Care or Public Law proceedings can be daunting, particularly for families encountering the process for the first time. In this first of a two-part introduction to care proceedings, barristers Jack Phillips and Joanna Smith explain how and why local authorities become involved in family life. They discuss the concerns that can lead to care proceedings, what happens during the pre-proceedings process, the importance of legal representation, and what families can expect if proceedings are issued.
Read episode transcript:
Welcome back to 14 by FOURTEEN. The family law podcast brought to you by FOURTEEN Chambers a leading family law set in London. It’s a quick hello from me today. Your usual host Tatiana Rocha. I’m handing over to Jack Phillips and Joanna Smith to give you an introduction into the world of public law. Enjoy!
Welcome to another episode of 14 by FOURTEEN. The wonderful Tatiana is not here today so stepping in are myself Jack Phillips and Joanna Smith. We are both barristers at FOURTEEN chambers. Joanna works across family law with a focus on children and care proceedings and I also work across family law including children and finance with an increasing focus on public law.
This episode is part one of an introduction to care proceedings. This episode is aimed to assist people who find themselves facing care proceedings or professionals either new to the area or those seeking a basic refresher. Today we will be covering the following topics: what care proceedings are, how children and families might find themselves in care proceedings, pre-proceedings including red flags to look for and what might happen in the lead up to care proceedings being issued, representation and length of care proceedings. So Joanna, what are our care proceedings?
Well they are when the state, so your local authority and more often or not your social worker, is getting involved with the family’s life and it’s when social workers are worried about the care or support that a child is receiving. The concerns that we normally see crop up from social workers are things like neglect, general neglect in the home or the care that a parent is giving to a child. There might be concerns about the parents or their partners and domestic abuse and the children being exposed to that. There might be concerns about drug or alcohol addictions again of the parents or people in the wider family that the children are exposed to at which can be concerning. There might be concerns about criminal activity, either again the parents or wider family and that the children are being exposed to people who are involved in criminal activity. Sometimes with slightly older children you see concerns about whether the child is at risk of being groomed on the internet or in person and whether or not the parents are doing enough to ensure the children are safe from that. Essentially the concerns are anything that the parents should be protecting the child from and if that is falling short in the social workers are worried that they’re not being protected from those things. The concerns and care proceedings can be very similar to those concerns that you might see in private children caught disputes but they tend to be a little bit more heightened and more significant in care proceedings because it means that things have got to a point where the social workers are so concerned that they are involved whereas private children proceedings you may not have a social worker involved at all. It may be that it’s just two carers who can’t agree on what’s right for a child and go to court to see what is the right decision and the court will help them reach that whereas care proceedings because the professionals are involved it tends to mean that the concerns are worse than they would otherwise be.
So Joanna what is the purpose of care proceedings?
Well the purpose of proceedings is to make sure that the children are safe and ideally can they be cared for by their family and the aim of those proceedings will be looking to see the concerns that the social workers have can the parents reassure the professionals within proceedings that they can make changes so that the children can either stay with them or can be returned to them if they’ve been removed or if the parents haven’t been able to make those changes quickly enough the court will be looking at or who else can care for this child safely. Can it be someone in the family? Does it have to be a professional carer? Hence the name care proceedings because often children are placed in too foster care and the court will be looking at what interventions, what courses, what assessments the parents might need to engage in to reassure the professionals and the court that they can make those changes they want to see if they’ve made them sufficiently and they want to know if they can do so quickly enough for the children because the court won’t want proceedings hanging over them for too long and overall the court will always try to keep families together where possible. So Jack can you tell us how parties, children, families might find themselves ending up in care proceedings?
