Family Law Blogger in London

Children’s Rights Director Roger Morgan has published the annual Children’s care monitor, which gives nearly 2,000 children’s views through an online survey.

This year, the monitor survey included a new focus on children’s experiences of placement change in care. Just over half (55%) of the children in care in the 2011 survey said they were only given a week or less notice before they were last moved to live in a different placement. Twenty-three per cent reported that they were given no notice at all of their last move and were told on the same day they were moved.

As in previous years, the 2011 survey found a high level of separation of siblings in care. Nearly three quarters (73%) of children in care who also had a sibling in care reported that they had been separated in different placements.

Children in children’s homes were found to be more likely than children in foster homes to be separated from siblings in care. In fact, 96% of children surveyed in children’s homes who also had siblings in the care system had been separated from brothers or sisters.

Up to the time of the survey, the average number of times children responding had moved placements had risen from 4 in 2010 to 5 in 2011. Well over half (57%) of children in care surveyed said they had no choice of placement the last time they were moved.

The Ministry of Justice has published statistics on activity in the county, family, magistrates’ and Crown courts of England and Wales. The figures give a summary overview of the volume of cases dealt with by these courts over time, with statistics also broken down for the main types of case involved.

Family cases deal with issues such as parental disputes, child protection cases, divorce and separation, and cases of domestic violence. Volumes of many types of family cases have shown a fairly steady trend in recent years.

Key statistics include:

• There were 30,400 decrees absolute granted for the dissolution of marriage in the third quarter of 2011; a decrease of 1% compared to the third quarter of 2010.
• There were 5,500 domestic violence orders made in the third quarter of 2011; a drop of 14% on the 6,500 in the same period in the previous year. Domestic violence applications decreased 15% to 5,500 in the third quarter of 2011, compared with the corresponding quarter in 2010.
• On matters affecting children, there were 7,700 children involved in public law applications made in the third quarter of 2011, a 28% increase on the same period for 2010.
• There were 30,200 children involved in private law applications made in the third quarter of 2011; a 5% decrease on the third quarter of 2010. The trend in the number of children involved in private law applications has been downward since late 2009.

A woman in Ohio has lost custody of her overweight son after social care workers were concerned that his weight level was putting his health at risk, reports Fox11online.com.

Fostering requires a lot of skill, and foster carers must be trusted and given the support they need to do their job properly, England’s children’s minister Tim Loughton has said.