Understanding Care Proceedings

Abstract

John Eekelaar made massive contributions across the whole range of family law research and scholarship: to theory, the analysis of policy, case law and statute law, and to the development of empirical research over two generations (at least) of family law researchers. This chapter will focus on the area with which I am most closely associated: empirical research in child protection, childcare and care proceedings. This was also the area of the groundbreaking study, The Protection of Children, which John conducted with Robert Dingwall and Topsy Murray in the late 1970s and early 1980s. John’s early empirical research was a huge inspiration: it opened my eyes to the possibilities of examining the operation and influence of law in action, and provided really positive examples of how this could be done. John’s work showed that textbook givens about the way the law operated could, and should, be questioned, and that this could be done through the systematic analysis of court records and other official files, court and agency observations, and interviews. The work is both a mixed methods study and an ethnography. His work also demonstrated that empirical and doctrinal analysis should be integrated, in order to examine how far legal interpretations penetrated into the everyday practice of law, and beyond courts and lawyers’ offices, into the minds of those who made decisions that were intended to be shaped by law. John’s empirical research did not simply enable new ways of seeing and understanding law; by shedding light on areas where the existing legal framework was inadequate or broken, identifying barriers to change, and indicating the types of change which could make a real difference, it also provided a strong foundation for law reform proposals. Many of the ideas for reform set out in The Protection of Children found their way into the Children Act 1989. The knowledge and understanding gained through the research enabled the authors to write a practical guide to the new law, which placed the reform in its historical and political context, and included a chapter on the organisational context of child protection practice. Understanding this is essential for researchers and practitioners alike.