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Child Protection and Family Justice

Children in the middle

Mon, 19 December 2005

In recent years the issue of disputes over child contact after parental separation or divorce has risen rapidly up both the political and media agenda. Within public debate it is frequently asserted that such disputes are managed much better in other countries – and without the evidence to critically evaluate these alternative interventions, such assertions are acquiring the status of proven fact.

Joan Hunt and Ceridwen Roberts from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at the University of Oxford have produced a briefing paper to facilitate a more informed and evidence based approach to learning from other jurisdictions. The paper is based on a study funded by the Nuffield Foundation which examined the processes applied in other countries.

The researchers selected types of intervention not common in the UK and examined evidence for their effectiveness. They found no panacea, but they suggest looking at this wider range of approaches both to see if they could be adapted and tested for the UK and also to stimulate home-grown ideas here.

The paper looks at four types of approach in Western European countries, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States: education in post-separation parenting; mandatory mediation; strategies to tackle non compliance with court orders and services involving children.

The study found that parental satisfaction levels with the interventions were usually high – indicating a real need for help in dealing with post separation relationships. However, as the researchers point out, this is not the same as finding evidence that the programmes had much positive impact on parental behaviour or well-being of the child that could not simply be explained by passage of time. Additionally, differences between jurisdictions in culture, legal systems and the profile of population using the courts make it unfeasible to lift interventions off the shelf.

The researchers caution that if any interventions they describe are thought to be worth pursing here it is important that they are carefully designed and evaluated. In this way a body of knowledge can build up as to what works, for whom and why, enabling the most effective forms to be developed and targeted appropriately. Such trials will also need to be adequately resourced: couples in entrenched conflict are likely to require intensive and therefore costly interventions.

Finally they urge that expectations should be modest – there appears to be no easy solution. But an extension of the range of services may reduce the numbers of families for whom conflict becomes intractable and the number of children whose lives lived in that shadow.

Last Updated Fri, 6 January 2006