![handle is hein.journals/jnlosclwl41 and id is 1 raw text is:
JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND FAMILY LAW Routledae
2019, VOL. 41, NO. 1, 1-2
https://doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2019.1554783 Taylor &Francis Group
Editoria
This first issue of the new year opens with a close examination of the impact of LASPO
on the practice of family solicitors and CABx working with low income clients in
private law family cases. By the time this issue is published the report of the LASPO
Review may have reached the public domain. At the time of writing (December 2018),
however, there is little optimism about the possibility of any substantial rolling back of
the policy which came into effect as part of the austerity culture, but had deeper roots in
the lack of confidence within government and in particular within the Ministry of
Justice about the value of involving courts and lawyers in such cases. Public money for
private quarrels has long been a bone of contention, and particularly so since the
attempts at substituting mediation for adjudication failed and the continuing use of
courts by those without the resources for representation has made the operation of the
court system increasingly troubled. Simone Wong and Ruth Cain carried out a small
but powerful in depth study of solicitors and advice workers, finding solicitors working
in their own time, offering unbundled services, with litigants increasingly 'giving up on
pursuing their cases' with a resulting increase in post separation capital loss, poverty
and debt amongst clients 'abandoned by the state.'
Staying with small scale local intensive empirical work, this issue then begins to
broaden out to take a more international perspective. Maria Wright gives us a snapshot
of how recent judgments in child protection cases with international connections are
affecting the work of local authority lawyers and social workers, following the judgment
by Sir James Munby in the case of a 12 year old Slovakian child in Re E (A Child) (Care
Proceedings: European Dimension) 9[2014]EWHC6(Fam);[2014] 1 WLR 2670. The
series of judgments addressed here gave rise to tension between the need to adhere to
the procedural and substantive guidance provided in this difficult area, but and was
followed by increasing tension between the need to follow the guidance and also to
address the welfare needs of the child concerned.
The third article in the general section by Vivienne Elizabeth returns to private law,
but focussing on neither the needs of the children nor the demands of fathers but
instead talks about the grief of post separation mothers who lose care time . Her title
quotes one mother as saying ' It's an invisible wound'. The needs and feelings of twelve
mothers separated from their children are described in New Zealand, where as in other
jurisdictions the experience of losing maternal care time is becoming more common 'as
a result of the gender neutrality of custody laws' and the 'increased emphasis given to
shared parenting as a viable post separation parenting arrangement' . Elizabeth points
not only to the impact on the women but also the need to consider a relational welfare
approach to the children's best interests. Moving to Australia we have an intriguing
account of the development of the use of 'apps' in parenting on the smart phone after
separation from Belinda Fehlberg and Bruce Smyth with the delightful title of ' Whats
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jnlosclwl41&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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