Essay on Child Protection, the Children Act 1989, and Court Decisions

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of child law, focusing on the Children Act 1989 and its implications for child protection. It begins by defining child protection and the role of the Children Act 1989, emphasizing its importance in safeguarding children's well-being. The essay examines the functions of family courts in resolving child protection cases, including settlement conferences and the Tandem Model, and highlights the increase in new care cases. It delves into key sections of the Children Act 1989, such as Section 31, which addresses the responsibilities of local authorities, and Section 20, which concerns providing accommodation for children. The essay discusses the welfare principle, parental responsibilities, and emergency protection orders. Furthermore, it analyzes the recommendations of Lord Laming's reports from 2003 and 2009, particularly focusing on the failures in the Victoria Climbie case and the Baby P case, emphasizing the need for improved policies, staff training, and a national children's database. The essay concludes by advocating for stringent child protection laws, amendments to the Children Act 1989, and improved implementation of existing policies to reduce child abuse cases.

CHILD LAW

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Main Body..............................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Child protection is saving children from violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. The
Children Act, 1989 have been made which protect well-being of child and make sure that he /
she is safe. The essay discusses about 14th view of President's chamber which talks about
increased cases of new care I comparison to previous year. Further, it focusses on important
sections covered in the Children Act, 1989. Section 31 ponders on responsibility of local
authorities regarding child protection. Lord Laming's report of 2003 and 2009 who gave
recommendations on child protection have been discussed in the essay.
Main Body
Family court helps in getting the cases resolved and get family justice. Government takes
care of it by giving them rights to protect well being of their child. Family court extends
following authority to them:
 An opportunity to present their opinions in front of the court, especially children
 With trained professionals
Within a particular time frame.
According to 14th view from President's chamber an increase in new care cases have been
noticed in past 12 months. It was 11,159 in previous year which have inflated to 12,781 cases
this year. The reasons for such increase have not been fully understood and is under continuous
investigation (Drumbl, 2012). The court need to find better ways to deal with these cases. The
continuance of court meant for problem solving can help to find the reasons behind it. The
important initiative have discovered are as follows:
 Settlement conferences: It is a new test report of the government in dealing with public
law family cases. With party’s consent, they can be included in a test called pilot. The
main motive is not to settle down the cases only but to find out the honesty and
confidentiality of the process which further helps both the parties to reach on common
ground. Parties are allowed to talk to the judge directly and resolve the issue in the best
possible manner. Mettlesome conferences are quite different from that of trial courts. It is
a genuine attempt through pilot to find out that whether the model will be effective
enough and work well with the system or not. A quantitative data will be collected to
evaluate it by conducting qualitative research. It will be helpful in identifying the
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challenges, various practices and learn lessons so that adequate changes can be made in
the current practice.
 The Tandem Model: The model is related to care system prevailing in the country. It
identifies child interest, wishes and feelings and properly represented and accurately
identified. An increase in injustice have been noticed when the model was not applied.
Tandem model makes sure that each of the case is effectively represented by a guardian
and a solicitor. (Gilbert, 2012).
An interference is required to be made by the family members of the child, as care and
adoption proceedings cannot be conducted without them. It is the right of every individual to
privately talk with the legal representative so that justice can be propounded. A child cannot have
a fair hearing if his lawyer remain silent and does not have any fair view about the case.
The Children act 1989 assigns the duty to local authorities, courts and parents to work for
welfare of the children. It ensures that they have been taken care for in the best manner in their
own families. It also has provisions that if parents are not treating their children well than strict
actions can be taken against them as well (Herring, 2014). The main expectations from Children
act are:
 Welfare of the child: The main concern of the court is to provide proper care to the
children. Any delay in the case hearings may impact the child mentally and physically as
well. The court takes into account child's physical and emotional wishes, educational
needs according to age, sex and background situation.
 Paternal responsibilities: The parents are liable for all the rights, powers and
responsibility in relation to their child. In case of married couple both share this
responsibility but in case of unmarried couple the father have to apply to the court in
order to get paternal responsibility. It is decided according to mutual agreement between
father and the mother. If court doesn't grant this permission, mother is solely and wholly
responsible for the child and can take decision on his behalf. If parents are not able to
fulfil their responsibilities court have rights to take strict actions against them.
It also extends support to children in need who are disabled and have not achieved
reasonable health, it is their duty to provide facilities to them and provide services to the
children. A day care facility is also provided to the children under the age of 5 and not attending
to school.
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Section 20 of the act enables the local authorities to provide accommodation to the child
who have no one with paternal responsibility in order to take care of him. It also includes
children who are at risk if they are kept with their parents. The court has right to remove the
accommodation as and when it finds it suitable.
An application regarding emergency protection order can be made if there is any
significant harm is being noticed in the child. Section 47 of the act gives right to the local
authority to make an investigation and take reasonable steps to safeguard the child. It is an
offence if child has been taken without the permission of concerned person and can be
imprisoned for 6 months (Law, Reilly and Snow, 2013).
The primary duties of local authorities based on request of the child and families under
section 17 are:
 Advice, counsel and guide
 Care for supervised activities
 Home help
 Financial help
 Maintaining of family home
Section 31 of the act discusses the main route of taking care of child where local
authorities or any other authorised person can opt for care orders from the court. Here,
authorized person are:
 The National Society for the Prevention and Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) or any of its
officer
 Any person who has been authorized through secretary of state.
Local authorities get the paternal responsibility of the child if these order are passed by
the court (Children Act,1989).
According to a case Re A (A Child) [2015] EWFC 11, 'A' was born when the mother was
