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Summary
This report presents the findings from a mixed-methods evaluation of peer parental advocacy (PPA) in the London Borough of Camden. PPA is a form of peer advocacy whereby parents with lived experience of child protection support other parents to navigate and engage with the process. Research evidence suggests that parents can find the child protection system to be difficult, stigmatising and authoritarian. Proponents of PPA suggest that it has the potential to promote shared decision-making, improve relationships between social services professionals and families, and enable…
The Scottish Government Implementation Plan sets out the Government of Scotland's actions and commitments to Keep the Promise for care experienced children, young people and their families. The plan lays out what the government will do to Keep The Promise by 2030. The goal is for every child in Scotland to grow up loved, safe and respected so that they realise their full potential.
Separating a baby from his or her mother at birth when there are safeguarding concerns is traumatic for birth parents and painful for professionals. This report presents findings from a study that analysed qualitative data from the lived experiences of parents and professionals where the state intervened at birth. The aim was to identify key challenges and to surface good practice examples with a view to developing a draft set of best practice guidelines for piloting with partner research sites in England and Wales.
This study comprised the collection and analysis of new empirical data…
This report highlights the changing characteristics of children in and on the ‘edge of care’, including unaccompanied minors, increasing numbers of young people with unmet complex needs and BAME young people. It also outlines some of the longer-term trends that vulnerable teenagers face, including county lines, sexual exploitation and violence and how these have altered and, in some cases, made worse by the pandemic.
The Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ), in collaboration with the Scottish Child Law Centre, has produced a resource to support Scottish solicitors and practitioners with Good Practice Principles when representing care experienced children in police custody, to ensure their rights are upheld.
Children with care experience are more likely than their peers to experience police contact and criminalisation, despite no evidence that they commit greater offences than other children. They are less likely to receive support at the police station from family or a responsible…
The work of the Independant Care Review in Scotland culminated in the publication of seven reports in February 2020, including 'The Promise' which set out what needs to change in the care system to ensure children and young people grow up loved, safe and respected.
The Promise reflected what over 5,500 care experienced children and adults, families and the paid and unpaid workforce told the Care Review in the hope that Scotland was listening. It told Scotland what it must do to make sure its most vulnerable children feel loved and have the childhood they deserve.
When a decision is taken to remove an infant from his or her mother within hours or days of the infant’s birth, this presents particular challenges for professionals and is highly distressing for birth mothers, birth fathers and wider family networks. It is therefore important to establish the proportion of cases that are issued at birth and begin to build an empirical evidence base about this particular population of infants in the family justice system. The objectives of this report are to:
a. provide the first estimate and profile of newborns in care proceedings in England using…
Abstract
Research focused on relationships and contact with birth family for children and young people who were separated from them as infants has rarely acknowledged the emotional and dynamic nature of such interactions. Curiosity has been dominant in adoption research. However, in our longitudinal study of young people who entered care at a young age, a range of other feelings and combination of feelings emerged in the youths’ narratives, including contentment and mixed feelings such as anger, affection, loss, guilt, or worry. Type of placement, that is, whether the young people had been…
Abstract: Most countries operate procedures to safeguard children, including removal from parents in serious cases. In England, care applications and numbers have risen sharply, however, with wide variations not explained by levels of socio-economic deprivation alone. Drawing on extensive research, it is asserted that actuarial decision tools more accurately estimate risks to children and are needed to achieve consistency, transparency, and best outcomes for children. To date, however, child protection has not achieved gains made within comparable professions through statistical methods. The…
Abstract: This article presents data from the first large-scale study of fathers involved in repeat (or recurrent) care proceedings in England. The project complements important research on mothers and recurrence. It consisted of three elements: an analysis of population-level administrative data from the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), a survey of fathers in pre-proceedings and care proceedings, and a qualitative longitudinal (QL) study of recurrent fathers. Here we report findings from the survey and the QL study, offering an expanded definition and…