just a small amount) we would be very grateful for donations. It’s very difficult to source funding for boring core costs and your donations help to keep us ticking over. If you use our justgiving page you can give a one off or recurring donation – and can giftaid it too.
An opportunity to say thank you too – To the many of you already supporting us in other ways. Through donations; attending or participating in events; bringing your own perspectives by commenting on blogs or via Twitter and Facebook, and more. We hope you will continue to do so, but we also now make this plea to the potential blog writers amongst you.
Image: Thanks to Guyon Morée at Flickr
An interesting little read for the layman in this judgement just released https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Transcript-of-proceedings-Person-A-v-Southampton-Local-Authority.pdf