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Assessment of pre-proceedings processes in children's social care
Creator
Masson, J, University of Bristol
Dickens, J, University of East Anglia
Study number / PID
851380 (UKDA)
10.5255/UKDA-SN-851380 (DOI)
Data access
Restricted
Series
Not available
Abstract
The Public Law Outline (PLO), introduced in April 2008 changed what was required of local authorities seeking to protect children through court proceedings. It imposed a pre-proceedings process to be used in all cases where the threshold for legal intervention (Children Act 1989, s.31) was met but proceedings to protect children were not immediately required. The process involves the local authority sending the parents a letter setting out their concerns and inviting them to a formal meeting with the social worker. The letter entitles the parents to legal aid for advice and representation at a pre-proceedings meeting at which plans for the children will be discussed. The process is intended to avoid the unnecessary use of care proceedings by encouraging the parents to work co-operatively with children’s social care services to improve their parenting or, if this is not possible, to narrow the issues in dispute and ensure proceedings are better prepared.
The aim of the research is to examine the operation of the pre-proceedings process to see whether and how it is achieving what was intended. Specifically, the research establishes: 1) The extent to which local authorities use processes before starting care proceedings; 2) The similarities and differences between cases where process is and is not used. 3) The practices social workers, local authority lawyers, parents and parents representatives adopt in pre-proceedings meetings; 4) The impact of the process on child protection cases; and 5) parents' perceptions of the pre-proceedings process and its impact on their relationship with the Children's Social Care Department.
Data sources included: Cases schedules completed by researchers from 207 Local authority legal department case files and court bundles; 69 in-depth interviews with professionals (lawyers, social workers and social work managers); fieldworker notes of 36 observations of pre-proceedings meetings; and 25 in-depth interviews with parents.
This...
Terminology used is generally based on DDI controlled vocabularies: Time Method, Analysis Unit, Sampling Procedure and Mode of Collection, available at CESSDA Vocabulary Service.
Methodology
Data collection period
01/09/2010 - 31/05/2012
Country
United Kingdom
Time dimension
Not available
Analysis unit
Household
Individual
Universe
Not available
Sampling procedure
Not available
Kind of data
Numeric
Text
Data collection mode
The project used mixed methods and combined 1) a retrospective study of local authority legal department files on individual cases; 2) a prospective study based on observations of pre-proceedings meetings; and 3) qualitative interviews with parents and professionals.The study was conducted in 6 local authorities in England and Wales (2 shire counties; 2 London boroughs and 2 unitary authorities), selected using Legal Services Commission data on bills submitted for these cases and cafcass data indicating the use of care proceedings in each authority. The sample included LAs that were making sufficient use of the pre-proceedings process (PPP) for the project to be feasible, with lower and higher use of care proceedings, and serving areas with contrasting geography (rural /urban) and demography (majority /BME). Case file records 207 cases drawn from 6 local authorities in 2009; for 173 of these cases further data taken from documents relating to the legal proceedings. Up to 1350 variables have been collected for each case, focusing on 1 (index) child for each case but with limited data about each child subject to the proceedings. There were 305 children involved in the care proceedings and 63 in the cases which did not result in care proceedings.