Sunday 21 August 2011

Media Access to the Family Courts - Children and Young People speak out clearly

The Children’s Rights Director for England, Dr. Roger Morgan, has just published a new report on family justice.  

Children on family justice. A report of children’s views for the Family Justice Review Panel, 2010, by the Children’s Rights Director for England. Ofsted, August 2011 https://www.rights4me.org/reportView.cfm?id=486

The research on which the report is based involved in-depth discussions with 58 children and young people who had personal experience of a range of different children’s services.

The children and young people said a lot of interesting things about the family courts and the family justice process. The one thing to catch my eye immediately was that 80% said very clearly that they did not want reporters or members of the public to be allowed into the courts where children’s cases are being heard.

This confirms the findings of other research and needs to be taken very seriously by policy makers. Most children and young people do not want the media to have access to their family court cases.