Not social workers apparently. At least so says the British Association of Social Workers which offers representation from non-lawyers as a perk of its membership. Barristers (incorrectly referred to by BASW as solicitors) offering their services for free via FRU or the Bar Pro Bono Unit may not have the necessary expertise in social work [...]
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I have a current bugbear, but don’t get me wrong: I don’t want to add to the mass of negativity surrounding the dread word ‘social worker’. This post really only concerns the cases where the quality of s7 reports prepared by social workers in private proceedings falls far short of the expected standard. Most reports [...]
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Just happened upon an interesting new blog ‘corbysays’ which is tackling the difficult topic of young care leavers. Its only a fledgling blog at the moment but already has some thought provoking material on it. (h/t to @waugaman)
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Myself and another legal rep were a little taken aback to be told recently that we were ‘making a meal of it’, ‘it’ being the alleged assaults by a father upon his children by blows to the head. Not – apparently - a child protection concern because the kids, now just in double digits, don’t present as frightened. Well [...]
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I’ve often read s47 reports, core assessments and reg 38 assessments which find themselves in amongst my case papers and wondered what purpose they serve other than to obfuscate questions of risk. Chatting the other week with a social worker confirms anecdotally at least that some social workers agree. These documents are ridiculously long and [...]
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On the way back through Paddington at the end of a day in the High Court yesterday I was not astonished to see a rather distasteful piece fronting up the Evening Standard. From reading the information emblazoned across the front page one might reasonably have formed the view that Ms Shoesmith, formerly of Haringey had personally and forcibly snatched a [...]
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Recent Court of Appeal Decisions (Civil Division)
