The impact of expert evidence on care proceedings

Abstract

There has been an increased demand for expert child psychiatric opinion in child care cases where social services have instigated care proceedings under the Children Act 1989. However, there has been little evaluation of this work in terms of whether such a referral changes the care plan of the referring social work agency or the outcome for the child. This article examines the contribution to care proceedings of assessment reports completed by a child and adolescent forensic psychiatry team in respect of 37 consecutive child care cases. All of the assessments were presented to court and the information was collated once the proceedings were completed. Our findings indicated that the court followed the recommendations of the child psychiatric report entirely in 73% of cases. In addition, in 86% of cases the social service departments reported that they had gained confirmation of their professional opinion. In only 10% of cases did they change their care plan in response to the child psychiatric assessment. In conclusion, the results suggest that in most cases social service departments are using child psychiatry expert evidence merely to validate and/or lend support to their original care plans. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What is Good Parenting? The Perspectives of Different Professionals

“…PCAs have been found to hold considerable impact over forensic decisions (Lennings, ), including child custody. For example, Jamieson, Tranah, and Sheldrick () found that, in 37 child care court cases in England, assessment recommendations were wholly followed in 73 percent of cases. Furthermore, Waller and Daniel () found that lawyers expect clear conclusions from parenting assessments, with 75 percent expecting a clear recommendation on custody and visitation decisions.…”