Written evidence submitted by Parentline
Plus and the National Council for One Parent Families (CAF 10)
INTRODUCTION
1. Parentline Plus and the National Council
for One Parent Families (NCOPF) would like to share the following
views with the Committee on the Lord Chancellor's Department on
the work of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support
Services (CAFCASS):
2. Parentline Plus is a leading national
charity founded to support anyone in a parenting role. Last year
Parentline Plus supported almost half a million people through
our direct services: parenting courses and workshops, information
leaflets, a website, Referral Telephone Support, and a free 24
hour helpline and textphone. We work to recognise and to value
the different types of families that exist and to shape and expand
the services available to them. We understand that it is not possible
to separate the children's needs from the needs of their parents
and carers and encourage people to see it as a sign of strength
to seek help.
3. The National Council for One Parent Families
is the leading national charity campaigning and lobbying on behalf
of lone parents and their children. We are an independent charity,
constituted in 1918, and with a membership of approximately 3000
lone parents and other supporters. There are currently about 1.7
million lone parents in the UK caring for approaching 3 million
children. [3]It
is estimated that at any one point in time, nearly a quarter of
children will live with just one of their parents and between
a third and a half will experience life in a one-parent family
before they reach adulthood. One-parent families represent 21%
of all families and 91% of them are headed by women. [4]The
majority of lone parents were married, and are widowed, separated
or divorced[5]—and
of those who were not, most lived with the father of their children
prior to the separation. [6]
4. We acknowledge that CAFCASS has faced
many challenges around funding and managing and completing the
set up of its organisational structures. However, we would hope
that its work can now develop so that families and children receive
an improved and appropriate service.
CONTACT, MEDIATION
AND INFORMATION
5. One of the roles of CAFCASS is to represent,
safeguard and promote the welfare of children involved in family
court proceedings. Recent research, [7]has
suggested that some parents engaged in the legal system can be
described as being in a vicious circle of destruction, recrimination
or indifference. Frustration with the inability of lawyers and
courts to encourage non-resident parents to establish a contact
regime, a feeling that the legal system favoured one parent over
another and resentment towards tightly defined contact schedules
and imposed contact all serve to entrench positions and heighten
negative attitudes. Families in this situation often have a very
poor understanding of how family mediation might be able to help.
CAFCASS must work to promote the benefits of mediation and to
raise awareness and understanding of the role of mediation amongst
families that are in need.
CAFCASS must also support these families going
through the legal system to ensure that the best possible outcomes
for children can be achieved, through effective representation
of children's needs and through the promotion of constructive
contact with both parents, where this is in the best interests
of the child.
6. CAFCASS must be able to access free mediation
services for families although it is noted that mediation can
never be a substitute for proper legal advice. The Family Advice
and Information Network (FAINs) pilots offer the opportunity to
look at ways of combining access to legal advice and mediation
in divorce and separation cases and CAFCASS should also have access
to FAINs networks. Mediation should also be available to separating
cohabiting couples. Mediation will not be suitable in all cases,
however, for example where there has been domestic violence or
bullying and controlling behaviour.
7. CAFCASS along with voluntary organisations
also has a role to play in providing ongoing, impartial information
and support to children and families going through family change.
Parents for example may need information about the effects of
divorce and separation on children or about situations where contact
might be inappropriate or harmful. Children too might benefit
from age appropriate information.
CONTACT CENTRES—PARTNERSHIPS
8. In its recent partnership strategy consultation,
CAFCASS suggested that it would hope to re-prioritise its partnerships
towards supporting child contact arrangements, primarily through
child contact centre provision. Parentline Plus responded to this
consultation highlighting the evidence that children may benefit
from being able to see both parents. Apart from cases where it
is necessary to protect children, parents need to be supported
in maintaining the continuing involvement of non-resident parents
in their children's lives. This needs to be understood as cooperative
parenting—where parents are supported to cooperate for the
benefit of their children.
