APPENDIX 53
Memorandum submitted by the Association
of Directors of Childrens Services
INTRODUCTION
1. The Association of Directors
of Children's Services (ADCS) is pleased to submit this written
evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee. ADCS is the national
leadership organisation in England for directors of children's
services appointed under the provisions of the Children Act
2004 and for other children's services professional in leadership
roles. The Association provides a national voice as a champion
for children, with local and central government, and with the
public.
2. The Association is willing
to give oral evidence in front of the Committee.
3. There can be no question
that forced marriages are wrong, and that the risk of forced marriages
is a serious safeguarding issue for local authorities, schools,
colleges and other agencies within Children's Trusts.
CHILDREN MISSING
EDUCATION: FACTUAL
INFORMATION
3. Under the Education and
Inspections Act 2006, local authorities have a duty to identify
children who are not receiving a suitable education ("children
missing education"—CME), and statutory guidance on
this duty was issued in February 2007.
4. Local authorities have
put in place arrangements to deliver the duty, and most have made
specific appointments or designated existing staff as Children
Missing Education Officers (CMEOs).
5. Typically CMEOs are members
of Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) in order to ensure
that CME issues are dealt with in respect of safeguarding and
child protection.
6. CMEOs are often located
within Education Welfare Services (EWSs) and always have close
links to these services. Typically, Principal Education Welfare
Officers (PEWOs) or their nominee attend all multi-agency Child
Strategy Meetings in order to ensure that the link between school
attendance and safeguarding is properly considered.
7. Typically schools carry
out initial enquiries when a child does not attend, and where
this does not lead to attendance, the EWS is informed. The EWS
makes home visits, speaks to neighbours, and if concerns persist
the child is entered on the S2S database and reported to the CME
Officer who carries out an in-depth search, involving other agencies
as needed.
8. There is a considerable
variation in experience of forced marriage across the country.
Some local authorities with significant minority ethnic populations
report very few if any concerns related to forced marriage. These
local authorities report, for example, that there are few if any
cases of children and young people of school age not returning
from holiday in south Asia, or cases of children and young people
disclosing concerns about forced marriage, either before or after
the fact.
9. Typically, practice would
be to contact police only when there are serious concerns about
the safety and welfare of a child or young person, for example
where there is evidence of particular vulnerability or where the
child or young person is in the care of the local authority. In
these cases a multi-agency strategy meeting is held to agree appropriate
actions.
10. The reasons for children
missing education are many and varied. At any one time, investigations
will be ongoing and some children will not have been located.
11. Where a child is known
to the local authority and is not attending school the local authority
will take appropriate action, including enforcement action, to
ensure that they attend. However an increasing number of children
and young people are being educated at home—"otherwise
than at school"—and the national requirements for arrangements
to secure their welfare and the quality of their education are
significantly less robust than for children on a school roll.
However, local authorities work with parents who "home educate"
with a view to ensuring that minimum standards are met.
12. Schools notify local authorities
where children are not attending school, and where local action
has not proved effective. These children may be on the roll of
the school, or they may have been excluded from school, they may
be taking a holiday (sometimes a extended holiday of many months)
without the permission of the school, or they may just have moved
from the area without notifying the school.
13. The most difficult cases
to trace are those where parents have not notified the school
or local authority of either a move or an extended holiday.
14. The reasons for taking
extended leave are broader than forced marriage. For example,
in the recent tragic case of Scarlett Keeling (age 15), who was
murdered in Goa, newspaper reports are that the mother and children
were on an extended holiday; and it is unlikely that the school
or local authority would have been notified of this in advance.
15. ContactPoint will, when
fully operational, provide a basis for identifying and locating
rapidly children and young people within the UK. Most of these
children and young people will be known by their "new"
local authority and be properly placed in school. However, at
any one time, there will still be a significant group who are
abroad, or who are deliberately not identifying themselves to
the authorities for a variety of reasons.
FORCED MARRIAGES:
FACTUAL INFORMATION
16. Local Safeguarding Children
Boards (LSCBs) are responsible in each area for developing appropriate
local policy and practice in the light of national guidance.
