Assessment of Parents within Care Proceedings short clip

Описание: BOOK REVIEW

ASSESSMENT OF PARENTS WITHIN CARE PROCEEDINGS

By Gemma Farrington and Simon Johnson

ISBN: 978 1 84661 875 8

FAMILY LAW/ JORDANS

www.familylaw.co.uk

Available as an eBook at
www.familylaw.co.uk/ebooks



TOWARD ASSURING FAIR ASSESSMENT OF PARENTS WITHIN CARE PROCEEDINGS

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers

This is a new title from Jordan Publishing’s Family Law imprint and as such, is a detailed guide to this especially difficult area of the law.

The germ of the idea for producing this book emerged from a conversation between its two authors, Gemma Farrington and Simon Johnson while they were waiting for their case to be called on. It was a case involving care proceedings which required an application for a direction that an assessment of the couple should be made by an independent social worker.

You can infer from this and correctly that both authors, experienced barristers, have had considerable experience in dealing with such cases, arguing either for or against the making of such directions. Their practical experience incorporated in this book will be of immense help to practitioners dealing with this area of law.

The stated aim of the book is to provide practical help to lawyers and other professionals dealing with childcare proceedings and with the assessment of parents. The book focuses on applications for orders pursuant to Children Act 1989 s 38(6), although other types of assessment are also discussed.

The authors offer up the quite startling statistic that in 2011 -- a typical year -- applications for care orders were made that involved 29,492 children, adding the assertion by the state that each of these children was ‘suffering, or… likely to suffer, significant harm’.

If the court agreed that this was what was happening, referring to a ‘threshold’ for state intervention, a care or supervision order was required to be made. The process resulted in 2011 in 15,947 of such orders being issued. The book obviously goes into further and necessary detail, but these statistics alone do indicate the grim reality.

As the authors also point out, the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal have only recently re-emphasised the gravity of the decisions that face courts when dealing with child care cases. Such cases inevitably generate a tension, say the authors, between the wish of parents to have their parenting fairly assessed and the imperative need of children for the earliest possible decisions about their future.

The addition of this book to the legal literature is timely in that it offers a practical guide to the making and opposing of assessment applications. It gives advice on how to prepare and manage a case involving such applications and provides an authoritative account of current guidance from the appellate courts on the circumstances in which assessments can or cannot be ordered.

Family lawyers in particular will appreciate this clear, detailed and thorough overview of procedures and practice in this especially sensitive area of the law.

The publication date is cited as at January 2014.