Yes so there’s different ways that people might find themselves involved in care proceedings it might be that it’s quite suddenly if for example there’s an unexplained injury to a child that will lead to an investigation being carried out by the police or the local authority and if the authorities are not satisfied that it wasn’t the parent or care as fault then proceedings will be issued most likely but more often there will have been other steps before people reach care proceedings so pre-proceedings and sometimes parties might have been involved in private children hearings where the state is not involved and the court can actually order a local authority to undertake a section 37 report which is asking the local authority to look at whether they should actually initiate public law care proceedings and if the concerns are sufficient they will do so. Now some of the other steps you mentioned there that might happen before we go into full blown care proceedings. Parents might find themselves faced with something called a section 47 investigation now that is an investigation that the local authority with the police will carry out when they’re concerned that there is significant harm possibly being caused to a child in any of the possible ways. Parents also find themselves confronted with something called a initial child protection conference that is something that the professionals will hold after what’s called a strategy discussion and that’s when they again they’re really concerned about whether the child is being supported or cared for in the right way and whether the parents are making enough changes and that conference might result in the child being put on what is called a child protection plan. Now a child protection plan again is it’s a serious issue it is an indicator that the professionals think that matters for the child are getting worse rather than better and it will set out a plan after a meeting with lots of professionals being involved it will set out a plan of what support needs to be offered to the family what interventions the parents need to engage with to reassure the professionals that things are getting better of than worse. There can also be something called a legal planning meeting and that means that the social workers are getting legal advice because the situation is not improving and they don’t think the children are being protected enough. How important is it Joanna the parents engage if they’re having a legal planning meeting?
Yes I mean the legal planning meeting they might not be a part of but if they hear that a legal planning meeting is taking place and after the legal planning meeting they might get a letter saying that we want you to engage in what’s called the PLO which stands for the public law outline but actually is used to mean pre proceedings then it’s really important for parents to engage because that in that legal planning meeting the local authority will either decide if it’s serious enough to issue straight away and get into court or whether they want to offer the parents a further period of monitoring before we go into court proceedings. So if that further period of monitoring has been offered and support is offered then the parents really need to engage in that because that really is the last opportunity to avoid going to court but if any of these meetings or conferences or investigations are happening about your child then it is a real warning sign. The professionals think things are getting worse rather than better and the parent the best thing the parent can do is to work with the local authority in any of these scenarios to try and reduce concerns because otherwise they may escalate to care proceedings. So if a parent finds themselves facing care proceedings because the local authority has issued and those concerns have escalated what does someone need to do about being represented in care proceedings Jack?
Well the first thing is that they should look at getting representation. Now for those people with parental responsibility they are automatically entitled to legal aid it is not means or merit tested and they can access it and they are entitled to it during the PLO process as well. Parents or carers can have that representation during the PLO meetings it’s not a case of them getting the representation after the horse has bolted so to speak so when they’re in care proceedings already but they can actually access that important representation and support prior to the proceedings being initiated. Now for those people that have carers or involved and they don’t have parental responsibility would be means or merit tested as to whether they’re entitled to legal aid but they should inquire with solicitors for support and advice around that because there may be options available to them. And one thing as well Joanna I think listeners may have already picked up on this earlier but within not only law but also within local authority terminology there is so much jargon and acronyms that can be really confusing for people who are new to this area and new to the call system as is navigating this extremely daunting and serious process so legal representation can really assist with all with all of that and I would encourage people facing care proceedings to access it. Joanna for those people facing care proceedings how long can they expect the whole process to last?
Well the courts will be very concerned for proceedings to not take any longer than 26 weeks which is six months now often they can run longer than that but there has been increasing pressure on the court system to ensure that proceedings don’t take longer than those six months and in those six months the court is looking for the best solution within that time frame for the child so as I’ve said before they will be looking at has the parent or care are made enough changes that the child can continue to live with them or can be sent back to them if the parent has make changes then they will of course be arguing for that at the end of proceedings and if they have made changes the local authority may agree that that’s the way proceedings should end but it’s very stressful for everyone but including the children to have care proceedings hanging over them so the court is not going to leave proceedings open in the long term just to see if a parent can make enough changes and that’s why parents and carers have to make the changes as fast as they can straight out of the block at the beginning of care proceedings to have the best chance of success to show that they’re doing all they can within the time available to them and it’s also important to look at having alternative carers assessed early on as well so that just because there might be a grandmother for example that’s willing to look after a child if they’re willing to look after a child as a backup carer if the parent if the child can’t go back to the parent then that grandmother for example needs to be assessed early on rather than coming forward late in the day because if they come forward late in the day the court may not allow them to be assessed because that time frame of six months is nearly over or in fact has already gone over.
Thank you for listening to this episode of 14 by FOURTEEN. If you would like to find out more information or wish to instruct a barrister at FOURTEEN chambers then please contact our clerking team. Their email address is clerks@fourteen.co.uk that’s the word fourteen not the number or you can visit our website at www.fourteen.co.uk please stay tuned for further episodes including a part two of an introduction to care proceedings.
