Revealed: 78 percent of children involved in serious incident reports were known to social services, police

Researching Reform

Welcome to another week.

The government has released the latest data for serious incident notifications involving children. Serious incidents are defined as those “that involve death or serious harm to a child where abuse or neglect is known or suspected, and any death of a looked after child,” and are recorded by local authorities.

The government says the figures published on 25 May are no longer considered “experimental” and are the first “official” statistics since the Department for Education (DfE) began rolling the reports out four years ago.

However, the statistics should still be treated with a great deal of caution. This extract from the report explains why:

“The Department [for Education] considers these statistics to be an accurate account of the number of serious incidents that local authorities have notified to the Panel. However, whilst reporting has improved in recent years, the Department is aware that, in some instances…

View original post 721 more words

Standard

‘It was Like a Prison Cell for Me’ Children in Care, Reunited with Parents in New Initiative, Speak Out 

Well done Researching Reform. Clayton sounds like a fair, reasonable and realistic man Xx

Researching Reform

As some of our readers will know, during the day Researching Reform works as a child rights journalist and our latest story is about a groundbreaking new project which is reuniting children in the care system with their birth families.

The project is run by Coventry City Council. The story includes the personal experiences of mothers and their children being reunited, and how this project and the social work teams inside it, work to support rather than judge families. The project is starting to be rolled out across other councils, and families can ask to be referred to the scheme.

The piece is free to read on Byline Times and can be accessed here.

For those on Twitter who feel this new initiative would benefit people in your network, you can access and tweet or share the link here.

We would like to thank the mothers and the children who…

View original post 34 more words

Standard

Government launches consultation on transparency inside the justice system

the consultation itself closes on 7 September, 2023.

Researching Reform

Welcome to another week.

The government has launched a consultation asking the public what they think of the state of transparency inside our legal system, and what it can do to make the system more open.

The consultation’s introduction says, “Open justice is a fundamental principle at the very heart of our justice system and vital to the rule of law – justice must not only be done but must be seen to be done. Its history and importance in law can be traced back to before the Magna Carta. It is a principle which allows the public to scrutinise and understand the workings of the law, building trust and confidence in our justice system.”

The blurb on the GOV.UK website is far too long, but essentially, there are 65 questions spanning 10 areas: Open justice, court and tribunal listings, accessing courts and tribunals, remote observation and livestreaming, broadcasting, single…

View original post 428 more words

Standard

Family court chief relaunches 26-week deadline for children cases

Researching Reform

Britain’s family court boss, Andrew McFarlane, has started a campaign to get people working inside the family justice system to stick to the guidance in place for public family law (care) cases, including enforcing a 26-week deadline in which to complete these cases.

The deadline was originally designed to ensure that children did not languish inside the care system, but experiences inside the system have shown the deadline to be pointless. Any length of time away from what children know is for the most part hugely detrimental to them, including abrupt removals which mean children are isolated from the people and places they have known all their lives.

While this kind of removal may be appropriate in some cases, it is only appropriate in a very small number of instances, with most children benefitting from regular and safe contact with their natural families in environments they are familiar with, or…

View original post 561 more words

Standard

John Lewis Refuses To Release Complaints Figures For Its Christmas Advert

Researching Reform

John Lewis has refused to say how many complaints it received about its Christmas advert, after a strong backlash to the ad erupted on social media.

The advert, which featured a controversial storyline about a teenage girl in care being fostered by a middle class family, upset a number of care-experienced children and families. Several said the storyline was deeply triggering and an inaccurate representation of the care system, as they discussed the advert on Twitter and Facebook.

Researching Reform reached out to the retailer last week to ask for comment about the negative responses to the advert online, and whether or not they were considering adding a trigger warning or helpline in the advert, for children and families badly affected by their experience of the care system. This site also asked the company how many complaints about the advert it had received so far.

John Lewis said it was…

View original post 2,291 more words

Standard

Children and Families Truth Commission launches first ever human rights survey for children and families

Please help to get this out there Xx

Researching Reform

The Children and Families Truth Commission has published what it believes is the first human rights-focused survey for children and families going through Britain’s child protection system.

The survey was produced in collaboration with child-protection experienced parents and was designed to be accessible and easy to fill out.

The survey asks families in Britain about their experiences of children’s social care and the courts, including times when they felt that their human rights were not supported. 

We have created this survey so that we can better understand which human rights are being breached inside the system, and how.

We warmly invite you to complete the survey if you are a child or child-protection experienced parent or relative. The more responses we get, the more we can understand the problems.

Please feel this survey out if you can, and share it with others who may want to complete it, too.

If…

View original post 28 more words

Standard

Landmark case in Jersey finds child removal breached family’s human rights

Researching Reform

Social services and police were found to have breached a family’s human rights after removing four children from their homes without cause.

The landmark case which was heard in Jersey, began when one of the children made a comment about a sibling’s sleeping arrangement.

Social services were accused of over-reacting and not following proper procedure, including failing to tell the mother that the section 20 agreement she had signed could be revoked at any time.

There is also a suggestion that the mother may have been forced into signing the temporary accommodation agreement for her children.

The rising movement in courts and among child welfare reformers investigating violations of families’ human rights inside child protection sectors across states is a positive development and one which we hope will continue to grow.

A very good summary of the case can be found on the Jersey Edition of the Bailiwick Express.

This…

View original post 186 more words

Standard

The Children and Families Truth Commission Turns One

Researching Reform

Britain’s first parent-led inquiry into the state of the country’s child protection system turned one on 20th November, World Children’s Day.

The commission is a reactive, real-time project which aims to investigate whether children’s and families’ human rights are being upheld inside the system, and offers families support and help at the same time.

As part of our work we have produced guides with and for child protection and care-experienced families, and we’ve created testimonial walls for children and parents to tell us about their experiences anonymously.

You can check out our work using the links below, and get involved too:

Stay up to date with the commission’s work on Researching Reform, as we publish updates and information about our open meetings, publications and more.

View original post

Standard

The Dark Side of The John Lewis Christmas Ad

Researching Reform

The John Lewis Christmas advert was met with rapturous applause by people across the UK as it rolled out last week. But in not-so small corners of the country, children and families who had experienced the realities of Britain’s troubled care system grew upset and angry, and began to file complaints with the retailer.

The advert, which shows a man learning to skateboard, and then later, along with his partner, welcomes a child from the care system into their home who also likes to skateboard, touched people deeply. And no wonder. It’s rose-tinted view of carers, and the system in which they operate, left viewers feeling that the young girl had found her ‘forever home’.

This is a screenshot of the ad. We haven’t added a live link to the video as we know some readers may find the content distressing.

What most viewers watching the advert would not have…

View original post 2,166 more words

Standard