There is still time for people to sign an open letter calling for the introduction across the judiciary of mandatory safeguarding training and systemic learning from cases.<\/p>\n
The letter to the Lady Chief Justice, The Right Honourable the Baroness Carr of Walton-on-the-Hill, highlights a critical gap identified in the Government\u2019s 2020 review, Assessing the risk of harm to children and parents in private law children cases.<\/p>\n
Domestic abuse<\/p>\n
The letter states that there are no specialist safeguarding focused bodies examining how courts deal with domestic abuse and coercive control in the context of child protection.<\/p>\n
Areas of particular concern include judicial decision-making, conduct, failures to recognise domestic abuse, safeguarding practice in children\u2019s cases, and the handling and assessment of evidence.<\/p>\n
One survivor said: \u201cThe family court destroyed my family. I escaped an abuser but the court handed my children straight back to him. The judiciary needs a safeguarding wake-up call.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter states that \u2018children\u2019s safety must come first\u2019.<\/p>\n
Safeguarding training<\/p>\n
It adds that judges should receive the same level of safeguarding training as other professionals to protect children.<\/p>\n
The open letter also calls on the Government to establish an independent judicial standards and safeguarding authority.<\/p>\n
This authority should be modelled on frameworks used in medicine and nursing. It would be independent, led by safeguarding-trained professionals, and empowered to oversee:<\/p>\n
Judicial conduct and misconduct
\nJudicial performance, training, and revalidation
\nChildren and domestic abuse safeguarding
\nEnforceable evidence-based standards and rules
\nSafeguarding fitness-to-practise and restrictions where a judge demonstrates unsafe practice<\/p>\n
Click here to sign the open letter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is still time for people to sign an open letter calling for the introduction across the judiciary of mandatory safeguarding training and systemic learning…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":124,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archive","tag-archive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}