New Directions: a Family Court

Abstract

The juvenile court is an inadequate forum for adjudicating complex civil matters concerning children and their families; the welfare ethos of the court has placed a low priority on the legal rights of those affected by its jurisdiction. There is also considerable uncertainty about the notion of ‘ welfare’. Child-care literature shows that there are no agreed values on the socialisation of children. A review of existing studies on techniques for predicting long-term harm to children on the basis of parental behaviour led Harvard psychologist Sheldon White to conclude:

Neither theory nor research has specified the exact mechanisms by which a child’s development and his family functioning are linked. While speculation abounds, there is little agreement about how these family functions produce variations in measures of health, learning and affect. Nor do we know the relative importance of internal (individual and family) versus external (social and economic) factors (White, 1973, p. 240).