Reasonable precaution or perpetuating harm?
Disrupted attachments in private family law
Every day, 250 children in England are referred to the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass). In June 2022, the number of children whose lives, whose futures, were held in the hands of Cafcass numbered 55,422. Every year Cafcass work with nearly 150,000 children, and the trend is increasing. The vast majority of these children are experiencing harm – or are at risk of experiencing harm.
Children largely enter the family court system through two main avenues. Public Law cases are where children have come to the attention of local safeguarding or child protection services. After assessment, these children are found to have experienced, or to be at risk of experiencing, abuse or neglect. In all of these cases a guardian is appointed. The guardian’s role is to ensure children are safe and that decisions are in their best interests.
In Private Law cases – typically one parent makes an application to court because of their concerns about their child, or because they cannot agree with the other parent on matters affecting their child. Parents may be concerned that their child is being harmed, or they may feel they are being excluded from their child’s life. According to the President of the Family Division in his interview on BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House, 80% of these cases come to court with concerns around child safety or abuse. Only around 5% of cases in private family law are recorded as having a guardian appointed.
Data from the family court in England and Wales, historically, has been lacking. Instead, our “evidence” has been anecdotal, self-report, heart-rending stories on social media, the occasional published judgement & even rarer news article, brought to light by seemingly single-minded, determined journalists. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory has now begun to address the objective data deficit.
One small study was conducted in 2017 by Cafcass and Women’s Aid. This analysis of 216 cases sheds a light on the psychosocial and contextual factors in private law proceedings which likely impact on children’s welfare and safety. In this dataset –allegations of domestic abuse featured in 62% of the cases. 73% of cases contained other allegations of behaviours or factors which may contribute to harm, predominantly parental substance misuse, parental mental health, and emotional abuse of the child. In only 14 of the 216 cases, were there allegations of domestic abuse with no additional factors of concern.
Where domestic abuse allegations were a feature in the Cafcass files, the vast majority of cases included additional allegations regarding possible harm to the child from a number of factors. As a practitioner psychologist who works with the complexity of human functioning and family relationships, this is no surprise. Our work is to make our best effort to understand a child’s world, how this is shaped by their experiences and their relationships with key attachment figures.
I know that a child can be harmed by any of these factors, singularly, or in combination. I know too, that the impact on any particular child can be mitigated by a range of positive factors in their life – safe adults or relationships, the child’s own personality or coping strategies, therapeutic or other support.
I also know, that one of the greatest risks to a child’s development and well-being is separation from a good-enough, nurturing parent. This is not controversial – in Law or in Psychology. Even separation from caregivers with considerable deficits in their parenting has been found to have a more negative impact than maintaining that relationship. Continuing to spend time with a parent gives the child the comfort of knowing mum and dad love them and are interested in their welfare; it helps minimise developmental damage associated with feelings of abandonment or rejection [1].
Anecdotally, the court’s response to allegations against a parent who is not in physical “possession” of the child at the time (most often fathers), often seems to be to cease contact while investigations are undertaken. This is often referred to as “the precautionary principle.” In contrast, it is unlikely that a parent in physical possession of a child (most often mothers), subject to similar allegations, will have the child removed from their care. There seems to be no desire for such precaution in these cases. In my work as an expert witness in family proceedings and as a practitioner who provides support and therapy, I have yet to see a balanced assessment of the risk to a child which includes ceasing and maintaining the relationship with each parent in the interim.
We do not have the data on how many children are prevented from maintaining their relationship with a parent for the duration of private law proceedings. But we do know, today 10,000 children in England alone have been subject to ongoing proceedings for more than a year. For more than 3,200 children the duration is more than 100 weeks.
Whether these individual children are found to be at risk of harm from their parents or not, we can say with near certainty, that many will be harmed by this not fit for purpose system.
[1] Paul Adams, Planning for Contact in Permanent Placements (BAAF, 2012); Gillian Schofield and John Simmonds, The Child Placement Handbook, ed. by Gillian Schofield and John Simmonds (BAAF, 2009).
