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<p /> <p>All Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) practitioners
are qualified social workers with experience of working with children and families
to represent the best interests of children within family proceedings. It is the practitioner's
responsibility to identify any diversity issues, including a child or family’s faith,
in any case and to assess any safeguarding or welfare issues. Practitioners will analyse
each individual child's circumstances, taking account of relevant aspects of the Welfare
Checklist in section 1 of the Children Act 1989, when assessing their needs and how
these are best met.</p><p> </p><p>Each Cafcass service area has a responsibility to
identify the diversity needs of groups of children living in their area who they are
working with, and to take action accordingly. Cafcass’ Equality and Diversity Strategy
(2013-15) explains how it shares best practice across teams and service areas, collating
lessons learnt from a range of sources. Where staff attend training courses, the learning
is shared with the rest of the service area and communicated to Cafcass’ group of
Diversity Ambassadors. Representatives from local groups are invited to team meetings
to discuss the work that they do and practitioners are encouraged to use these groups
as a resource when considering casework decisions.</p>
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