This guest blog post is written by Sarah Phillimore, a barrister practising at St John’s Chambers. She tweets as @svphillimore.
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there – An Unapologetic Rant
I will start by setting out my credentials. I am no reform refusenik. I think it was 2001 when I wrote my first article about what seemed to be the knee jerk response in care proceedings to appoint both a psychologist and psychiatrist. These experts would often do little more than repeat the social worker’s chronology, add a few paragraphs of assessment then recommend a programme of therapeutic intervention for which no one could or would pay and which was way beyond the child’s timescales in any event. Experts were not being used in helpful ways as often the letters of instruction lacked focus and clarity.
Therefore I accept that many care proceedings had become bloated behemoths, dragging on for months even years beyond which the framers of the Children Act had thought likely. I accept that it is a reasonable assumption that delay is bad for children and parents. I don’t accept care proceedings became elongated because professionals in this field were lazy or stupid or wanted to milk the system. Most of us who do this work are keen at all times to do what we think will secure the best outcome for the children. These are difficult decisions with enormous consequences and we wanted to get them right. In an area of law with such serious ramifications for all involved, and which is sometimes heavily reliant upon the understanding and application of psychological research, it is hardly surprising that lawyers and the court wanted as much help as they could get.
However, when dealing with children’s lives, decisions generally need to be made swiftly and on the best evidence and I concede the way in which care proceedings have been operating for the past ten years was likely to thwart both goals.