A charity that supports male victims of Domestic Abuse, the Mankind Initiative has declared its backing for the recommendation that there should be a specific criminal offence of domestic abuse in regards to controlling and coercive behaviour in intimate relationships.
Information on children referred to and assessed by children's social services as children in need between 1st April 2013 and 31st March 2014, has been published by the Department for Education.
A report by the Health Select Committee published on 5th November 2014, has warned there are 'serious and deeply ingrained problems' running throughout the entire system. According to the report, the safety of young people is at risk with access to inpatient mental health services severely inadequate.
The Government has announced a new measure that could affect the credit rating of non-maintenance paying parents from early next year. A new rule introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), aimed at penalizing separated parents who build up arrears in child maintenance payments, is due to be introduced from March 2015.
Though the Legal Aid Agency received 125 applications for exceptional case funding from April until June 2014, only four of these applications have so far been granted. A remaining 24 applications await a decision, while 79 were refused, 2 withdrawn, and 16 rejected.
A Devon couple presented the Minister for Equalities with a 40,000 signature petition requesting a change to the regulations which govern the civil partnership to same sex marriage conversion.
The recent changes to the Collect and Pay system operated by the Child Maintenance Service, which were introduced on the 11th of August, are attracting controversy. Resolution as well as the Gingerbread single parents support group criticise the scheme for affecting vulnerable families most.
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has been making great strides in reducing the duration of its legal proceedings revolving around child care since it implemented the Children and Families Act 2014 back in late April of this year.
In 2013, according to statistics, less than half of children adopted performed up to the standard levels in school. In contrast, seventy-five percent of children who were not adopted managed to meet the expected levels. This dramatic gap is indicative of the huge disadvantage that adopted children have at having a successful future.