Family Justice

Clause 10 - Where is the right of the child to participate in the process that makes decisions about him/her. Parties in this context means the adult parties; provision must be made for the child to participate - mediation is not currently set up to include children - it is an adult centred process and therefore will lead in my view to the child's right being infringed. This is all meant to be about children and families but at times this is lost on process.
amendments to this clause will not cure the evil of lack of participation of the child under UNCRC, article 12. What is needed is a complete new process that values each member of the family the use of FGC is key to the success of mediation and perhaps the reduction of cases being decided by the courts.
Thus - where mediation is referred to in this clause, perhaps Family Group conference should be substituted together with a provision for advocacy for the child within that family group conference environment.
Finally, mediation/family group conferencing should not have a compulsory element to it. Human nature is such that better results are achieved when the person comes willing to the table with an open mind. - it is this aspect of things that statute cannot address. A process where this is recognised is useful. Mediation per se holds some of the keys but not by all means all - a healing process within mediation is currently not addressed and in my mind this is a key component to success in assisting people to reach for good outcomes for themselves and their families - healing the inner child of all concerned must be priority if permanent solutions are to be found.
Clause 11(2) this recognises the rights of the child and parent to family life and is to be commended - who decides that the contrary is so. A transparent process is needed as presently this is not so. How and what would consist of the contrary what are the parameters of this. There is nothing in the Bill that gives a clear understanding of how this will be address. The presumption in some cases will not apply where the child has been harmed by the parent(s) but what constitutes harm or indeed significant harm will be decided hopefully on a indepth understanding of the individual cases and not on the basis of checklists - thus objectified.
Clause 13- two concerns 1- the need of the court to truncate proceedings within a 26 week window suggests that the courts will not accede to requests for expert evidence - parents in particular are in a vulnerable position as they do not have the financial ability to instruct experts and will be constrained on two levels one, the court and two, the legal services commission.
the second concern is around cost cutting through the legal services commission who have over the years attempted to control the use of experts and the type of assessments t hat would be paid for through public funding - there is no equality of arms for parents and children - must is dictated to them by a) the court and b) the legal services commission and c) the experts instructed who deem it necessary for a person to show within the proceedings change - all impossible. i just cannot see how these changes are going to lead to better outcomes for children and families. The corollary work is necessary (healing) which in my view will eventually lead to a place where the court process is obsolete and unnecessary.
Section 11 (11) great inclusion of words "necessary" and "justly" but application will be the key to the success of this provision - with the erosion of human rights within the court system article 6 and 8 and violations article 3. I am concerned that justly will become a catch word used by the system to demonstrate its fairness but in reality justice is not being done for children and families. solution - healing not something we can litigate for
Clause 14 - 26 week period is a disaster unless all of the work necessary to assist the family has taken place outside of the court process. This has not historically happened and this proceedings are front loaded with work being done during the court process that should have already been undertaken. Thus more emphasis on the work outside of the process should be parliaments concern as the statutory provision of 26 week will only have real relevance where the work has been completed.
Again breaches of article 3 6 and 8 will become more apparent. It is not something we should allow to happen. The solution again lies in the committment to help children and families through difficult periods in their evolution and provide tools for effective management of their lives moving forward,. Do this and time limits become irrelevant.
Clause 15 - care plans this troubles me greatly - this again appears to be a "process issue" which I am unable to relate to better outcomes for children and families. The court must be scrupulous in making sure that the care plan for the child is the best possible plan available and will lead to a bett

The break-up of families is a great cost on the resources of the nation due to the additional housing, benefit, health, social and legal costs that result from it. There are also the human costs; particularly for the children who would generally prefer their parents to be together.

There are two particular problems with the law as it stands which are unhelpful. Firstly that the adversarial system within courts minimises any chance of a divorcing couple being able to change their minds once the process starts and secondly because there has historically been a lack of recognition by family courts of the benefit of both parents being involved in children's upbringing.

1. Mediation.
I believe that there should be mandatory mediation, prior to any legal proceedings being allowed to begin, in order that the possibility of the couple resolving differences can be explored before they become irreconcilably divided by the adversarial legal system.

