Reforming Law and Practice

Family Rights Group was founded by social workers, lawyers and families in 1974 in response to the injustices experienced by many families involved with social services and the unnecessary separation of children from their families.

We have had some significant successes over the last 40 years:

• Then local authorities could take away parental rights without going to court. Now they can’t.
• Then parents were not included in their children’s case conferences nor in reviews if their children were in care. Now partnership working is enshrined in legislation.
• Then grandparents had no legal means to seek contact with their grandchildren if they were in care. Now they do.

We have had a significant impact on the development of services to children and families. We were instrumental in influencing the preparation of the 1989 Children Act and associated guidance, which introduced the key principle of working in partnership with parents to secure the best interests of children.

These achievements are in large part due to us consistently bringing evidence of injustices to the attention of politicians, practitioners and the media, and putting forward workable solutions in the interest of the child.

As ever, Family Rights Group is continuing to campaign for further reforms to improve the lives of children and families.

The Care Crisis Review reports can be found here.  You can also find campaigns and policy briefings written by Family Rights Group on behalf of the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Kinship Care, the Parliamentary Taskforce on Kinship Care or the Kinship Care Alliance.

If you are looking for information on a campaign or a briefing being led by Family Rights Group that you cannot find on the site, please contact office@frg.org.

• Prison and Care Leavers, August 2015. Family Rights Group's submission to the Prison Reform Trust Inquiry in to the experiences of care leavers in the prison system.
• Families and immigration and asylum, September 2015 Family Rights Group’s response to the Home Office consultation on reforming support for failed asylum seekers and other illegal migrants.
• The Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. Family Rights Group sought to strengthen the involvement of parents and wider family members in decisions about a looked after child.
• Munro Review of Child Protection. April 2011. Family Rights Group submission to this significant Review of the child protection system.
• The Laming Review of Child Protection, December 2008. Family Rights Group submission to the Review. The inquiry followed the death of a young child, Peter Connelly.