Private law proceedings

[DesperateDad]

We are currently in Chikd Protection proceedings - we had an initial conference and recently had the follow-up conference after 3 months. Both were farcical and the decision was taken to remain on CP for a further 6months.
After the core fam group meeting yesterday (where only myself, the mother and the social worker attended (as she sent no reminder to health worker, GP or nursery (who therefore didn’t attend), I asked her what she envisioned the next stages being.
She loosely mentioned ChildinNeed (although to be honest her tone made that sound unlikely) and went on to suggest a possibility of Private Law pending the outcome report of a risk assessment I undertook earlier in the week, ironically suggesting I might like that given the fact I keep arguing the inaccuracies of what social services write, say and do.
What is private law in this situation?!

[Miserylovescompany2]

The SW will know fine well that unless someone has a bottomless pit of money they don't stand a chance going up against CS. They will chuck all sorts at you and basically wear you down. You have a better chance of reporting each SW individually to their regulator - you'd need solid facts to do so.

Also not many solicitors would even accept such a private law case. Unless they knew there was lots of money in it for them...not many will touch or go up against CS in private law!

OFSTED regulate each local authority. Have a google at your county's most recent report and direct your concern towards them. No doubt you'll get a generic response stating they will follow up in their next inspection.

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

We are currently in Chikd Protection proceedings - we had an initial conference and recently had the follow-up conference after 3 months. Both were farcical and the decision was taken to remain on CP for a further 6months.
After the core fam group meeting yesterday (where only myself, the mother and the social worker attended (as she sent no reminder to health worker, GP or nursery (who therefore didn’t attend), I asked her what she envisioned the next stages being.
She loosely mentioned ChildinNeed (although to be honest her tone made that sound unlikely) and went on to suggest a possibility of Private Law pending the outcome report of a risk assessment I undertook earlier in the week, ironically suggesting I might like that given the fact I keep arguing the inaccuracies of what social services write, say and do.
What is private law in this situation?!

Dear DesperateDad

Thank you for posting again.

The result of the child protection review conference was that the children should remain an child protection plans for a further period. It is unfortunate that the social worker did not invite the other professionals to the core group meeting as you say. However, I would have thought that the date of the core group meeting would have been decided at the review conference. If the professionals in question were not at the meeting then they should have been informed of the date.

During a conversation with the social worker there was mention of child in need. When there is a child protection plan in place if the decision is to remove the child then it will usually be that child protection is downgraded to child in need. It is unlikely that children’s services would stop their involvement without a period of monitoring under a child in need plan which could be for a limited time (perhaps 6 weeks or so) depending on local policy.

Your risk assessment has not been completed so that may be one of the reasons why the children remain on child protection plan.

Regarding the social worker suggestion of private law, I am not sure what this means as private law proceedings usually involve individuals applying to the court. If, for example, there are issues regarding contact, one parent can apply to the court for a child arrangement order for contact to be decided on. This might happen if children’s services after the risk assessment advises that contact should not happen and the children’s mother followed this through, then you as the father could make a private law application against the mother.

If children’s services make an application to the court for an order in respect of children this is public law. I am not entirely sure what the social worker was thinking of when she mentioned private law.

I hope this clarifies private law for you.

Should you wish to discuss your situation in respect of children’s services involvement you can telephone our advice line on 0808 801 0366. The advice line is open from 9.30am to 3pm Monday to Friday.

Hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Suzie