We received a petition asking:
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to stop allowing children to be put back into the care of abusers.”
Details of Petition:
“There are many cases of child abusers who kill or seriously harm their own children, or allow others to do the same. If they go on to have another child then there is a risk that child will be allowed to stay, or be put back into the care of the abuser. This has to be stopped or the cases of child murder and serious abuse will not stop.”
· Read the petition
· Petitions homepage
Read the Government’s response
The Government has made clear its determination to make sure that children in this country are protected from harm in the most effective way possible. We must all do everything we can to reduce the risk of children suffering abuse and neglect. Statutory agencies have a duty to protect children and there are certain processes which they have to follow in order to respond to any indication of a child being at risk.
The processes for protecting children have their basis in legislation. Section 47 of the Children Act 1989 places a duty on local authorities to make enquiries:
“where there is reasonable cause to suspect that a child who lives, or who is found in their area is suffering, or is likely to suffer significant harm”.
Other local agencies, including health services, are required to help the local authority with its enquiries so that the local authority can decide whether action is needed to protect the child. The local authority will make its assessment by considering:
- What are the development needs of the child;
- Are the parents able to respond appropriately to the child’s needs. Is the child being adequately protected from significant harm, and are the parents able to promote the child’s health and development;
- What impact are family functioning and history, the wider family and environmental factors having on the parents’ capacity to respond to their child’s needs and the child’s developmental progress; and
- Is action needed to safeguard and promote the welfare of a child?
If the child is at immediate risk of harm, local agencies can take quick action to secure the safety of a child. The need for emergency action will be apparent if the child is at risk of neglect or abuse. Normally emergency action will follow an immediate strategy discussion between police, local authority social care and other services. The local authority may apply to a court for an Emergency Protection Order so that the child can be taken immediately into care on a temporary basis. The local authority must then decide whether to initiate care proceedings.
If the child is at continuing risk of harm, the local authority’s social care service will set up a child protection conference. The aim of the conference is to enable the professionals most involved with the child and family, and the family themselves, to assess all the relevant information and to plan how best to safeguard the child. This conference may result in an agreed child protection plan which will be subject to regular review.
It should be stressed that local authorities are also required to follow these procedures when there are concerns about an unborn child. If there are concerns that an unborn child may be at risk of significant harm, perhaps because of evidence of previous abuse or neglect by the parent, it is possible for social care services to convene a child protection conference before the child’s birth. If the local authority assesses that a newborn child would be at immediate risk of significant harm from the moment of birth, then they can make an application to a court for an Interim Care Order (ICO). Based on the evidence before it, including evidence about parents’ past care of children, the court would need to decide whether the local authority should share parental responsibility for the child and determine where the child should live.
How proceedings will be concluded in the case of any individual child will involve the court considering a range of options to ensure that the child can thrive and grow up safe from harm. For example, depending on individual circumstances, it might be possible to work with the child’s parent(s) to rehabilitate the child to their care or to secure a placement for the child in their wider family. In other cases, it will be necessary to plan for the child to be permanently placed with alternative substitute family which might eventually lead to the child being adopted.
delicious
digg
facebook
