News roundup

A quarter of the 36 serious case reviews received by Ofsted since April 2007 were inadequate, according to the
third joint chief inspectors' report into safeguarding children in England , which measured performance from 2005-8.

Cardiff Law School are inviting legal practitioners and members of the public to complete a questionnaire about enforcing and controlling post-separation contact.

Comunity Care's has
analysed Cafcass's performance in light of the publication of its annual report.

People who kill their partners after years of abuse would be able to use a new defence that they had acted in response to extreme "words and conduct", under government plans to change the law on murder as reported in the Guardian and see the paper's earlier coverage .

Divorce and separation are blighting the lives of millions of older people, a Labour think-tank said yesterday. It found that isolation among the elderly has been made worse by increasing numbers of couples breaking up. A report from the Institute for Public Policy Research said that the rising number of the aged and the tendency of women to outlive their husbands is also contributing to depression and unhappiness (reports the
Mail .

Social services failed to recognise the risk posed by a mentally ill woman who killed her two children after being allowed unsupervised access, an inquiry has found. Vivian Gamor was acting increasingly strangely towards her children before she bludgeoned 10-year-old Antoine with a claw hammer and suffocated daughter Kenniece, three, with cling film in January last year, reports the
Telegraph .

The Guardian carried an editorial on fee increases and care proceedings on Monday July 28th.

Hillingdon Borough Council in London, Leeds City Council, Liverpool City Council and Norfolk County Council have jointly lodged judicial review proceedings against the Government over the increase in child care proceedings fee.

Encouraging results from the Family Interventions Project Pilots according to this Community Care story . The complete evaluation is here as a pdf .