Chapter 5: Working with Families, Children & Young People
Working with Families, Children & Young People​
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When social workers work with children and families through pre-proceedings and proceedings, they are likely to find the experience very challenging and stressful. As social workers, we can help them navigate this by helping them understand the process.
Parents will have automatic legal aid in care proceedings, so they will have a solicitor advocating for them and explaining the process. However, the allocated social worker can provide support and help.
There are various websites that might help parents and help them access this depending on their needs such as:
Family Rights Group: Helping families Helping children - Family Rights Group
Cafcass parent’s hub: Information and resources for parents | Cafcass
It can sometimes be challenging to maintain good, open relationships with parents if they find what you say, as the allocated social worker, about their parenting hard to hear. You can manage that by the following:
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ensuring you are transparent with them throughout this process.
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being clear with them about what you and other professionals need to see from them to say it is safe enough for their children to be returned or remain in their care.
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listening to them about their needs and that you explain to them the processes that the local authority needs to go through.
You can address the power imbalances by sharing information and helping them understand the court process.
Nothing that you write in your reports should be a surprise for the family. You should be having conversations with them throughout the process about where your thoughts are at, what options you are considering and why.
You should always remain in contact with the parents. Sometimes parents may be abroad or in prison, or otherwise hard to reach. You need to ensure you continue to make all efforts to engage them directly and inform them of the hearings and what the potential plans are.
Research in Practice Ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion in family court practice guidance: Ensuring equality, diversity and inclusion in the Family Court: Frontline Briefing (2022) | Research in Practice
It is important not to rely on communication with parents and carers via their solicitor only, as the allocated social worker for the child you need to have that direct dialogue with them. However, there may be a rare occasion where it is more appropriate to share information via their solicitor and this would need to be discussed and considered. If you are having difficulty engaging a parent, it is always helpful to ask your legal team to raise this with their solicitor so that their solicitor can help encourage them to engage with you and if relevant, other professionals.
It is important, like in all the work with children and families, that you consider and adapt your communication styles to meet their needs. When writing and speaking about court work with families, it is important to ensure that they understand.
Do the parents have specific needs that you need to ensure you and other professionals are meeting?
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Have you always used an interpreter if the parents speak another language?
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Have you used visual tools if the parents have learning needs?
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Have you provided an advocate if the parents want one?
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Have you communicated appropriately for neurodivergent parents?
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How are children involved in their proceedings?
Depending on the age and understanding of the child, they may be able to be involved in their proceedings. This will be something to speak about with the Guardian whose job it will be to ensure the child’s participation is appropriate for them.
The child can write to the judge and can also meet with the judge. The Guardian would take the lead in these activities and arrangements. Usually, if a child wants to meet a judge this happens before the final hearing. The Guardian and their solicitor would make the arrangements. The only people in the room would be the judge, the child, the Guardian and the child’s solicitor. There are rules judges need to follow when speaking with children in that it is not a place for them to gather evidence and is only a place for them to hear from the child directly. The Guardian would be there to help facilitate the conversation, and the solicitor would take a note that will be provided to all the parties. This meeting usually happens separately to any court hearing on the case.
If the child is an adolescence or near that age then the Child’s Solicitor, with input from the Guardian, will assess if the child/young person is competent to instruct their own solicitor. If the young person is, and their view differs to that of the Guardian, then the young person can instruct their solicitor directly. The Guardian will remain appointed by the court but will no longer instruct the child’s solicitor.
If a young person is assessed as competent and instructing their own solicitor, they can be treated like any other (adult) party. This means that the child would be entitled to read all the court documents and sit in all the hearings. However, there may be agreements not to share certain or any court documents with them and that they do not attend hearings or only attend parts of specific hearings, depending on what is decided is in their best interest and welfare. You may have views that reading some documents or attending some parts of some hearings may not be in their best interest. The allocated social worker can raise this with their legal team, and it’s good to speak to the Child’s Guardian about this. The judge can then decide what documents the young person can see and what hearings they can attend.
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How to explain to the child what is happening
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As the allocated social worker, you decide, based on your assessment of what the child understands and what information they can digest, as to what, when and how you tell them about the court proceedings.
You might decide that the child would worry and be anxious if they knew of court dates, so it is best if you don’t tell them that. You might want the child to go to school and be able to concentrate in their lessons as opposed to worrying about what a judge might decide that day.
Or you might decide that if the child has found out about the court date or information in any event it may be best if you speak with them and give them more information to help them to manage how they are feeling about it all.
Essentially, you should use your professional judgement as to how to help a child understand what is happening.
It is good practice to tell children that you are issuing proceedings, particularly as they will be meeting another new professional such as a Child’s Guardian and potentially their solicitor. It helps them to prepare for those meetings if you can explain this to them.
The amount of detail you tell them will depend on your assessment of their age, ability and understanding. For example, you might decide it could be emotionally harmful to tell a child certain things such as an application for interim removal. The examples used here are just that. You would need to assess the situation for the child you are working with and to seek advice about what can be shared, what would cause harm, and how to share that information.
You might want to use various tools, such as pictures or drawings or worksheets or games, to help explain to the children what is happening. Remember that it’s important to think how you gather the wishes and feelings of all children. This will be different depending on their needs. For example, children who are young or non-verbal can express themselves in many ways. You will need to understand them and learn their expressions to be able to represent them. You may want to use other tools, such as feelings cards, or figures, to help explain.
