Child Protection: Legislation, Policy and Practice
CASE STUDY: SEBASTIAN AND BELLE YANOVSKY
This essay examines the legislation, policy and care practice relevant to the case study of Sebastian and Belle Yanovsky, and their parents Ms. Jo Butler and Mr. Zalman Yanovsky. The main issues for discussion are: the legislation relevant to the case study, the role of the family court system, the role of the ‘looked after’ children review system, child protection case conferences, the criminal justice system, and the practical issues which arise from these. The purpose of the essay is to analyze each of these areas to see how they are intended to contribute to the protection and welfare of Sebastian and Belle Yanovsky. The essay also examines closely how the various agencies and services involved in the care of Sebastian and Belle maximize inter-agency communication so as to reduce the risks and maximize the protection available to the children.
The four principal pieces of legislation relevant to the Yanovsky children’s case are the Children Act 1989, the Protection of Children Act 1999 the Adoption and Children Act 2002 and the Children Act 2004. The Children Act 1989 sought to carry into legislation the belief that where possible ‘… children are generally best looked after within the family, with both parents playing a full part and without resort to legal proceedings. The welfare of the children is the paramount consideration.’ (Children Act, 1989). Thus the Children Act sought where possible to protect children within a family environment. Thus the act introduced a number of provisions designed to protect children by improving their home and family environment. The report stressed the need for various care agencies to increase inter-communication so as to best determine the risks posed to a particular child or children and so to most effectually provide the protection from abuse that they required. Sections 27 and 47 of the Act – significantly titled ‘Co-operation Between Authorities’ and ‘Local Authority’s Duty to Investigate’ – sets out the governments demands for closer agency communication. Section 27: 4 for instance defines the need for agencies to co-operate on educational care, stating ‘Every local authority shall assist any local education authority with the provision of services for any child within the local authority’s area who had special educational needs’. The relevance of this act to the Yanovsky case will be shown shortly. The main themes of the Children Act 2004 were an emphasis upon ‘integrated planning’, ‘delivery of services’, ‘multi-disciplinary working’, ‘increased accountability’ and, especially, more provision for those children with ‘special needs’. The Protection of Children Act 1999 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002 will be discussed in the forthcoming paragraphs.
This legislation provides the following short term and long term solutions for the Yanovsky children’s case. In the short term, the Children Act 1989 states that, where possible, the welfare of the children must be attempted inside the family environment. Thus the Children Act allows for various professional carers (social workers, mental health practitioners, police etc.,) to monitor the home situation of the Yanovsky children. The Child Protection Act 1999 makes provision for Child Protection Conferences (discussed later in this essay) and a conference for the Yanovsky children would be an important short term measure to assess the risk to the children and to co-ordinate a Child Protection Plan for them. Earlier legislation also allows social workers to put the Yanovsky children on the Child Protection Register if they feel it necessary. If these short term measures prove unsuccessful, then it may be necessary to bring a public law case (family court) against the Yanovsky’s as set out in the Children Act 1989. If the court thinks it necessary to remove custody from the Yanovsky’s then the Adoption of Children Act 2002 makes provisions for the long term care of the children under the status of ‘looked after’ children. Thus, both long term and short term, there is a comprehensive range of legislation to protect the Sebastian and Belle.
The role of a family court in child protection cases is to make rulings about the rights to custody of the child or children involved in a particular case. A family court can be convened under two sets of circumstances as outlined in The Children Act 1989: in the first instance are private law cases where two parents dispute in court rights to custody of a child or children. The second instance is that of public cases where the state on the advice of care agencies seek custody of a child or children. In both public and private law cases the responsibility of the court is to decide who is most fit to care for and support the child or children in question. In public cases the family court hears evidence and recommendations from social service workers, doctors, mental health workers and other professionals. This evidence is intended to evince the potential risk that the child or children are exposed to. If the family court finds that the potential risk to the child or children is too high then the court may rule that custody should be removed from the parents and given – either temporarily or permanently – to the State (Schepard, 2004). Such children are referred to as ‘looked after’ children, and provision for such children has been the subject of much recent government discussion and legislation. Family courts have recently been the subject of much controversy and criticism. The ‘Fathers 4 Justice’ campaign has been particularly prominent and is scarifying of the tendency of family courts to seemingly always grant custody to mothers and to neglect the human and legislative rights of fathers. The group has even published the ‘Blueprint for Family Law in the 21st Century’ towards this end. Andrew Schepard, amongst many others, has written of the need for radical revision of the family court system so as to promote parity of rights between fathers and mothers. Only when this happens, it is argued, will family courts be able to make rulings that ensure the best and fairest outcome for the welfare of the child or children involved.
