Children Act 1989

Rule: The court ruled that all children under the age of 18 should have the same rights as adults. Analysis: these requirements included adequate notice of charges, notification of both the parents and the child of the juvenile's right to counsel, opportunity for confrontation and cross-examination at the hearings, and adequate safeguards against

Enquiries and serious case reviews take place when a child dies subsequent to having suffered abuse and/or neglect: this is what happened in the Baby P case and in the case of Victoria Climbie, which then led to a serious shake up in the child protection system and the issuing of the Children Act 2004 and guidelines for the early years foundation stage. The Victoria Climbie case also highlighted the poor communication between agencies and that point has also consequently been addressed. The Local Safeguarding Children Board also decides if a serious case review is needed in cases where harm has come to a child through neglect and abuse. One cannot stress enough the importance of cooperation and communication between agencies in preventing and

Children have been found to experience much higher levels of communication difficulty in the criminal justice system and this diminishes their ability to give evidence with the coherence desired by the court to facilitate prosecution of crime. In the case of R-v- Green youth court, the court held that There was no absolute right for a defendant to be allowed to face his accusers. Special measures to protect a vulnerable or intimidated witness from the accused would not normally be applicable to a defendant witness, but other means were available to a court to assist a defendant in ensuring that where he had communication difficulties, his case was put across properly. The court had an obligation to achieve fairness in each particular case, and that requirement was met by the system. This application was dismissed but the ruling gave critical understanding that a child under 17 years qualifies to be a vulnerable witness if they have communication difficulty and vulnerability was more circumstantial than mere age

A serious case review is actioned when a child suffers as result of neglect. Organisations will conduct reviews to ensure lessons are learned and that we learn from the case to make improvements and put measures into place to prevent a repeat occurring. Cases will be reviewed when a death incurs, a child is subject to serous sexual abuse, suicide takes place, abuse as result of inter agency placements or a life threatening injury is received to a child. Lessons from these reviews must be clearly identified and acted upon to see change. Inter agencies should improve their practices towards safeguarding children and the findings published so that lessons can be learned.

It sets out the legal responsibilities and duties of services, including the Local Authority in regards to safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. It also provides guidelines for monitoring the effectiveness of the services that are being provided to those who are in need of them. The childâ€TMs welfare and their safeguarding is the most important thing and is the centre of the legislation. The updated version clarifies anything that has been found to be unclear in the previous version- Working Together to Safeguard Children

With this ideology and controversy originally annotated in the Bible, the welfare of our children has been a debate throughout history (Kadushin & Martin, 1981, p. 2, para. 1). The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act of 1974 (CAPTA) established strict guidelines in order to

Lord Laming produced a report called Every Child Matters which should ensure that each child should have their basic needs met i.e. food, water, warmth, be loved, feel safe respected and able to reach their full potential. The report has 5 outcomes: • being healthy: enjoying good physical and mental health and living a healthy lifestyle • staying safe: being protected from harm and neglect • enjoying and achieving: getting the most out of life and developing the skills for adulthood • making a positive contribution: being involved with the community and society and not engaging in anti-social or offending behaviour • Economic well-being: not being prevented by economic disadvantage from achieving their full potential in life. The needs and views of the child must not go un-noticed by putting the needs of the adult first. The wishes and feelings of the child should be a priority.

• Be told what their rights are. United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child 1989 The UK signed up to this treaty in 1991. This sets out the rights of children in a set of 54 articles, some of these are to ensure children are safe and looked after. All the countries who have signed up to this are legally obligated to implement legislation that relates to the articles. Some of the articles that relate to the rights of children include: • Children need to be shown love and feel secure • Children have the right to family life • A child’s right to be protected from all forms of abuse or neglect

When two partners have disputes about the child custody, a trial will be conducted in order to solve this issue. Before the trial, the judge may require to the parents and the children to participate in a custody evaluation. Custody evaluators are crucial to the final decision, as their main objective is to provide assessments on the child’s needs and best interests. The custody evaluations recommendations are guiding the judges and attorneys in their final decision. In fact, the results of a study conducted on custody evaluations in practice demonstrates that the final decisions made by the judge were quite similar to the ones proposed by the evaluator with some little modifications, “those similarities between evaluator recommendation and

Families, children and young people have the right to live free from abuse, harm and neglect. If harm or abuse is suspected or alleged the child or young person has the right to be listened to, to be respected and to kept informed and be involved (where appropriate) in any decision making. †̃Anyone working with children should see and speak to the child; listen to what they say; take their views seriously; and work with them collaboratively when deciding how to support their needs.â€TM (Working Together to Safeguard Children) The Children Act 1989 requires that local authorities give due regard to a childâ€TMs wishes when determining what services to provide.

When working with children and young people, it is important that their safety and well-being is paramount. There are a number of guidelines, policies and procedures which cover the safeguarding of pupils, including; Working together to safeguard children (2013)- This policy sets out guidelines of how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004. As well as laying out these guidelines, the document also provides a summary of:  The nature of child abuse and neglect and the impact it may have on children and young people.  How to operate the best practice in child protection procedure. 

Services that may be provided, in liaison with local authority childrenâ€TMs social care services, include the provision of reports for court, and direct work with children, parents and families. Services may be provided either within general or specialist multi-disciplinary teams, depending on the severity and complexity of the problem. In addition, consultation and training may be offered to services in the community – including, for example, social care schools, primary healthcare professionals and nurseries. Question: Question 10

Sometimes, especially when the children are still very young as with Michael and Debbie, court proceedings can be stressful and detrimental to the children. Therefore, it is necessary that all other avenues be tried, such that court is the last resort if all else fails. However, in this case, the fact that the couple’s counsel referred them to a mediator already shows that they could not reach an agreement on their own. Therefore, this mediation process needs to be fruitful, because otherwise the only other option would be to go to court, so that rather than negotiate, each party will be given a set of contraventions to

Mediation is a form of alternative dispute resolution in which a neutral third party helps disputants resolve a conflict (Bishop, p. 64). The employee/supervisor mediation was my first experience role-playing as a mediator in a dispute. I enjoyed the experience and recognized how significant the role of a mediator was. There are many strategies/avenues a mediator can take when conducting a mediation and it is imperative that the mediator is able to adapt their mediation strategy in order to satisfy the party’s needs. This in-class role-play gave me the opportunity to apply all the knowledge that I learned during the course, to a real workplace scenario.

John Galtung recommended that conflict could be observed as a triangle, with contradiction (C), attitude (A) and behaviour. He explained that all three aspects must be there in a full conflict condition. Contradiction is an important factor of a conflict which mentioned through the parties, their intentions and the clash of interests between them. Attitude comprises the parties’ views and misunderstandings of each other and of themselves. Behaviour is the third factor which can involve coercion or cooperation, gestures defining conciliation or hostility.