Legal Issues- challenges for FGC practice

[Sean Haresnape]

We will shortly be rewriting the 'guidance to the courts on family group conferences' and thought that before we do this it would help us to get updated information on how FGC services are experiencing the legal system as regards their practice.
So if you have any examples of how the courts and/or the requirements pre proceedings are impacting we would like to hear. You may have examples of positive relations with the courts or perhaps where your practice has been challenged. We would like to hear so we can reflect you experiences in the advice we write for the courts. Please post replies here or forward to sharesnape@frg.org.uk

[sarahherts]

We have recently been asked to submit a court statement detailing the accounts of all visits to family and friends during the preparation of an FGC. The coordinator had provided information regarding a CP concern but she was then asked by the SW to provide details of all her visits. I was not copied in to this request and the coordinator sent these directly to her.

The SW passed this information to legal and we were asked to provide a court statement to go with this and the coordinator may have to give evidence.

Aside from the CP concern the records were basically informal discussions about how family see each other. The family were told that the CP concern would be passed on but not these informal discussions.

Our policy is that we do not take case notes and this was criticised by our legal department. The team are self employed and would only write up CP concerns.

If courts start insisting on having the records of all our discussions with families in the preparation stage then I feel we are in danger of losing the engagement of the all families we work with. In this particular case the family cancelled the review and have withdrawn their support.

[Sean Haresnape]

We still intend to update this document, and would still value any comments re FGC practice relating to legal issues.