The case of Sebastian and Belle Yanovsky has not yet reached the point where a family court has been convened. Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler are still together and so there has been no private application by either parent for sole custody of Sebastian and Belle. Nonetheless, given the seriousness of Sebastian’s and Belle’s physical and emotional abuse, it may be that care services feel it necessary to recommend in future that custody be removed from both parents. If such a recommendation were made then Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler would have to attend a family court to decide whether they were fit to have the custody of their children.
The basic function of the ‘looked after’ children review system is to maximize the government’s provision of care for ‘looked after’ children. The government has pledged to ensure that ‘looked after’ children receive exactly the same opportunities for education, healthcare, social experience and security as other children. There should be no discrimination or prejudice against ‘looked after’ children. The government has made several legislative and policy requirements of local government with respect to ‘looked after’ children. For instance, a review of existing ‘looked after’ children provision is integral to the Children and Young People Plan (CYPP) which every local authority is obliged to have begun by April 2006. Local government implementation of the Adoption of Children Act 2002 is also vital to boost rates of adoption for ‘looked after’ children and to increase the likelihood of such adoption succeeding. Integral to the view is the Every Child Matters ethos, whereby the government seeks to guarantee equal opportunities for all children in the United Kingdom. The government’s proposed package for improving the provision for ‘looked after’ children includes some of these features: a national helpline to recognize carer help, the introduction of minimum allowances, increasing training chances for foster workers, the introduction of a reward scheme and so on. These measures are all intended to improve the lives and educational and social opportunities for ‘looked after’ children. This educational responsibility of local government was set-out in the Protection of Children Act 1999. The Choice Protects scheme was also introduced in March 2002 to ensure that ‘looked after’ children find more secure homes and have a greater choice over their own lives. The government’s 2003 Social Exclusion Unit Report: A Better Education for Children in Care made numerous recommendations about possible improvement to the educational provision for ‘looked after’ children. Perhaps the most important of these measures were the introduction of explicit guidelines for school governors as to the educational needs of ‘looked after’ children, and, secondly, advice for foster carers about the educational needs of the children under their protection.
Sebastian and Belle Yanovsky are not yet ‘looked after’ children, since Ms. Jo Butler is their biological mother. As such, the above provisions for ‘looked after’ children are not directly relevant to Sebastian and Belle. Nonetheless, given the seriousness of the risks posed to Sebastian and Belle there is a strong chance that these children will become ‘looked after’ children in future. If this happened then clearly all of the above provisions and changes to provisions featured in the Adoption of Children Act would affect the Yanovsky children directly.
The purpose of a child protection conference is to convene in one place and at one time all the relevant people interested in the care of a particular child: care professionals, medical practitioners, police, lawyers and so on. Before the introduction of child protection conferences the child protection system was often highly inefficient and ineffectual since various agencies worked independently of each other and had little or no communication between themselves. This confusion increased a child’s risk of abuse since there was little or no sharing of information between the various relevant agencies. Child protection conferences aim to increase communication between child protection agencies and therefore reduce the risk of abuse to the child. Child protection conferences are convened when care services have made an initial assessment of the risk to a particular child and then decide that further investigation is necessary. The professionals who attend child protection conferences must make an evaluation of the welfare of the child, determine the likelihood of physical or emotional abuse to the child, and decide whether that child ought to be placed on the Child Protection Register. Care professionals must also decide whether legal proceedings ought to be brought on behalf of the child, and whether there ought to be a criminal investigation also. If these professionals think it necessary to place a child on the Child Protection Register then they must also design a Child Protection Plan to control future proceedings towards ensuring the safety of the child. These plans clearly define what duties each care agency has for the protection of the child, and ensure that there is coherent and productive communication between these individual agencies. After the initial conference a further meeting can be convened after three months and then further six monthly conferences if felt necessary.
