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Biomedical subjects

F M Martin

Publications and source records attributed to F M Martin.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
PubMed1983

The end of the road: residential disposals in the Scottish children's hearings system.

In a study of a representative sample of 301 "children's hearings", particular attention was given to 27 cases in which the child was committed to a List D school. Because the Scottish juvenile justice system has an explicit commitment to promoting the welfare of the children with whom it deals, the decisions were examined with special reference to the objectives that the hearing members hoped to achieve. These decisions could be divided into: (1) those which reflected only a sense that all alternatives had been exhausted; (2) those which aimed to ensure that the child received formal education or was placed in an environment which would help resolve his personal difficulties; (3) those designed to protect the child from family stresses or to achieve some other specific purpose. Since decisions under (1) are incompatible with the formal philosophy of the system, most of those under (2) entail no knowledge of the effectiveness of List D schools for the purposes in question, and some of those under (3) were wholly misconceived, it is concluded that there are some significant inconsistencies between the system's ideology and the actual practice of its members.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1982

The role of "children's hearings" in child abuse and neglect.

The juvenile justice system established in Scotland in 1971, in which lay volunteers play a central part, provides a framework for making decisions about children in need of care and protection as well as those who have committed delinquent acts. Although cases of child abuse and neglect have come increasingly to the attention of children's hearings in recent years, they nevertheless constitute a small fraction of a workload dominated by cases of delinquency and truancy. A recent Scotland-wide study of the hearings system therefore gave only limited attention to the processing of abuse and neglect referrals. As a step towards rectifying this imbalance, a separate enquiry was carried out in 1981, when 43 such hearings were systematically observed and the participating panel members interviewed. Examination of these results indicates a heavy dependence on social workers' recommendations, a reluctance to open up sensitive areas for discussion, even though these may be of central importance, and an apparent lack of curiosity about the arrangements made for children removed from their homes, and the implications of these. In general, it is concluded that the anxiety generated by child abuse and neglect has prevented panel members from recognizing the distinctive features of their role in the decision-making process and has led them to fall back on an inappropriate model of practice derived from delinquency hearings. An alternative model is outlined.

Child↗