Court of Appeal rules the 3 Sara Sharif judges can be identified next week.

All agencies including Cafcass and other social work departments struggle to recruit and retain staff. 12 years ago, when I last had formal contact with social work students, I was told their tutors advised against going into children and families work. They said it’s much harder than other sw ‘and you can find the Daily Mail on your doorstep if anything goes wrong

On what we have read in the press, it’s hard to understand how Sara was placed with her father. We haven’t seen all the evidence before the Judge. From my reading, it became a public law case, which means a Children’s Guardian not a Family Court Advisor. That means a more thorough assessment and overview rather than a Section 7 report. Whatever , something went horribly wrong here.

My experience is that is a Court returns a child to her parents after care proceedings, agencies are focussed on supporting the placement.

Thanks for pointing out the difference here Iam64.

Of course every case is different, but my experience of the FC system has been eye-opening to say the least. However, I am not allowed to speak about it...

I’m sorry you had a difficult experience keeping quiet. It’s always tough x

Difficult is not the word. I withdrew in the end because it became a farcical circus. As a professional person I was appalled at the chaos and inefficiency. In my job I would have been sacked several times over but these people are not accountable and some (not all) completely lacking in common sense. The whole fiasco is not fit for purpose and needs a radical overhaul.
No one's listening though- they don't care about the kids, that much was obvious to me.
Now I do what I can in my own way and will never trust any of the statutary services again.

Its disgraceful the system has been allowed to be run down for so long so people have no time anymore to make links, keep contacts, do proper follow ups, write proper reports, ask more questions, get proper training and supervision. I'm sure there may be some bad apples as with everywhere but I see failings are often systemic.

It's mostly due to austerity and the lack of funding, cuts to services etc.

I spoke to a mediator who said she left the legal profession because the family services had been cut to the bone and she could no longer do the job she had been doing for years with obvious focus on the family and child welfare.

Even the mediation system has broken down and is no more than a tick box.

Of course no one knows this until there is a severe family breakdown and then they realise it is every man/woman for themselves and forget the kids.

keeping quiet, after local authority teams of guardians ad lit em were moved into Cafcass case loads trebled. Prior to Cafcass guardians had to have a minimum 5 years in safeguarding roles. Within a few years, newly qualified sw were being appointed to Cafcass