Family Law newsletter: 3 May 2016

The Family Law newsletter provides you with all the latest news, judgments, articles and guidance to ensure you are up to date with the latest developments and their impact on practice.

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News

Vulnerable children turned away from mental health treatment, report finds
28 April 2016
Almost half of children in care have a diagnosable mental health disorder, with looked-after children four times more likely than their non-looked after peers to have a mental health condition.

Marriage rates decline for the first time since 2009
27 April 2016
The Office of National Statistics has released a bulletin analysing marriage statistics for the year 2013.

Resolution launches FGM toolkit for family lawyers
26 April 2016
At its annual conference in Gateshead, family law organisation Resolution has published a new screening toolkit on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in response to new laws designed to protect victims of FGM, so that members are better equipped to identify and support vulnerable girls and women.

Articles

PSL Essential Update - Overview of April
Paula Tanner - @paulahtanner
03 May 2016
April has been a busy month with some important developments to legislation, court decisions and new guidance issued. Here are just some of the highlights of this jam-packed month.

The role of Shariah Councils in England
Siddique Patel - @tweetmsiddique
29 April 2016
There has been plenty in the media about Shariah Councils and what they supposedly do or don't do. As is always the case, there is a need to separate fact from fiction, and so this article (in a question and answer format) is designed to clarify and distinguish between the two. It is based on my previous experience as a pro bono legal advisor to a Shariah Council in the north of England.

Capacity and transparency: the Court of Protection and the media
Julie Doughty - @julie_doughty
27 April 2016
Sir James Munby is well known as a promoter of transparency in the family courts, but perhaps lesser so as being equally enthusiastic with regard to the Court of Protection (CoP). The transparency agenda has recently been dramatically advanced in the CoP, by a pilot scheme in which the presumption of a closed court is reversed. The announcement and implementation of this pilot coincided with unusually high press coverage of one CoP case - 'the woman who lost her sparkle'.

Obituary: Bridget Lindley OBE
Cathy Ashley - @CathyAshley
26 April 2016
Bridget Lindley, Family Right Group's Principal Legal Adviser and Deputy Chief Executive, died unexpectedly on 2 March 2016 at home in Cambridge. Her loss is a devastating blow to us all.