Advocacy and Child Protection: Nikki’s Story

Through individually-funded Spot Contract Advocacy, we support families attending Child Protection court hearings. They welcome the help to understand and engage fully in the process. We help them understand the complex legal system and language spoken which can make the process less time-consuming and intimidating, especially where people have learning disabilities or mental health issues.

Claire Crawford, one of our Independent Advocates, tells Nikki’s story and how having an Independent Advocate helped support her through court proceedings and how her actions complied with the Advocacy Charter (in bold).

What was the background?

Nikki has a learning difficulties and mental health needs and has experienced domestic. She struggles to stay focused, understand complex information and to communicate because she loses her train of thought and is often unable to find the words she needs.

Nikki has three older children who were removed from her care and placed under a Special Guardianship Order (SGO) following concerns from the LA about her understanding and ability to keep them safe. Nikki fell pregnant and, due to the previous proceedings, the LA were informed of her pregnancy.

Nikki’s social worker informed her that the local authority (LA) were going to begin legal proceedings due to their concerns about her being able to keep her baby safe and because they wanted to complete parenting assessments. Nikki was referred for advocacy support by her unborn child’s social worker.

Nikki did not have advocacy support during the proceedings with her older children. She felt unable to trust social workers and felt that they were misinterpreting her. Due to previous negative involvement with social services, Nikki found it hard at times to work with the social worker. Nikki’s mental health was significantly affected. Nikki can get extremely anxious and this impacts her ability to remain focused and retain information. She believes this is why she scored negatively in previous parenting assessments resulting in her children being removed from her care.

What were the challenges?

As a result of her learning difficulties and previous history, Nikki needed an Advocate to support her to:

Attend and fully engage in meetings and assessments relating to proceedings
Articulate her views and wishes.
Understand what was said and ensure reasonable adjustments were made to support her to engage and understand what was being said to her (due to her mental health her capacity can fluctuate and she sometimes says she understands things when she doesn’t).
Keep focused.
Retain information by talking things through in a calm environment.

Debrief after meetings to ensure she understood what was said and any actions given to her

What advocacy support did we provide?

I worked with Nikki to establish what advocacy issues she felt she needed support with, how I could best support her, build up trust between us and to agree the working partnership and boundaries (person-led and accessible).

Nikki said she felt she had a safe place to talk about her feelings and wishes (confidentiality) due to her advocate being independent. Nikki and the professionals were reminded of the clarity of purpose to strengthen the advocacy partnership between me and Nikki.

I supported Nikki to attend meetings around Child Protection proceedings (Core Group, care team, legal team) and to attend court hearings. Nikki and I would prepare for meetings in advance, Nikki would share with her worries with me and what questions she had. Nikki would also talk through what she would like to say in the meetings (self-advocacy) and I took notes and prompted Nikki in meetings. If she felt unable to speak it was agreed that I would speak on her behalf to raise her views and wishes. This empowered Nikki by ensuring she was able to speak out and share her views, wishes and make challenges.

Nikki requested that I support her throughout the parenting assessment sessions to ensure she was able to fully engage and reasonable adjustments made to support her learning needs. This request was granted by the LA and I provided face to face advocacy at each parenting assessment session. Nikki and I would debrief afterwards to ensure she understood what the sessions covered and to establish if she had any questions or needed clarification. I worked with the social worker to use visual tools, colour charts and pictures to help Nikki during the assessment.

I liaised with professionals on Nikki’s behalf and fed back information in a way she understood and at times of the day that were best for her. These actions ensured Nikki’s the advocacy support was person-led and accessible by putting her needs first.

I supported Nikki to communicate with her legal team to share her feelings and reasons why she disagreed with the LA and to request they support her to challenge their decisions.

What difference did our advocacy support make?

Nikki’s legal team supported her challenge against the LA decisions and it was upheld in court with the judge agreeing with Nikki.

Additional advocacy support was agreed to support Nikki during the parenting assessments. Nikki and her baby were placed in a mother and baby foster placement while assessments were completed. As a result of a positive parenting assessment and Nikki fully engaging with professionals, the outcome of proceedings was that Nikki’s baby could remain in her care with a Supervision Order in place for 12 months. This enables Social Services to monitor Nikki’s progress and the wellbeing of her baby. Nikki and her baby were able to return to their home with agreed safety plans in place.

Nikki, the social worker, the solicitor, barrister and the judge acknowledged the positive impact advocacy had on this case. The judge requested the LA continue to provide advocacy for the duration of the Supervision Order to support the continued positive outcome.

Nikki:

Reported she felt the latest Child Protection proceedings were more positive than previous proceedings because she had an advocate by her side
Identified that having an advocate was improving her ability to fully engage and contribute in a more positive way in meetings, have her voice heard, understand the proceedings and what professionals were asking of her.
Able to understand her rights and felt empowered to exercise them (rights-based advocacy), access legal support to challenge the LA
Able to work with the social worker to contribute to and agree the safety plan, making it more likely to be successful (empowered).
Able to self-advocate, improving her confidence.
Nikki completed an Advocacy Outcomes Star which shows how she felt at the start and close of our advocacy support. The improvement in all areas as excellent.

Social Worker:

Acknowledged that having an advocate present during the parenting assessment sessions helped Nikki engage, remain focused and communicate and this enabled them to complete their work, whereas previously without an advocate they found it difficult to carry out the sessions effectively.
Recognised during proceedings the positive impact advocacy was having and how it helped Nikki engage with professionals.
Able to meet the deadline for completion of parenting assessment as mother and social worker worked together with the support of the advocate.
Nikki’s child remaining in her care prevented the LA from having to source and fund a foster placement.

Healthcare services:

Nikki is discharged from secondary mental health support – her mental health needs are now managed at GP level.

Legal team:

The Solicitor representing Nikki gave excellent feedback:

I just wanted to pass on my thanks to yourself and your service for the help and assistance you provided to our client within care proceedings. I know that [she] has felt extremely reassured by the support of yourself and feels she has had her voice heard for the first time. [She] can become overwhelmed and confused at hearing a lot of information and this was apparent especially within care proceedings, when the situation is already stressful. [She] has commented that she has felt more confident and able to understand by having you present within the Local Authority meetings, court hearings and appointments with myself. It has meant … that if she hasn’t fully understood something, she can reach out to you and feel supported that way.

As you know [she] went through separate care proceedings concerning her older children. [She] did not receive any form of assessment or receive advocacy support. It was apparent to me when [she] approached me within these set of proceedings, that she would be assisted by an advocate. [She] has commented that by having an advocate, she has felt the experience to be totally different in a positive way. She feels she may have said something wrong or got confused, especially within parenting assessment sessions, if she did not have the support of you present.

I also note that [she] is extremely happy your support will continue throughout the Supervision Order as the court have directed the Local Authority to fund this. [She] was very keen to keep your support, given her legal aid funding with us will cease once proceedings have concluded.

Once again, I wanted to pass on my thanks to you for supporting [her] throughout proceedings which has enabled me to be in the best position to provide advice and assistance to my client.

To find out more about our Child Protection advocacy or to make a referral on an individually funded basis go to Spot Contract Advocacy