If anyone needed final confirmation that CAFCASS should be abolished, they would find it in today's Times – see below for the
The Times articles.
CAFCASS’s Chief Executive, Anthony Douglas, told The Times that the children of divorce – even those as young as 7 - should decide which parent they want to be with. So, there we have it - the organization that has the paramount, statutory duty to safeguard the welfare of the children, abdicates responsibility to children - at a time when they are upset and confused over what is happening to their precious family life.
CAFCASS staff are rank amateurs who have not been trained even in the fundamentals of this important work. They have been told they are experts in it, so they think they are! They are social workers and probation officers. They have the wrong training and the wrong leadership for this skilled, specialist work.
Take an average case that comes to the attention of EQUAL PARENTING COUNCIL (EPC). Usually such cases involve the children of two normal, loving parents. There is no question in these cases of either parent posing any kind of safety risk. However one parent, usually (
but not always) the mother, is blocking the other
parent’s access. Left with no alternative, the blocked parent applies to court for an order.
Because our system is so appalling, this process takes months, often years. Meantime, the excluded parent will often be granted little or no access, and the blocking parent is given
carte blanche to alienate the children.
This alienation process is well known to true experts, those who have been properly trained in resolving custody and access disputes for the long term benefit of the children.
Children are devastated when their parents separate, but it is made a thousand times worse for them when they lose contact with their other parent.
Of course they shouldn’t be asked to choose between the two people they love more than anything else in the world! What an abusive, incompetent approach! Yet that is what CAFCASS officers do and that is why, in the UK, over 40% of parents lose all contact with their children within 2 years of separation.
Anthony Douglas’s own words betray the fact that CAFCASS is unfit to fulfil the role of serving the best interests of children. CAFCASS officers don’t have a clue and we now know that their wrongheaded approach comes from the misdirection they receive from the very top of the organization.
Children have the right to both parents, just as they have the right to an education and to good medical care. They should not be handed the right to opt out of seeing one of their parents when everyone agrees (
and global research overwhelmingly proves) that this is damaging to their long term interests.
The Times concludes that Douglas’s approach is a step in the wrong direction. It is actually the way CAFCASS has always operated, in flagrant disregard of the civil rights of children and excluded parents. This is why EPC wholeheartedly supports all those who have been calling for the abolition of CAFCASS. Our private law system of family justice cannot improve until CAFCASS has gone.
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EPC FORUMS ARTICLES IN THE TIMES ABOUT ANTHONY DOUGLAS, CHIEF EXEC OF CAFCASS July 23, 2005
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-1704648,00.html
The mouths of babesIt would be unwise to ask children to choose between their parents There are rarely true “winners” from any divorce but children are often the greatest losers. It is right that this fact and their interests are awarded a very high priority when arrangements for custody are determined. The precise weight offered to their preferences as to whom they might live with remains, however, a matter of controversy. This argument will be further stoked by the candid views put to The Times today by Anthony Douglas, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service.
Mr Douglas believes that, with a number of exceptions, children from the age of 7 should have the primary voice in deciding their future. He has previously written that the judicial system should “listen to children first and last”. He contends that, on the whole, children have the insight and maturity to know what they want and that those insights should be respected by the courts. He has cited his own extremely difficult circumstances as a child — the adopted son of two parents where the father had come to “hate and detest” the mother — as an illustration in favour of his position.
Mr Douglas is an able public servant, passionate about his work and a staunch advocate for children. He recognises some of the challenges that a shift in the presumption of the law in this area might bring. He may, though, underestimate their impact. There are three powerful reasons against moving in the manner that he suggests.
The first concerns the age of the children he would empower. The level of maturity of those aged not merely 7, but up to the early teens, varies enormously. The difference is not just personality, but by gender and, for example, whether the child is the eldest, youngest or in the middle and the size of the family. Then there are the strengths or not of the broader family network. It would be an unwelcome step for the courts to assume that children at anywhere close to this age are the best judges of their own interests.
The second consideration is the damage that could be done to the already fragile relationship between separating parents. There is the danger of creating a competition for the affections of children that would be utterly destabilising. Parents might seek to shower their children with favours and treats or, worst still, poison them against the other partner. Divorce is bad enough without any extra conflict.
Finally, while it is clear that reform in this area is necessary, it has not been shown that the change required is that which Mr Douglas has suggested. The principal complaint made against the current system — and by sensible people and bodies, not merely aggrieved fathers dressed in silly costumes calling for “justice” — is that there remains a bias against awarding men the custody of children. Those children may also suffer as a consequence if denied proper contact with fathers..
Family law often lags behind social trends. In time more fathers will be awarded custody. Both the issues of access and alimony need to be policed more effectively. The change that Mr Douglas supports, nevertheless, would be a step in the wrong direction.
July 23, 2005
'Let 7-year-olds choose between their parents'By Alexandra Frean, Social Affairs Correspondent CHILDREN as young as 7 should be allowed to decide which parent they want to live with in cases of divorce or separation, Anthony Douglas, the head of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass), has said.
The “wishes and needs” expressed by children, and not their parents, should be the starting point for settling residence and contact disputes, he said.
“Most children over the age of 7, 8 or 9, depending on their emotional development, will have a very clear view of what they want to happen. That view should stand unless there are safeguarding issues or some other overriding welfare issues.
“Children, when trusted and empowered, usually tell the truth. They will have thought about these issues very deeply. With their parents separating, they will be in a situation they don’t want to be in — they won’t have voted for it.
“They will tell you what they want to happen. That should be your starting point,” Mr Douglas told The Times.
Mr Douglas emphasised that, ideally, children should spend time with both parents, but should be allowed to decide who to live with most of the time.
He acknowledged that asking children was difficult, but said that the real test of whether parents wanted what was in their children’s best interests was whether they would allow their children to have a say.
Father’s groups reacted angrily to Mr Douglas’s comments, saying that they would be bound to favour mothers in disputed custody cases. Tony Coe, of the Equal Parenting Council, said that it was for parents to decide what was in children’s best interests. “Children should not be given the option to opt out of one parent any more than they are allowed to opt out of school or going to the dentist,” he said.
Matt O’Connor, a spokesman for Fathers4Justice, said that Mr Douglas’s approach represented a gross abdication of responsibility on the part of Cafcass, which was set up in 2001 to co-ordinate the representation of children’s interests before the courts. “It could leave children feeling very guilty if they felt they had been responsible for driving one parent or other from their lives,” he said.
Both organisations said that allowing children to decide would favour the parent with care at the time of the contact dispute, usually the mother, as there was a risk that she could poison the child’s mind against the absent parent, usually the father.
Jack O’Sullivan, of Fathers’ Direct, agreed with Mr Douglas that the views of the children should be paramount, but said that care needed to be taken to ensure that children did not feel that they had to take sides.
“It may be that a child says they want to be with one parent because they want to protect them. For example if daddy leaves and mummy is upset, the child might feel they need to stay with mummy to protect her,” he said.
Jim Parton, of Families Need Fathers, said that, although children should be listened to, those interviewing them needed to be very skilled to ensure that they did not ask leading questions. “With my son when he was asked, aged 5, ‘What do you consider to be your main home?
He said, ‘I have mummy’s house and daddy’s house’. The court welfare officer then asked him the question four more times and led him by the nose until he said, ‘mummy’s house’,” Mr Parton said.
READ ABOUT CAFCASS ON THE EPC WEBSITE
New York (which lags behind the rest of USA in terms of shared parenting) is soon to consider a family law bill to bring it up to date with other USA jurisdictions.
