Families’ Alliance for Change
There is no shortage of Children’s Services’ authorities who have lost touch / stopped listening to the families that they are there to serve. As Lord Justice Munby said ‘the local authority, is the servant of those in need of its support and assistance, not their master’.[1]
Families in one authority have taken the initiative and created a website that provides updated information on the actions and impacts of their Children’s Services Department. As its home page states:[2]
The Families’ Alliance for Change (Herefordshire) came into being in Summer 2024 in response to ongoing concern among families, local and national politicians and academics that the pace of change in Herefordshire Children’s Services is too slow; more than two years after the Ofsted inspection found the service “inadequate” in all areas, improvements have yet to materialize in critical areas of the service. The failure to improve puts children and families at risk of both physical and psychological harm.
Given the wholesale failure of the ‘system’ to hold accountable such authorities – in terms of present and past injustices for which they are / have been responsible – this is an initiative that other family groups might consider?
[1] A Local Authority v A (A Child) [2010] EWHC 978 (Fam) para 52 – 53, and 98, and see also Misuse by local authorities of their ‘protection’ powers [2018 posting on www.lukeclements.co.uk].
[2] Families’ Alliance for Change, at https://www.families4change.org.uk/.
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Posted 30 April 2025