I’m so glad you’re doing this Sue. Can we link on the CFS website?
Thankyou Dr Sue. I have read most of your studies on Academia and am glad to see you are posting here as it seems to be one of the last bastions of unfettered information.
''I have yet to see a balanced assessment of the risk to a child which includes ceasing and maintaining the relationship with each parent in the interim''
I think this is a point that seems negligible in the collective mind of the courts. There seems to be no consideration for the damage that is caused, and that is evidenced clearly in sound data and studies that children do much better with both parents in their lives.
Instead they make the mistake of, to use a sporting analogy, 'ball watching' where they become obsessed with the perceived safety of the children. This tends to play directly into the hands of parents who are from that cluster b personality set who, for which 'smearing' and 'revision of history' is part of their predisposition. Not only that, part of the cluster b profile means that they may well be extremely adept at using manipulation techniques to amplify the character assassination of what may well be a normal, safe loving parent. This enables them to triangulate the alienated parent, where Cafcass and other professionals, unwittingly or through incompetence, then become victims to confirmation bias.
There are also current societal trends that favour mothers. One only has to look at the distribution of funding where billions go towards gendered charities, the United Nations 'gender responsive law making' specifically lobbies for mothers, and mother only to receive free legal aid. Pressure from other groups, big tech, main stream media is also being exerted to the point where we are currently in the bizarre situation where government funding is now being spent on posters stating, 'straight white men pass the power'. Try and flip this poster any other way and imagine the justified outrage?
Of course PA is not gendered, I have friends gained through through the PA community who are fantastic mothers and good people who have lost their children to PA. The fact is if either parent has the requisite personality traits that might be predisposed to create what Hayley called the 'perverse triangle', a take on the victim triangle but with the added trauma of a cross generational coalition. This along with the enmeshment causes huge psychological pressure to be exerted on the child.
To an untrained 'professional' this enmeshment may well come across as a caring parent (rescuer) and a distraught child (victim) and they are drawn in by the 'smearing' and the the child will play along and display what Amy Baker calls, 'the independent thinker phenomenon''. They wont see the splitting or the lack of rationalisation in what are usually frivolous complaints to attack and demonise the alienated parent (persecutor).
Whilst I don't really put much weight on anecdotal evidence, my experience of the family court system was that I was demonised by Cafcass officers who, not only refused to listen to the psychological report, but actively assisted mother to alienate my daughters from me. I am an reasonably articulate dad with no safeguarding issues, I don't drink, have a good job and have a healthy lifestyle. The Court lost complete focus on that and became fixated on making me jump through hoops and write constant apology letters to my daughter. When I asked Cafcass what I was apologising for they would say I needed to appreciate my daughters 'lived experience' regardless of whether or not their mother was influencing them as evidenced by the psychologist. I tried to make the point that re-enforcing distortions in children was abusive in itself they just said that I lacked understanding and that I 'read too much'. In the end you are just gaslit out of the process. I was never even observed with my children. Cafcass now deem this to be 'too stressful' for the children. Videos of me with the children before I was alienated were discredited by Cafcass because the children said they were just pretending to be happy and really they hated me. This was their 'lived experience' and we should understand that, of course the psychologist disputed this but they were ignored.
Looking at the picture in your article is heart-breaking for me. It symbolises a lost childhood for my children. Something they can never get back. They will never experience the love of their father, holidays with their dad or see their dads side of the family and play with their once beloved Labradors. They will be conditioned to hate their father and men as a whole. Sadly, this seems to be something that society deems to be acceptable and in some realms, even commendable. In the mean time I have to stay healthy for my daughters, and be ready for a knock on the door should that day ever come.
I have lost three friends in this past year to the black dog, and I am really worried about where society as a whole is going. I hope that things turn around soon. We have lost ourselves and there is a storm looming. I will be there for my beloved daughters with a brolly, a flask of tea and a map when they need it.
Runningonempty