Children to benefit from Cafcass proposals
18 October 2005
Every child referred to Cafcass through the family courts will
have a social work qualified practitioner allocated to their case
within two days in broad-ranging proposals set out in a
consultation paper – 'Every Day Matters –
launched today.
Cafcass Chief Executive, Anthony Douglas, is
challenging his own workforce and other agencies within the family
justice system to change ways of working, for the benefit of around
100,000 children involved in family court applications every
year.
“Children’s proceedings in England have become
avoidably protracted and over-conflictual. The nature and duration
of the family court process is often difficult for children and not
always in their interests.
“At the heart of these proposals is a new way
of working with a focus on early and intensive interventions. This
will offer every child the service they need from us at the
earliest possible opportunity. “
Douglas explains that if Cafcass is to be
effective, its involvement in children’s proceedings needs to be as
early and as decisive as possible.
“We want to commit ourselves to
intensive work in the first six weeks in every public and private
law case referred to us, so that the maximum possible resource is
put into early intervention, early resolution, early planning and
early decision-making.”
'Every Day Matters' includes a raft of
proposals, including:
Measures to reduce the inefficient use of professional time, and
intervene as effectively as possible in cases.
- To allocate every case, and every child referred to it, within
two days by April 2007.
- To guarantee an intensive early intervention service in the
first six weeks of every case by April 2007.
- To offer extended dispute resolution in all teams across public
and private law cases as far as possible.
- To provide a ‘minimum necessary, maximum affordable’ service,
allocating resources proportionately to cases within the resource
levels available to teams.
- Escalation procedures in public law cases to ensure care plans
for children in public law cases are the right ones.
- In private law work, to minimise reporting and maximise direct
work with children and families, and to commission a much larger
group of services than at present.
- Priority on child safeguarding in all private law cases where
harm to a child is proven or alleged.
- Early and intensive dispute resolution, backed up with court
action if agreements are not reached quickly in applications where
there are no child safeguarding concerns
- A presumption of shared parenting in non-violent relationship
breakdown cases in private law proceedings.
- To introduce open, evidence-based records.
“There is often a history of silent suffering
by children involved in both public and private law family
proceedings. No matter what changes are implemented, we will
continue to focus on the individual circumstances faced by each
child as the basis of our interventions and recommendations.
“As an underlying principle behind all our
work, we intend to ‘start with the child, and stay with the
child’,” Douglas concludes.