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A child's right to take legal action: What is the consensus among social workers?

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carlpackman Posted: 8 Feb 2010 3:30 PM

As I've recently blogged, much legal work in the UK has been done to promote the right to a child or young person to have their voices heard, from accepting the demands of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child to the implementation of the Local Authority Social Services Department Children's Representation Procedure [England] Regulations, which required local authorities to feed information on advocacy to young people, as well as explaining the important issues around representation and the complaints procedure.

Recent calls for children to be given the right to take legal action on a council that performs badly have sparked wild debate. Ian Johnston, former chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, contributed to that debate by saying “Wilted Flowerhere care falls below acceptable standards the children concerned should be entitled to seek redress and the process to secure compensation must be accessible and user friendly.”

Is this the general consensus among those who work in social work?

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why not? I think if a child has the maturity to realise something is inherently wrong with the system and attempts to lodge legal action regarding this then they have as much right as any adult. Just as with adults if there was no case to uphold then you are unlikely to get your average no win no fee laywer to take it on.

I think greater stall has to set by younger people who havn't been ground down by 'growing up' and are still prepared to voice concern and opinion with passion without the fear that it may have direct consequences upon them. Perhaps we may even get a truer representation of the faults in our systems if we were to listen to them more. After all, they are our future thinkers...

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carlpackman:

 

As I've recently blogged, much legal work in the UK has been done to promote the right to a child or young person to have their voices heard, from accepting the demands of the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child to the implementation of the Local Authority Social Services Department Children's Representation Procedure [England] Regulations, which required local authorities to feed information on advocacy to young people, as well as explaining the important issues around representation and the complaints procedure.

Recent calls for children to be given the right to take legal action on a council that performs badly have sparked wild debate. Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE Ian Johnston, former chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, contributed to that debate by saying “where care falls below acceptable standards the children concerned should be entitled to seek redress and the process to secure compensation must be accessible and user friendly.”

Is this the general consensus among those who work in social work?

 

 

depends on the age/maturoty of the child.

 
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