Caroline is a child care solicitor working for local government.  She provides legal advice to child care workers on children going through legal proceedings. Of her caseload, many of the children either have parents who were in care themselves or the families have been known to social care for many years. By the time Caroline becomes involved and the case comes to court, the harm suffered by the children is so severe that few children are returned to their parents.

Caroline explained that the state intervenes to protect children from “significant harm”. This is defined as being caused by physical and emotional harm often resulting in chronic neglect, and sexual abuse. Significant harm can result from several factors including parental misuse of drugs and/or alcohol, poor parental mental health and/or a learning difficulty and, increasingly, alcohol-fuelled violence. If children witness domestic violence this can be seen as emotional abuse.

In England, the first Children Act was passed in 1889 and, in 1894, the subsequent Act recognised mental cruelty, now termed emotional harm. It was not until 1970 that all councils’ social work services, including those for children, were amalgamated into social services departments.

Certain child murders have been significant in changing the way sentencing and children at risk are supported. For example, in 1973 Maria Colwell’s death in the care of her stepfather resulted in a public enquiry when the case went to appeal. This identified three main contributory factors: the lack of communication between the agencies who were aware of her vulnerable situation; inadequate training for social workers assigned to at-risk children; and changes in the make-up of society.

Caroline also discussed adoption. She noted that in the UK the vast majority of children offered for adoption have suffered harm, either from the care given to them by their parents, or in utero. Two serious conditions that cause harm in the womb is foetal alcohol syndrome, the effects of which do not appear until school age, and the misuse of drugs, where treatment in a special baby unit is required to enable their withdrawal. The only children offered for adoption who are unlikely to have suffered harm are “relinquished” babies whose mother or parents decide for their own reasons that they cannot care for their baby (e.g. if it would bring shame on their families, or if they are very young).

Caroline talked about changes in the training approach for professionals. Nowadays the focus is on always believing the child. In the past, parents were regarded as the client and not the child. Now, as well as social workers, health visitors and the GP on the multi agency team, there are Children’s guardians who are the independent voice of the child in court.

The 1989 Children Act centres on the idea that children are best cared for within the birth family and therefore, the threshold to remove children from their families is extremely high from the outset. The social worker will have worked with the family sometimes for years before court proceedings are issued, usually with other agencies under a Child Protection Plan. If this does not lead to a change for the child(ren), legal proceedings will be issued. However, if during legal proceedings, work with the family appears to have lead to positive change, the Local Authority may ask for rehabilitation back to their parents. Often the Social Worker, sometimes supported by the children’s Guardian in the legal proceedings, will seek adoption (or placement with other family members). A Judge may nonetheless overrule their professional opinion and return a child to her or his parents.

(Note: Since this talk was given, the case of Ellie Butler has been in the media. This was a case where the culture that children are best cared for by their parents was a significant factor in Mrs Justice Hogg overruling the opinion of the Social Workers, and deciding that Ellie should be cared for by her father, rather than her grandparents where she was being well cared for. Ellie was returned to her father and died in his care.)

Finally Caroline discussed two children who had suffered fractures to illustrate the difficulties that social workers, solicitors and the courts face. On the face of it the two cases seemed similar: there were other siblings, the home conditions were “suboptimal” but “good enough”, and the medical view was of “non accidental injuries”. Baby A, however, was in fact Baby P who was severely malnourished and died. The other baby is doing well.  (Summary: Jane Maxim)