LEGAL LEARNING SESSION: Cross-border social work: Brexit legal update

Fiona is a HCPC registered Social Worker, graduating with a MA Social Work from Middlesex University, London and a MA in International and Community Development from Deakin University, Australia. She is the Senior Social Worker at Children and Families Across Borders (CFAB), where she leads on delivering CFAB’s International Kinship Care training programme and developing the capacity of CFAB’s partner agencies in Asia and Africa. Prior to CFAB, Fiona worked in the human rights sector with statutory agencies and charities in the UK, Australia and Asia region for over 15 years.

As a solicitor in private practice Maria represented clients in a wide range of matters encompassing international child abduction, jurisdictional disputes concerning children, wardship, committal, forced marriage, and public and private law proceedings. She acted in a number of high profile cases, including the seminal case of Re B (A Child) Habitual Residence: Jurisdiction [2015] EWCA Civ 886, where the Supreme Court case examined the use of the Inherent Jurisdiction in relation to the removal to Pakistan of a child born to a same-sex couple. She also represented the Appellant Mother in Re E (Children) [2011] UKSC 27, a Supreme Court case concerning the correct approach to the Article 13 (1) (b) exception in proceedings under the 1980 Hague Child Abduction Convention. In 2015, Maria worked as judicial assistant in the Court of Appeal to Lady Justice Black and Lord Justice McFarlane. In 2016 she was awarded a studentship by the Economic and Social Research Council to pursue an MSc and PhD with the University of Bristol School of Law. Her study examines the operation of instruments of private international law (Brussels IIa and the 1996 Hague Child Protection Convention) in care proceedings taking place in England. The research is conducted in collaboration with Cafcass and CFAB. Maria has also published widely on children’s law with an international element. She is the co-author of a leading practitioner’s text, ‘International Issues in Family Law The 1996 Hague Convention on the Protection of Children and Brussels IIa’ (2015 Jordans). Maria has also published extensively on the use of Special Guardianship in care proceedings with an international element, transfers of jurisdiction, recognition and enforcement of orders and the protection of children where jurisdiction is in issue.