Family courts plan threatens children’s wellbeing

Children and young people's concerns about the government's proposal to allow the media to report more widely on family court proceedings are revealed in new research conducted by the University of Oxford. The research, which was commissioned by the Children's Commissioner for England, shows that the overwhelming view of children who took part in the study was that reporters should not be allowed into the family courts. They said that reporters should not be in hearings that address matters that are intensely private, embarrassing and humiliating. It also reveals that if a reporter was in court to hear evidence, many children and young people would not speak freely to professionals, including doctors and social workers they came into contact with. Dr Julia Brophy, from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, said: 'My research shows that children will be much less willing to speak to the professionals charged with undertaking assessments if they believe that what they say could appear in a news report. This could seriously impact on a judge's ability to make difficult, balanced and often life-changing decisions in the child's best interests.' According to the study, a small number of children and young people saw some merit in improving public awareness about the work of family courts, in particular demonstrating that the children involved were not in any way to blame for the traumatic events in their lives. However, the children respondents stressed that this should not be achieved at the expense of the children and parents concerned.