17. Arranged marriages are
a common feature in some cultures. The key difference is that
a forced marriage is made against the will of, and without the
consent of, one or both of the parties concerned. Some apparent
consents are secured by coercion, including threats of violence,
and mental or physical intimidation. Usually such coercion is
carried out by the parents, who are in a powerful position to
do so, abusing their parental authority, and with potential victims
unable to leave the parental home.
18. Many forced marriages
are not announced in advance, even to the two participants, because
the parents are aware that action might be taken to protect the
participants, and the participants might seek to leave the family
or seek protection from public or voluntary agencies. It is for
this reason that young people should be made aware of the support
that is available locally if they are concerned that they, or
one of their friends, may be expected to marry against their will.
19. Forced marriages are usually
undertaken abroad, when the participants are remote from their
local communities and support, and where coercion can more easily
be applied.
20. Some forced marriages
are undertaken when one of the participants is told that they
are leaving the country for a holiday.
21. Where a child or young
person discloses that they are concerned that they may be the
subject of a forced marriage, then the safeguarding procedures
agreed locally should be implemented as a matter of urgency. The
disclosure could be to a teacher, a youth worker, a health worker,
a police officer, or a worker in any of the public, voluntary
or community services with which the child or young person may
have contact.
22. Local safeguarding procedures
can include taking the children and young people into the care
of the local authority, either into foster care or a specialist
children's home. While such responses are needed in some cases,
they are not universally appropriate, and in any event the local
authority will need to consider with the child or young person
concerned how their long-term care and well-being can best be
secured.
RECOMMENDATIONS
23. Local safeguarding procedures
will include such measures as training and awareness-raising of
professionals and volunteers likely to come into contact with
children and young people at risk of forced marriage, and publicity
and education programmes to encourage children and young people
to disclose a fear that they may be subject to forced marriage,
in the confidence that appropriate action will be taken. These
education programmes can and should be included as part of the
normal education programme, within sex and relationships education
(SRE) or personal, social and health education (PSHE) or otherwise.
24. While there is some evidence
that headteachers are reluctant to display the more lurid publicity
materials on forced marriage, schools, youth centres and health
centres are key locations, and should be strongly encouraged to
take an active part in both prevention and early intervention
as part of their safeguarding responsibility. A range of materials
should be made available that could easily be customised to meet
local requirements. Best practice would indicate that young people
should be consulted on the materials that would best meet local
needs.
25. Local authorities and
other public agencies should, through the work of Local Safeguarding
Children's Boards and Children's Trusts, promote community education
and awareness raising among communities that forced marriages
are both wrong and unlawful for children and young people normally
resident in the United Kingdom.
26. Where a local authority,
school or college becomes aware that an individual child or young
person is at risk of forced marriage, other than through disclosure,
usually because the child or young person stops attending school
or college, or goes missing, then immediate multi-agency action
needs to be taken. Unfortunately this action very often proves
to be too late.
A, a 16-year-old girl whose family was originally
from Pakistan had been taken into the care of the local authority
and placed in foster care at the age of 14, following serious
physical abuse. The foster placement had proved successful, and
had continued for two years. A was on the borderline of moderate
learning difficulties, but achieved modest success at school and
was attending a local college. One evening A did not return home
from college. The police were contacted immediately and the normal
searches undertaken without success. A multi-agency strategy meeting
took place the following day, leading to further searches and
local publicity. Following further fruitless enquiries it was
concluded that it was likely that A was no longer in the country.
There was no evidence as to whether she had been subjected to
a forced marriage but that was a possible conclusion.
27. Post facto action will
almost always be ineffective, either because the child or young
person who becomes missing or stops attending school or college
will already have left the country before the local authority
becomes aware of the problem, or because the child or young person
has been taken out of the country on a pretext. This reinforces
the need both to increase the likelihood of disclosure and effective
follow-up action where there is a risk of forced marriage, and
to improve community education to reinforce that such practices
are morally wrong and unlawful.
28. There have been examples
when the enforcement agencies and the Forced Marriages Unit have
taken effective action, and the police have on at least one occasion
removed a vulnerable young person from an airliner about to take
off to leave the United Kingdom. But such successes are rare;
where a vulnerable young person is in the care of a local authority,
for example, notification processes can be carried through more
rapidly.
29. The ADCS would welcome
a national review of practice, procedures and strategies relating
to forced marriages, as well as of the underlying evidence relating
to domestic violence.
March 2008
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