Read our news updates to find out about our latest views, work and developments.
On Tuesday 8 February, CoramBAAF hosted a webinar on ‘The National Adoption Strategy – Why, Where and When’ for members and partners from across the adoption sector. Read the overview or watch the webinar in full.
Linked cases to the Somerset judgement have been delayed by the discovery that the issues are common in several local authorities and it is not yet clear how many children may be affected. While the President of the Family Division considers how they can be dealt with, the following recommendations have been made.
The recent Somerset legal case continues to trouble local authorities across England. In Somerset County Council v NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group & Anor [2021] EWHC 3004(Fam), the court was told that the issues in the case were not confined to Somerset County Council, and this seems to be being borne out by a high level of queries being received on the CoramBAAF Advice Line.
CoramBAAF submits eight ideas to the Care Review's Call for Ideas.
On 24 November the High Court handed down a judgement in Somerset County Council v NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group & Anor [2021] EWHC 3004(Fam) dealing with the lawfulness of placement orders made in ten separate cases. The court found that the Agency Decision Maker (ADM) had not made the decision that the child should be placed for adoption in accordance with the Adoption Agencies Regulations (AAR) 2005.
The President of the Family Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, recently published his long awaited review of transparency in the family court. We were pleased to see the clear priority of the privacy and safeguarding needs of children in both published judgments and in any reporting of proceedings and have issued a joint response with the National Youth Advocacy Service.
The roundtable report summarises the findings from a roundtable event held in July 2021, highlighting key areas where the sector could do better in supporting care-experienced people to experience positive relationships that will help shape their futures.
This is an important case of a fostering agency being challenged over whether their recruitment policy is discriminatory or not – and whether it is lawful for a fostering agency to only accept heterosexual, married, evangelical practicing Christians as foster carers.
Josh MacAlister, the Chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, gave a keynote speech talking about his experiences so far, the timescales of the review and what the review will be doing during the autumn and winter following the publication of the Case for Change in July.
Alexandra Conroy Harris, CoramBAAF's Legal Consultant, reflects on the implications, and unintended consequences, of the amendments to the Care Planning, Placement and Case Reviews Regulations, which come into effect on 9 September 2021.
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