Parental alienation and implacable hostility

Please could you confirm whether you have already, or are planning to deploy any tools to cover Parental Alienation/Implacable hostility, if so please identify these tools by name and provide a date of deployment and an expected date if the deployment of the tool hasn’t happened yet.

Childrens social care practitioners working for Devon County Council have access to an Impact of Parental Conflict tool There are currently no plans to deploy any other relevant tools although this will remain subject to review.

Please list full references (author, book/article, publisher, year) used by DCC or the provider of tools, to construct the tools in response to Question 1

The Impact of Parental Conflict Tool is adapted from a CAFCASS tool developed from the following sources:

• Understanding child alienation and its impact on families.  Fidler, B. J., Bala, N., Birnbaum, D., & Kavassalis, K. (2008).

• Challenging issues in child custody disputes: A guide for legal and mental health professionals B.Fidler, N. Bala, D. Birnbaum, & K. Kavassalis (Eds.) . Toronto, Canada: Carswell.

Please confirm that DCC staff are working in line with the requirements of the European Association of Parental Alienation Practitioners (EAPAP) and that all Children’s services staff Social workers, line mangers, School Teachers, health visitors, in short anyone working with children have received relevant training and are working to International standards when dealing with cases where PA/IH is or has been alleged.

Devon County Council is not a member of the European Association of Parental Alienation Practitioners (EAPAP) and is not under any obligation to work to their requirements.Therefore we do not hold this information.

Please provide a copy of your professional indemnity insurance cover.

Please confirm whether this insurance covers Children’s services staff as individuals as per the following:
•Staff/practitioners/social workers are covered by your professional indemnity insurance whilst in your employment
•Staff/practitioners/social workers are covered by your professional indemnity insurance after they leave your employment
•Staff/practitioners/social workers are not covered by your professional indemnity insurance. If you respond to say that Staff/practitioners/social workers are not covered as individuals by your professional indemnity insurance, please provide any policies or training that you may have that relates to Staff/practitioners/social workers securing their own insurance policies to cover them as individuals.

Here is a copy of our Professional Indemnity Insurance Schedule.

This covers all our employees for negligent advice provided during the course of their employment with the council, and ex employees if they were employees at the time of the event that resulted in the claim.

Would you please inform me of the number of occasions that;
a) a service user

We hold this information but as disclosure may identify individuals it is exempt under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 40 Personal Data.

b) an MP has made a complaint (or supported a complaint from a service user) against DCC where Implacable Hostility or Parental Alienation has been highlighted as a concern or referenced for the years 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 up to the date of your response.

None.

And the number of complaints against DCC regarding PA/IH have been bought to the attention of the Ombudsman for the years 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 up to the date of your response.

We may hold this information but would have to manually examine all Ombudsmen cases for each of the years specified which we have estimated would take in excess of the 18 hours specified under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 12 – Cost of Compliance, therefore this information is exempt.