strange legal advice about telling my story

[sadowska]

Hi,

I hope someone will be able to help me with this question. It's not a short story so please bear with me! Fortunately both my children are at home with me and there is no social services involvement at the moment. However 6 years ago when my first son was born it was a different story. I had post partum psychosis (a severe mental health problem following childbirth) and at the same time my son became dehydrated because of feeding problems and had to be admitted to hospital. Social Services concluded he had come to significant harm so they insisted that I go to a mother and baby unit with him for observation before I could take him home. Eventually we had a case conference and he wasn't put on the at risk register; they concluded he was a child in need of support (although we never had any).
5 years later I had my second baby and got post partum psychosis again (but baby was fine). We went to the mother and baby unit again, a very different experience from the first time, with no social services involvement. Subsequently I've written a book about my experience of being mad (the second time around). The book does refer to the first time I was ill and the fact that social services made me go to the unit, and that my son came close to death. The book is anonymised with fake names, although I name the hospital where I was.
My mum has asked a lawyer friend if there are any legal issues about the book and he came back with some worrying, and quite strange, comments. He says that if I identify my first son, explicitly or implicitly, I would be breaching his right to privacy and social services would be likely to take action against me for this. In particular he said that the involvement of social services the first time is confidential. As I said, the book is anonymised but I think the idea is that going from the name of the hospital someone could somehow figure out who I am and therefore who my son is (I doubt it but there you go).
I don't remember ever being told by social services that their involvement was confidential or that I wasn't allowed to talk about it publicly. I could be wrong. I know my son has a right to privacy but I also have a right to freedom of expression, and my book is about my experience rather than about him, although it does talk about him. I'm aware that thousands of people share details about their children, including stories about social services, photos, stories about their life, etc etc, every day online so I can't understand why my situation is 'special'.
The lawyer is apparently not the risk adverse type, and he apparently knows what he is talking about particularly as his wife is a senior family court official or something. But I just can't make sense of the advice. Can anyone help please?
thanks

[blueplain]

I have been writting a story myself so I would also be interested in the legal issues around this. I have used different names of people and places so I would of thought it would be ok. Now I am doubtfull from reading your post. So I shall be keeping an eye on this thread.

[MarkEd]

Can't you just change the name of the hospital? St. Cecilia's - patron saint of music, or St. Lawrence - patron saints of knives...?

[Suzie, FRG Adviser]

Hi Sadowska

My name is Suzie and I am an adviser at Family Rights Group. I'm sorry for the delay in responding to your query.

You have been advised that the involvement of Children's Services in your first child's life is "confidential". This is true in the sense that Children's Services have a responsibility to keep your family's details confidential. It does not place any legal restrictions on you, however.

If a case goes to care proceedings then these proceedings are closed. This means that it would be unlawful to disclose details of a care proceedings case to someone who is not a party and ceratinly to write about them publically. Outside of the court process, however, there is no such restriction.

Having said this, confidentiality is clearly very important. When sharing information such as this publically, it is certainly advisable to avoid any details that might identify a child in order to promote their best interests. You seem to have been careful to do this already but, as MarkEd has suggested, perhaps it is worth going back and considering anything further that could be changed in order to add an extra layer of confidentiality.

The only issue I can see in terms of Children's Services may be that if, in their view, the information you are making public does identify your child/ren and this puts them at risk of harm, there may be a role for them in terms of investigating this harm. They may be concerned, for example, that you are not considering the impact of your actions on the children and not putting their needs first.

I can only see this being an issue if you have clearly identified the children and/ or are writing something which is extremely controversial, however.

Perhaps the best action would be to go back to your legal contact and ask him to explain the issues he has raised in more detail, including the possible implications and the legal framework he is concerned about.

I hope this is of some help.

Best Wishes

Suzie
FRG Adviser