A Childhood on Paper: Managing Access to Child Care Files by Post-Care Adults

Abstract

Although the potential importance of care-file information for those formerly in care has long been recognised, little is known about requests for access to such records, whether in terms of scale or how requests are dealt with. The survey reported here by Jim Goddard, Julia Feast and Derek Kirton was carried out to address this gap. It was conducted in two stages during 2004 and 2005. The first stage comprised a postal questionnaire to local authorities in the UK (with 81 responses received) and a small number of voluntary organisations. This was followed by 40 telephone interviews with key local authority and voluntary sector personnel dealing with access to records requests. Areas of interest within the study included: policy and practice in relation to the retention, storage and retrieval of files; the handling of requests, including by whom; the provision of services (eg counselling and intermediary help); and the impact of the Data Protection Act 1998 on the handling of access requests. Two related themes emerged. First, policy, practice and service provision vary enormously between agencies, creating a ‘post-code lottery’ for post-care adults. Second, such provision is often poor in comparison with that offered to adopted adults, thereby raising the question of whether the current legal and policy framework for access to care records is adequate.