Applied to the Yanovsky and Butler case study, a child protection conference might have the following consequences. The Yanovsky’s social worker (no name), Mrs. Wilma Connelly (the health visitor), a representative from the Garthdee Family Centre, the police and other professionals would meet to discuss the risk posed to Sebastian and Belle Yanovsky. These professionals would use various criteria to produce a total risk assessment posed the Yanovsky children. In this instance, the risks to the Yanovsky children might appear to be very high. There are serious questions the risk Mr. Yanovsky poses as a sexual predator: he offended a seventeen-year-old child in 1992 and he was recently arrested for a Breach of the Peace for an incident in a womens’ public toilet. Moreover, Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler admitted to police incidents of ‘mutual violence’ between themselves. The medical reports for Sebastian and Belle are also extremely concerning. Belle was recently admitted to Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital because of vomiting; upon inspection she was found to have a fractured right leg, three similar injuries and two cracked ribs. The medical staff thought these highly unlikely to be caused by accident. A further risk for consideration by the conference might be the quality of housing of the Yanovsky children. Based upon these various risk factors the members of the conference might decide to place both Sebastian and Belle on the Child Protection Register. The conference would also need to produce a Child Protection Plan; this plan might stress the need for greater care provision for Ms. Butler, and counseling for both Mr. Yanovsky, Ms. Butler and, separately, their children. Given the particularly harrowing details of the case, the conference might recommend that Sebastian and Belle be removed from their parents for their protection. The conference might also recommend criminal proceedings against the Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler on account of the injuries caused to their children.
The criminal justice system, under the Child Protection Procedures of the Children Act 1989, allows and sets out guidelines for the prosecution of particularly serious offences against children. The Child Protection Team (CPT) has the responsibility to investigate allegations of abuse against vulnerable children. In the Yanovsky case, the injuries against Sebastian and Belle were thought by Dr. R. Williamson and Police Surgeon Dr. Mike Heron to be ‘obviously inflicted upon the child’ – they were deliberate. The police felt that both Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler had failed to offer plausible explanations for the injuries to Belle. Given the seriousness of the injuries to Belle, the Child Protection Team might decide to recommend that charges of abuse be brought against either Mr. Yanovsky or Ms. Butler, or both. If it became so serious that charges of sexual abuse were deemed necessary by the CPT then these would be issued under the Sex Offenders Act 1997.
In conclusion, the main practical issues to be addressed in the case of the Yanovsky children are as follows. Paramount, of course, is the issue of the safety and welfare of Sebastian and Belle. Clearly there is a high risk of continued physical and emotional risk against both children. Temporarily and short-term, the Yanovsky’s social worker has recommended that Jo Butler receive extra care provision for Sebastian. The professionals involved in the case may decide to convene a Child Protection Conference, where after Sebastian and Belle may be placed on the Child Protection Register and have a Child Protection Plan drawn up to determine how they should be cared for in the coming months and years. The suggestions of abuse against Belle are so serious that the State may decide to seek to remove custody of the children from Mr. Yanovsky and Ms. Butler. The Child Protection Team may also consider it necessary to bring criminal charges against the parents for physical abuse. If custody were removed, then, under the Adoption of Children Act it would be necessary to give Sebastian and Belle the status of ‘looked after’ children and so to implement the provisions that are joined to this status.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
— Booth, M. (1996). Avoiding Delay in Children Act Cases. Routledge & Paul Kegan, London.
— Hanson, R.K. (1997). What Do We Know About Sex Offender Risk Assessment. Psychology,
Public Policy and Law, 4.
— Holder, W & Corey, M. (1986) Child Protective Services Risk Management: A Decision
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— Rushton, A. (2003). The Adoption of Looked After Children. Social Care Institute for
Excellence, London.
–– Schepard, A. I. (2004) Children, Courts and Custody. Hofstra University, New York.
— Warman, A. Adoption and Looked After Children: International Comparisons. Family Policies
Study Centre, Oxford.
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— The Children Act (1989), Her Majesty’s Government. www.dfes.gov.uk/publicaions/childrenactrepor
— The Children Act (2004), Her Majesty’s Government.
www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrenreport
— The Protection of Children Act (1999), Her Majesty’s Government.
www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/protectionofchildrenact
— The Adoption and Children Act (2002), Her Majesty’s Government.
www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/adoptionofchildrenact
— The Sex Offenders Act (1997), Her Majesty’s Government.
www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/sexoffendersact
