Ministry of Justice
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Conciliation in court helps parents agree over child contact and residence
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 & 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.
Notes to Editors
1. 'The Longer Term Outcomes of In Court Conciliation' can be found on the Ministry of Justice website at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/research211107.htm
2. In-court conciliation is a brief intervention designed to help litigating parents reach an agreement about contact arrangements for children following separation or divorce. In-court conciliation is now being delivered by Cafcass in every county court in England and Wales and at some Family Proceedings Courts (magistrates' courts which handle family cases). The Ministry of Justice is working with Cafcass on how to ensure that all suitable cases have access to in-court conciliation by the end of 2008.
3. This study was commissioned in January 2006 by the Ministry of Justice Research Unit as a follow up study to research conducted in 2004, the findings of which are detailed in the Research Unit report 'Making Contact Happen or Making Contact work: The process and outcomes of in-court conciliation', (2006). The current report builds on these initial findings and examines the impact of in-court conciliation on contact patterns, re-litigation and adult and child well-being two years after the original intervention.
4. The study was based on quantitative data collected during telephone interviews with 117 of the parents who had participated in the original 2004 study. The greater proportion of the interview consisted of questions with fixed choice responses for the collection of quantitative data. To explore perceptions in more depth some open-ended questions were included at the end of the interview. A randomly selected sample of 20 interviews were recorded and the qualitative data was subsequently transcribed and analysed.
ENDS
