And for tonight’s rant…

…I shall mostly be complaining about section 20 of the Children Act. It’s a well intentioned provision, but often exploited and misused in ways which make my blood boil. s20, for those who don’t know, is a provision which places a duty upon Local Authorities to accommodate children who have no available parent or who [...]

What She Said – Adopting Words on Adoption

David Cameron has stepped into the adoption debate this week, distracting us all from the economic catastrophe with a message of hope for all those children “put up” for adoption who are “languishing” in care as a result of court delay (caused by lawyers, natch and probably ones with a human rights obsession too) and political [...]

Open letter to CAFCASS

“An open letter in respect of my resignation from Cafcass 26 September 2011 Dear  …………………, I have long had my doubts as to whether Cafcass as an organisation is fit for purpose.  I have been critical of the honesty and integrity of the management of the service, things that continue to concern me.  I have [...]

Hurrah for independent Guardians

A County Council v K & Ors (By the Child’s Guardian Ht) [2011] EWHC 1672 (Fam) I have not had the chance to fully read this judgment, but this case appears to be an astonishing rebuke to CAFCASS’ bureaucratic, authoritarian managerial approach, and firmly reminds them of the need to allow Guardian’s to exercise their [...]

Adoption Tzar

Although not formally confirmed yet on the Department of Education website it is reported in Community Care that “Former Barnardo’s chief Martin Narey will be tasked with encouraging “sceptical” social workers to see adoption as an option for more children in care in his role as the government’s first adoption tsar.” I’m all for permanence [...]

Different Demons

There are two main groups of critics of the family courts: they are Father’s rights groups (such as Fathers4Justice but of course there are many others) who concern themselves primarily with private law disputes, and a quite separate group concerned primarily with care proceedings and “forced” adoptions (John Hemming MP and journalist Christopher Booker to [...]

Care Proceedings & Learning Disabled Parents

Abigail Bond is a family barrister practising from St John’s Chambers in Bristol*. She is the author of “Care Proceedings and Learning Disabled Parents – A Handbook for Family Lawyers”, recently published by Family Law (Jordans). The handbook is an interesting read and a useful guide to common aspect of care work which all too [...]

Munro Review

The Munro Review has been published here. I have yet to read it, but understand it proposes the removal of “red tape” to enable social workers to focus on the needs of children and on outcomes rather than process. Pointless regulation ought to be chopped, but it’s as well to think about why the regulation [...]

Foster Carers as Witnesses?

I see from Community Care that Childrens’ Minister Tim Loughton thinks that judges placing “great store” on the views of Guardians is “an odd way of doing things”. He suggests that it would be far better if foster carers were able to give evidence about a child’s needs. I couldn’t agree more. If you ignore [...]

Family Justice Review Interim Report

The interim report of the FJR has been published today. This post represents very much an interim analysis of that interim report (is it hyperinterim, adopting the style all the most fashionable injunctions?). I’m pleased to say that quite a lot of what is in the report was contained in the paper presented to the FJR [...]