in prison and there was no other family member who could take paternal responsibility of the
child. In this scenario, local authorities decided to keep the child in a care home. After 8 months,
when the mother came out of the prison she didn't want to take the responsibility. A's father
came forward to opt for paternal responsibility. The president himself took the decision of this
case and concluded that the child should live with his father and will not be kept in care home as
he can take care of 'A' in better manner (Pecora and et.al., 2012).
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Lord Laming's report was unveiled in 2003 which was regarding the murder to child
abuse victim. It gave following recommendations concerning to child protection:
 To form a children and families board governed by senior minister in order to make
policies and procedure regarding the well being of a children and their families.
 A national agency for children should be set up who ensures that the national standards
for child's well being and make reforms according to it (The Victoria Climbie Inquiry:
report of an inquiry by Lord Laming, 2003).
 Councils should establish committees for children and families where member should
include from social services, education, housing, National Health Services and Police.
 A local director can be appointed for effective implementation of agencies who are
working for child welfare and protection (Radford and et.al., 2013).
The major issues faced in case of Victoria have also been mentioned in Lord Laming's
report, 2003. Protecting a child from any harm is a challenging task and it requires professionals
having skills and qualities to find the cases and stop them. It is difficult to assess the situation as
the job carries greater risk. Protecting the child and the family is the basic right that every
individual deserves (Reder and Lucey, 2014).
Victoria was admitted in to two different hospitals, four social service departments were
involved in taking care of her, two child protection teams were there to find suspects of the case.
However, the case closed on the day she died. It shows unprofessional performance regarding the
case giving rise to lack of adequate use of policies which have been issued in The Children Act,
1989.
Agencies who were involved in the responsibility of Victoria were not able to protect her
and gave low priority to protecting the child from harm. The main reason was inadequate staff,
under funded agencies and poor process of child protection. Scarcity of resources led the
organization to not take good care of child and incident of Victoria happened. The standard of
investigation which have been mentioned in the Children Act are not properly followed and it uis
the reason due to which similar crimes happens.
In her case, the basic process of medical evaluation was not properly followed. It
includes, history taking, differential diagnosis, monitoring outcome etc. It shows medical
consultants did not consider the most crucial thing while monitoring her which was child abuse.
Managers and senior members failed to fulfil their duty as they could have delivered good
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quality support to Victoria and her family. It involves clear failure of management in achieving
their goals. Various staff members were suspended after Victoria's death.
It is advised in the report that a national children's database should be created where all
the details of the child with the staff of police, health and local authorities so that appropriate
actions can be taken regarding protection of children and family within time.
Lord Laming's report 2009 discussed about the death of Baby P.The authorities didn't
take any serious action even if the child was on high risk in the house. The report focussed on
irresponsible behaviour of the official led to death of a child. Various recommendations were
extended. Some of them are mentioned below:
 To prioritize the child protection matter and prepare strategies to reduce its occurrence.
 National Safeguarding Delivery Unit can be established whose remittance will include,
making the official and staff work effectively regarding child protection, implementing
the recommendation which they have received from various cases, providing training to
the staff regarding performing their duty in the best possible manner (Vis, Holtan and
Thomas, 2012).
 Preparing targets for child protection.
 Create a performance indicator for Primary Care Trusts.
 Regularly reviewing the areas which requires attention after every specific period.
According to the report, the laws and policies which have been included in the Children
Act 1989 are required to be revised. Section 31 of the act talks about performance of the local
authorities regarding child protection. IT has not been followed by them which has led to
increase in child care cases.
CONCLUSION
Based on the above essay, it can be concluded that, there is a need to opt for stringent
laws regarding child protection. It will help to reduce the arising incidents of family court cases.
Further, the policies that have been issued in the Children Act, 1989 are not followed and
required to be amended as per the needs of the country. According to the case of Victoria,
officials were not able to find the happenings despite of child already been registered on high
risk. It shows incompetency of the officials regarding the matter. According to the
recommendations of Lord Laming's in the report of 2003 and 2009, it can be ascertained that a
proper code of conduct is required to followed which will help to reduce the cases. A separate
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committee should be maintained creating a database of children and taking care of their well
being. It will help in improving the quality of services on child protection in the country.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Drumbl, M. A., 2012. Reimagining child soldiers in international law and policy. Oxford
University Press.
Gilbert, N., 2012. A comparative study of child welfare systems: Abstract orientations and
concrete results. Children and Youth Services Review.34(3). pp.532-536.
Herring, J., 2014. The welfare principle and the children act: presumably it's about
welfare?. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. 36(1). pp.14-25.
Law, J., Reilly, S. and Snow, P. C., 2013. Child speech, language and communication need re‐
examined in a public health context: a new direction for the speech and language
therapy profession. International Journal of Language & Communication
Disorders. 48(5). pp.486-496.
Pecora, P. J. and et.al., 2012. The child welfare challenge: Policy, practice, and research.
AldineTransaction.
Radford, L. and et.al., 2013. The prevalence and impact of child maltreatment and other types of
victimization in the UK: Findings from a population survey of caregivers, children and
young people and young adults. Child abuse & neglect. 37(10). pp.801-813.
Reder, P. and Lucey, C. eds., 2014. Assessment of parenting: Psychiatric and psychological
contributions. Routledge.
Vis, S. A., Holtan, A. and Thomas, N., 2012. Obstacles for child participation in care and
protection cases—why Norwegian social workers find it difficult.Child Abuse
Review. 21(1). pp.7-23.
Online
Children Act .1989. [Onlie]. Available through
<http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/31>. [Accessed on 01st August
2017]
The Victoria Climbie Inquiry: report of an inquiry by Lord Laming. 2003. [Online]. Available
through <https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-victoria-climbie-inquiry-
report-of-an-inquiry-by-lord-laming>. [Accessed on 01st August 2017].
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