Support for Separated Families

 


The Family Solutions Group – a multi-disciplinary group with broad and deep expertise in working with separated families in and out of court – have released a report entitled, ‘What about me?: Reframing Support for Families following Parental Separation’. This report aims to review and improve the experiences of separating families away from the Family Court.

 

280,000 children see their parents separate each year in the UK. The report details how too many parents who separate on difficult termsfight over their competing ‘rights’, rather than cooperate over their shared ‘responsibilities’.

 

The reports main recommendations were:

 

·        Fill the policy vacuum.

·        Change the cultural response to separation.

·        Put the rights and needs of children at the centre of any parental separation

·        Steer some parents to the ‘safety pathway’

·        Steer others to the ‘cooperative parenting pathway’

 

The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, described the report as: “An important and impressive document.About 40 per cent of all separating parents bring issues about their children's care to the Family Court for determination, rather than exercising parental responsibility and sorting problems out themselves.” He continued to state, “more parents see lawyers and the court as the first port of call in dispute resolution, rather than as the facility of last resort as it should be in all cases where domestic abuse or child protection are not an issue.” 

This report lays the foundation for a comprehensive change of focus in private law proceedings. Through widespread engagement and support, this  could be effective in improving the experiences of separated families.


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