Children in care - is the legal profession doing enough?

Liz Frank, Solicitor, Lawyers for Young People, Fisher Jones Greenwood LLP. Advocacy services are a crucially important lifeline for young people in care and leaving care. But advocates can only take matters so far and it is when advocacy services reach a dead end that it becomes essential for young people to have an easily accessible specialist lawyer to assist them. The author argues that lawyers should develop their current childcare practices to 'add on' the area of 'post care order work' to their existing practices. An effective and properly funded system of early advice and representation for children in and leaving care is an essential weapon in the fight against continuing social deprivation, criminality and unfulfilled potential which the majority of children who have passed through the care system currently experience. For the full article see July [2007] Fam Law.

Read the full article here.