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Researching Reform: Children will be seen and heard – now they must be understood
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Justice Minister Simon Hughes’ recent announcement that the voice of the child will feature more prominently in deciding family law cases is to be welcomed but will the proposed measures be enough to ensure that children are not only heard but understood?
The Voice of the Child is an exciting and challenging area of family law but it is also a relatively new concept. Meant to underpin the importance of listening to children’s wishes and feelings as outlined by the Children Act 1989 this element within family law has only really come into its own over the last three years.
Although no longer available to view online and by all accounts rendered obsolete for reasons not yet clear the innovative Voice of the Child Sub-Group (
which has also quietly disappeared) was largely responsible for starting this movement with their guidelines for judges on talking to children. The...
Read the full article here.