2. Children and Parenting.
There has historically been a great incentive for mothers to initiate divorce proceedings because they have been able to be fairly certain of keeping control of the children. They have also had an incentive to minimise the time the children can be with their father because that is a way of maximising the amount of maintenance that he will be obliged to pay her for them. This regrettable paradox has resulted in a frequent marginalising of the role of the father in children's lives.

Children generally love both of their parents and would like them to stay together. Following separation they would like usually like to spend time with both of them. This bill makes some steps towards attempting to ensure that children can continue to have both parents involved in their upbringing but it does not go far enough.

The bill should be amended so that, subject to the welfare of the child being paramount, the courts should start with a presumption of EQUAL parenting following separation and then take account of any arguments put forward that might be counter to that presumption.

Only then, if separation cannot be avoided, will the children be able to make the best of their unfortunate situation.

I speak as a veteran of the family courts, courts unable to address a contested case which was only resolved after my child voted with her own feet and in direct opposition to 10 years of judicial and legal abuse of process. I speak from a position of knowing first hand how the system is inherently flawed and how the judiciary, legal services, childrens support services and selfish parents can abuse those flaws to enrich themselves, to pursue their social agenda or to otherwise wield their power to the detriment of the child.

The changes in para 11 will likely have little or no effect in contested cases and is, as such, a failure to address the issue prompting the changes in the first place. I believe the changes proposed to have been so watered down to appease lobby groups opposed to change as to have made the changes worthless and unable to improve matters.

Much of the issue we witness today is down to a misinterpretation by legislators and the judiciary of the original intent of CA1989 made by parliament. So too now with this bill replacing the original intent by govt. for a parent to “retain a strong and influential relationship with his or her child” to that of an overly simplistic and ineffectual “involvement”. It will not allow or encourage the judiciary to alter from their historical trajectory of unnecessarily splitting children from good and much loved parents and it does not sufficiently guide their hand on what is expected of them. It will therefore clearly fail to deal with the problem. I fear if this is not addressed we will return to this same point some 10 years further on having to get it right next time around.

I support Clause 11, but it should go farther. My own experience is a 3-year legal battle to achieve shared parenting, resulting in 3 years’ extreme stress to our daughter and a 6-figure legal bill to the taxpayers. If family courts started from a ‘default’ position of shared residency then such sordid legal affairs could be prevented. And I believe that many couples considering divorce or separation would seek counselling instead. I feel ashamed to live in a country that places such low value on child-parent relationships.

The law as it stands just does not work for children. More damage is done after the separation than when it happens if both parents are not working together. Where money, revenge or serious alienation issues are present the court just doesn't see the damage unless the limited resources of CAFCASS are employed. All to often control of the children is used by one party for their OWN needs NOT for the needs of the children. By presuming that BOTH parents have a right to co-parent equally unless proven to the contrary I hope that children will no longer be used as pawn's or weapons and children will be allowed to see both parents equally. Once parent should NEVER be able to hold back contact and we know that courts are impotent when one parent is refused access by the other for often fictional reason. We have equality in so many areas now but NOT here.

I am a father currently at the mercy of a spiteful ex who is using what she knows is currently possible with the court system to massively disrupt my relationship with my daughter. This has nothing to do with welfare concerns, it is to do with hoping i will give up. I would support Clause 11, possibly with even stronger wording; the notion of enforcing the assumption from the outset that allows a child the opportunity for 50/50 shared parenting. I have found myself sucked into an over-lengthily, overly expensive and heartbreaking process whereby I have limited access to my daughter of a couple of hours a week in a contact centre, living in the hope that in the next hearing I get a better deal. All the while, I pay the fees, the maintainance, the mediation and she pays nothing.

I would also support the change in terminology from 'contact'. The process is undermining and humiliating enough without sounding like you are something from outer space come to visit for two hours every week. She is my daughter. I used to bath her and put her to bed every night. I pray now for anything beyond the contact centre walls. A change in the workings of the law to be more fair with non-resident parents who WANT to be there for children I am sure would be beneficial to our society.