9. At present, contact centres provide a
location for contact but are often unable to offer supervised
contact which can lead resident parents to feel that a contact
centre might not be a safe place to entrust their child's welfare.
Contact centres should be properly funded to be able to offer
absolute security so that contact is safe and helpful and so that
non-resident parents cannot use the arena for bullying and attacking
ex-partners. In its response to the CAFCASS consultation mentioned
above, NCOPF argued that the recommendations in the recent Warwick
University report[8]
in relation to contact centres should be adopted viz:
— protocols, training and guidance
on active screening and assessment in relation to domestic violence.
— greater provision of independent
support, advice and advocacy for children.
— replacing the terminology of supported
and supervised contact with terms that clarify levels of vigilance:
high, medium and low vigilance.
— developing the range of contact options
to ensure the availability of high, medium and low vigilance contact
on a locality/regional basis.
— the development and dissemination
of training materials on issues raised by child contact in the
context of domestic violence.
10. Parentline Plus and NCOPF would also
like to see an extension of the services on offer in contact centres
and provided through mediation services. At the moment, not all
contact centres are able to provide wider support to parents in
the form of parenting education, services such as Referral Telephone
Support, mentoring and advice on money and practical concerns.
Parents going through a divorce or separation and using services
such as child contact centres often need further support which
could be provided from these sources via CAFCASS. Calls to the
Parentline Plus 24 hour free helpline during the October to December
2002 quarter reveal the extent of parents' need for further support
and advice when going through this difficult transition. 20% of
calls to the helpline during this period were from parents with
concerns about the impact of a divorce or separation on their
children's contact with the non-resident parent, while 35% of
calls were about the impact of a divorce or separation on themselves,
a figure which includes parents' concerns about financial and
housing issues, residence, parental responsibility and contact.
SIGNPOSTING
11. As part of wider support to be offered
to parents and children going through a divorce or separation
it is also vital that CAFCASS employees are able to signpost parents
and families onto appropriate national and locally based sources
of information, help and support. Parentline Plus and the National
Council for One Parent Families recently undertook signposting
training with around 8,500 Child Support Agency staff which proved
to be extremely useful to staff and clients. Such training could
be made much more widely available.
TRAINING FOR
STAFF—REPRESENTING
PARENTS AND
CHILDREN
12. As stated in their key objectives, CAFCASS
must work to improve and develop the skills of their staff. The
voice of children needs be heard in respect of contact arrangements
and family court proceedings and properly trained counsellors
and advocates should be able to talk to children in a confidential
and neutral way about this, while the parents would need to be
reassured that the practitioner was independent of either parent.
In addition staff must be fully trained to work with parents to
help them to negotiate effective cooperative parenting arrangements
where appropriate and to support their children through the transitions
of family breakdown and change. Only then will CAFCASS be able
to ensure better outcomes for children.
Parentline and the National Council for One Parent
Families
March 2003
3 Ford R and Millar J, Eds. (1998) Private Lives and
Public Responses: Lone Parenthood and Future Policy, London: PSI;
and Haskey J (1998) One-parent families and their dependent children
in Great Britain, Population Trends 91, Spring 1998, ONS Back
4
Living in Britain (1998) Results from the 1996 General Household
Survey, ONS, Table 2.4 Back
5
Figures commissioned by NCOPF by LFS Data Service from ONS Spring
2001 Back
6
Haskey J (1998) "One-parent families and their dependent
children in Great Britain" Population trends 91 Spring 1998
c. Crown copyright 2000 Back
7
Liz Trinder, Mary Beek, Jo Connolly (2002) Making Contact: How
parents and children negotiate and experience contact after divorce
pub. for Joseph Rowntree Foundation by York publishing Back
8
Aris R, Harrison C and Humphreys C: Safety and Contact: an Analysis
of the Role of Child Contact Centres in the Context of Domestic
Violence and Child Welfare Concerns LCD December 2002 Back
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