Conciliation in court helps parents agree over child contact and residence
21 November 2007
In-court conciliation helps separating parents to reach their own agreements about contact with their children, research commissioned by the Ministry of Justice reveals today.
In-court conciliation typically consists of a brief meeting at court where divorcing or separating parents are encouraged to negotiate arrangements with the assistance of Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) professionals.
The key findings of the report, 'The longer-term outcomes of in-court conciliation', by the University of East Anglia were:
- Two years following conciliation the great majority (79%) of cases had an agreement about contact and were closed.
- More children were having overnight contact and the overall amount of contact per child had increased since the initial conciliation intervention.
- However, during the two years following the intervention the majority of parents had required further professional intervention and 40% had been involved in further litigation. Around 60% of agreements made at the original conciliation meeting had been changed or had broken down by the two-year follow up.
- Two years on from conciliation parental relationships had improved a little for some. However, this improvement was modest and the majority of parents continued to report a negative relationship that had not improved since the original conciliation meeting.
- At the two-year follow up the wellbeing of parents had improved significantly and was at a similar level to community samples. However, this improvement was not apparent in children
The report concludes that although conciliation is an effective way of reaching agreements and restoring contact over the short-term, it has a limited impact on making contact work for children in the long-term.
The report goes on to recommend the development of a more relationship-based or therapeutically-orientated interventions in addition to conciliation which would target parental attitudes, help them work together as co-parents thereby improving the quality of contact.
Welcoming the report, Justice Minister Bridget Prentice said:
'This research is particularly useful because it looks beyond the agreements parents reach at court about the arrangements for their children and considers whether these arrangements actually work for their children in the longer-term. The issues it raises around support for parents will help to inform the development of policy in this important area.'
A cross-government working group was established in June 2007 looking across the whole range of current support and interventions available to parents with the aim of identifying gaps, challenges and opportunities around support for parents. The working group is due to report in 2008.