GOVERMNENT PILOT FLOPS!

GOVERNMENT'S FAMILY RESOLUTION PILOT FLOPS

The inevitable failure of this doomed project is reported today in The Guardian by its Legal Editor, Clare Dyer.

The project was supposed to remedy the problem of children losing contact with good, loving parents in cases where the custodial parent is determined to block the other parent’s access for no good reason.

EQUAL PARENTING COUNCIL (EPC)has been researching Best Practice family justice models across North America for years. EPC predicted that this half-baked scheme would fail. The Government refused to listen and, as a result, has poured copious amounts of taxpayers’ money down the drain! More importantly, children have been badly let down, as have their excluded parents and grandparents.

THE MISSING COMPONENTS – it’s a matter of commonsense!

The current law lacks a legal presumption that all fit* parents shall have the right to substantial parenting time (so called “contact”) with their children following separation from the other parent.

(*A parents should be deemed “fit” unless a condition exists that would justify the limitation of that parent’s role by the State even if the parents were still together in an intact relationship. EPC, for the sake of clarity, calls fit parent cases “normal cases” – which represent the vast majority.)

Substantial parenting time should be defined as at least one third of the available parenting time on a year round basis.

Courts should be required to secure children’s parenting time in all normal cases by the granting of substantial parenting time orders that must be enforced. However, early intervention measures are necessary to help parents reach agreement without the need for a damaging and costly trial. The two primary measures that have been found to be especially successful are:-


· Compulsory parent education; followed by

· Mandatory mediation

READ CLARE DYER’S ARTICLE


READ ALSO TONY COE'S WESTMINSTER PRESENTATION
"The Burning Need for a Legal Presumption of Parenting Time"