As the welfare of the children is of paramount importance, why is it not mandatory for separating parents to enter some sort of contact arrangement upon separation. All of these amendments are to bring together disputing parents, but if they entered into a Legally Binding agreement at the point of separation any Parental Alienation may be avoided and there would be no need to involve solicitors and courts (at a financial and emotional cost to both parties and the state)to ensure the children, from the outset, maintain contact with both sets of parents.

If either party deviated from the Order without consent, there should legally binding consequences.

The Law needs to start to recognise Parental Alienation as this appears to be the route of most disputes.

Why BOTH parents can see past their feelings towards each other and consider THEIR children is something that needs to be addressed at the root and not many months later, after the children have and are being affected.
I haven't seen my own daughter for 18 months and its only after researching other people's situations have we realised what is happening, and far too often. Although I have attempted to approach the resident parent this remains fruitless and matches the stories of many other non-resident parents. I feel this kind of change still doesn't really address the real issue.

Clause 10 The family mediation information and assessment meeting may not be appropriate, and may even be dangerously problematic in some circumstances - for eg when parental conflict is underpinned by subtle undiagnosed psychopathology in a parent, or if a parent is significantly under the influence of a family member suffering from the same; in ethnic groups where gender and authority are enacted in ways that disadvantage one parent over another.

Clause 11 The presumption that 'unless the contrary is shown, that involvement of that parent in the life of the child concerned will further the child’s welfare' only holds if the evidence for the quality of parental involvement is collated by an expert with requisite degree of mental health training. The fact that mental health experts are only instructed in a minority of these cases means that short-term gains, or presumed gains, may be prioritised over the longer-term developmental and mental health needs of children. It also assumes that children need the same kinds of interaction with both parents unless quite a high, and unhelpfully rigid threshold for 'risk' is crossed. This can leave children open to untold emotional upheaval, even risk, and causing longstanding damage as a result.

Clause 13 7 a The introduction of a preliminary consultation with an adequately qualified expert may most usefully inform the Court whether further assessment/examination of a child is likely to cause more harm than good. Experts, being clinicians, are regularly required to make decisions regarding costs/benefits and timing of any intervention vs short-, medium- and long-term balance of risk and benefit in routine clinical work.

Clause 14 The 26 week time limit is unrealistic, especially when the difficulties affecting the child/family, who may have been known to the local authority for many years, may be compounded by the failure of services. The court process may be the first time professional agencies are under as much scrutiny as the family are - and must live up to their promises. Further, if robust recommendations are to be made the process of assessment must include a 'trial of therapy'- ie a testing out of the hypotheses about what will help, checking to see whether professionals can deliver a package quickly and if the family can take it up. Any less than this unfairly punishes the family for what are often multi-generational societal failures. Without this element children will be removed from essentially able parents, with all the well known long-term uncertainties and risks that arise from alternative and institutional placements.

As a parent of a child who was 5 years old when his father and I separated and who had to use the family justice system to reach care arrangements, I feel very strongly about this issue. I speak not solely from a position of a parent, in this case, the mother, but also from having spoken at length with my son, who is now a well grounded, intelligent 13 yr old, about his first hand experience of this issue. He strongly feels that as his parents were unable to reach an amicable arrangement outside of court due to disagreements and conflict between them, he benefitted enormously from a decision which was arrived at after taking his individual circumstances into account, based on his best interests. In that case, it was for him to remain living with me whilst having regular quality contact with his father defined by the court. We could, and did, then increase that access whenever my son felt he wanted to spend more time with his father. To quote my son, "this meant I had one home, like most most of my friends, but could then see dad as much as i wanted, so I felt I had some control, rather than if i had to spend equal time with both of you, when i would have felt under pressure to do that, or scared to break the law, if I didnt". As a parent, I think the family justice system works, precisely because it does come to decisions on a case by case basis, based on the best interests of each individual child. I do not think legal enshrinement that the involvement of both parents is in the best interests of the child will in any way improve the outcome for children which is already well served. Instead, in my view, this recommendation is designed to secure an outcome which will make parents feel they are treated more equitably in the courts, for reasons often not directly influenced by the best interest of the child.