Posts
How do Local Authorities approach parents who want to record meetings?
In June, we made a raft of freedom of information act requests to each local authority in England and Wales. We asked them whether they had any policy in respect of parents’ recording meetings with social workers, or any plans to develop one. The results were really...
Judge removes child from disabled mother over costs of care – allegedly
The Telegraph reports : Judge removes child from disabled mother over costs of care. The sub-heading reads : Boy removed from disabled mother’s care over costs as judge dismisses an allegation of ‘social engineering’. We wondered how accurate the headline and body...
Adoption Statistics – Again – Part 3
Hopefully this will be the final installment of what has become something of a marathon. Context : Firstly, orientation : The original Marilyn Stowe blog is here. Our original reply is here (part 1). Mr Hemming’s response on his blog is here (23/8). Our part 2 is...
What’s the story?
The reporting of complex family court judgments. We are grateful for this guest post from Sanchia Berg, a reporter for Radio 4’s Today programme. She covers major news stories and also delivers original journalism- notably in fields of Education, Immigration, History...
Child Protection Conference – Podcast of panel discussion
On 1 June we were involved in the innovative conference, posing the question : Is our child protection system fit for purpose? With apologies for the delay, you can now download and listen to the audio recording of the afternoon panel discussion involving various...
Adoption Statistics – again (part 2)
In part 1 we responded to a blog post by John Hemming on the Marilyn Stowe blog. We raised some queries which Mr Hemming answered in a blog on his own blog. It's taken us a few days to respond, but here is what we think of that response. Firstly, orientation :...
The journalist who believes that lawyers always lie?
In today's Telegraph, Christopher Booker has written about a case where care and placement orders for two children were made in Rhyl Family Court in April 2014. You can read the judgment on Bailii here. In April, HHJ Gareth Jones said in his judgment: 'The mother has...
Child whose parents played too many video games ‘removed from family home’ – the fuller story
Earlier this week we highlighted reports in the press suggesting that a Sun "probe" had uncovered that children were being removed because their parents played too many video games. See Julie D's post : Press reporting random scare stories helps no-one. We were pretty...
Press reporting random scare stories helps no-one
A particularly irritating example of opaque reporting came up under #familylaw on twitter yesterday. According to this story in the Telegraph, Child whose parents played too many video games 'removed from family home' Social Services said to have believed their...
Survey
Just prior to the Child Protection Conference that we were involved with in June we put together a survey for participants and others with experience of the Child Protection to complete. We had high hopes for it. This post is an update on how it went with the survey....