Cafcass has a lot of tools which the Guardian may use that you can use with children available here: Our resources for professionals | Cafcass
Family Justice Young People’s Board Top Tips on how to work with children and young people: FJYPB top tips | Cafcass
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How do children maintain their relationships with their family during proceedings?
Sometimes a child may be removed from their parents during care proceedings. The social work team arrange ‘family time’ or ‘contact’ between the child, their parents, their siblings and any other key family members during this time. The local authority has a ‘duty to promote’ contact and need to ensure the contact plans that they propose and are agreed at court are appropriate for the child’s needs.
During proceedings, when a decision has not been made about who will care for the child, contact arrangements will be more frequent with the intention of maintaining and developing the relationship that the child has with their parent and or another prospective carer within the family network. It is important to consistently check in with children and young people about their wishes and feelings around their family time.
Kensington and Chelsea completed a consultation in January 2025 with 15 children and young people who are Looked After Children and Care Leavers. The children and young people were asked about their experience of ‘family time’/ ‘contact’. They were asked how family time/contact with their family made them feel.
The majority of their responses were positive, with themes of feeling uplifted, connected, and comforted emerging. One young person mentioned that their feelings depended on the nature of the conversations with their family, but overall, it was a nice experience. This highlights the importance of continuous checking -in with children and young people about their emotional well-being around contact.
Another young person expressed mixed emotions, stating that family time sometimes made them sad, while another highlighted the conflicting emotions of feeling good and emotional. One participant mentioned that family time made them feel warm inside and dispelled feelings of loneliness.
These responses remind us that care experienced children and young people can often find it challenging to form relationships due to trauma, but family time can provide a sense of belonging, connection, and support. Family time can offer a space for emotional expression and can help in building and strengthening relationships, aiding in the healing process. This is why it is so important to consider how to provide family time to children and young people that is safe, that is in line with their wishes and feelings when possible and offers them the opportunity to continue their relationships with their family members.
Here is some guidance to support your thinking around family time/contact for children during care proceedings:
contact-making-good-decisions-for-children-in-public-law-frontline-briefing-web.pdf
Contact between children and birth families - Nuffield Family Justice Observatory
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Young people’s perspective of care proceedings
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In February 2025, the Trailblazer project met with a group of care experienced young people from Southwark to explore their experiences of care proceedings. The aim of this piece of work was to include the voice of young people who have experienced care proceedings to support practitioners to remain consistent in how they approach this aspect of their work, with children and young people at the forefront of their minds.
Here are some thoughts (unedited) that the young people shared in a group discussion in response to the questions below:
What would make you feel more respected in discussions about your life and your care?
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After having meetings without me, tell me about them in a digestible way. And answer my questions – just listen.
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Being treated equally and not thrown to the side.
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Listen to us, be open to different ways of communicating with us. Treat us like young adults, not children.
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Not being treated as though we are textbook case studies, as every young person’s experience differs from the last.
Did you have someone you trusted to speak up for you? What should that person be like if they were really there for you?
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The person should be open with you and maintain a good relationship with you.
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The person should take care of you, pick up the phone to you after 5pm, go out with you on some days, maybe for lunch.
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They should say if they have ever gone through the same experience as you. The person should be at least care experienced or understand young people.
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I did not know the person who spoke for me [at court] and only met them once before the proceedings. I met them again 1 year later.
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When our parents fail in other duties, we have the council filling that gap, we are thankful we are your children.
What could adults have done better to help you understand what was going on? And include you and what you wanted?
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Keep explaining the process to me, even if I didn’t understand it the first few times.
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Send me links to websites where I could read about the process myself.
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People could share their experiences of care proceedings with me, people who have gone through it before
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When I appeared in court via a videolink my responses to the questions were not accurately relayed to the judge.
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Communicate with me and explain how the process goes and what it could look like.
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Talk to me and allow me to understand the not so serious and also the harmful things, always keep me in the loop.
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Telling a story about “someone else’s experience” in a fun, easy and understandable way. Telling them it’s not only you, this is normal and you are normal.
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Ask the young person if they want to know about every meeting and what is spoken about. Some young people will want to know, and some won’t.
If you could change one thing about care proceedings to make them better for young people – what would it be?
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We hate changing social workers. Build a strong bond between social worker and child.
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Let us watch an easy video about it and listen to our questions.
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Don’t omit sensitive information from a young person as it is about their life, and they’re being affected most.
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Gently take them along the journey so they can understand what’s going on without stressing them.
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Let me know about updates and decisions about me and my life but without the stress.
How can you feel listened to by a social worker, even if they don’t agree with what you’re saying?
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Speak to the young person and take them along the process.
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Tackle it head on and explain the process really clearly.
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Give them time to process and calm down. Tell them they have room to understand the situation.
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Ask them questions like “what does the young person need to know or understand?” at that specific time as they might want different things depending on their mood or what information is being shared or “what would the young person like to know” in general when sharing information and decisions.
While these views are from one group of young people in a central London local authority, they serve as a strong reminder of the many things we as social workers should be doing, thinking about and acting on during care proceedings. This is to ensure children and young people are treated as individuals and are fully engaged throughout the process of decision making about them and their lives.
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This chapter is based on work with Southwark young people and Kensington and Chelsea young people, and work completed by colleagues in Camden Children’s Services.
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