Public Affairs

Ministry of Justice Domestic Abuse Consultation - Deadline is 31st May!

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Published: Monday, 28 May 2018 11:03

Well-intentioned plans can have devastating consequences

31^st May deadline - make sure your voice is heard!

Many of you tell us of your experience of being falsely accused of domestic violence or abuse in the context of family separation. We also hear frequently from dads who have been victims of abuse, only to then have this compounded with allegations of actually being perpetrators. It is often assumed that the reason for under-reporting by men of such situations is because of the stigma men feel. There may be something in this, however, our service users often say that it is because of their fear of reprisals in relation to them seeing their children or feeling that their experiences will be ignored by the authorities.

Please take the time to provide your input. There is a long version and a short version of the consultation document. Depending on the time you have available to you, please use the appropriate links below. The full version contains 65 questions.

 Brief Outline of Proposals

The Government are consulting on proposals to toughen-up on perpetrators of abuse and to extend it to include coercive behaviour. In particular, they propose a new Domestic Abuse Protection Notices/Orders as a centre-piece. As proposed, these would work a bit like current Non-Molestation Orders whereby a breach of such an order will result in an automatic criminal record. On the face of it such proposals may appear to serve the positive purpose of protecting vulnerable adults and children - those who have truly have suffered deserve all the support that they can get. However, we are concerned at the lack of necessary checks and balances in the system to ensure that they do not lead to an increase in its abuse where malicious ex-partners use these to undermine relationships with children in the context of family separation. We are also concerned at the lack of appropriate support given to men and in particular to fathers. The consultation also proposes a Commissioner for Domestic Violence, but we feel that this would not serve the needs of men as currently proposed and that there should therefore be a separate Commissioner or Deputy-Commissioner focused on the experience of men. Your feedback to the government based on your experiences will help to redress the balance. If you would like to read more about FNF's key concerns in response to the questions posed in the consultation then please read on.

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Meeting on Child Maintenance

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Published: Monday, 03 September 2018 13:53

Child Maintenence - Make Sure Your Voice is Heard!

Many of you will be aware from our previous communications, that the Government have been consulting on the introduction of new tougher sanctions for those who fail to pay their assessed Child Maintenance in full. These sanctions include confiscating passports, taking funds from joint accounts with new partners, docking money to be paid in benefits and, eventually, state pensions, etc. They also propose to alter the way they assess the amount due so as to include many forms of unearned income. The proposals include plans to write-off much of the historic Child Maintenance arrears, dating back over 20 years. We suspect that this may be the deeper reason for these proposals and that they feel the need to be seen to be tough whilst writing-off debt that is sitting on the books. Fuller details of plans are contained in this briefing for MPs can be found in the link here.

There has been an element of revolving doors with ministers in the role of Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Family Support, Housing and Child Maintenance. Caroline Dinenage MP and then Kit Malthouse MP and now Justin Tomlinson MP have each held the role within the last year. We have met with all three ministers, the latest one last week. It does mean that ministers are likely to be following the views of the Treasury, points that best suit the department itself with strands of policy based on whose voices are politically the loudest. Justin Tomlinson MP has only been in the role since 9^th July 2018 so we were grateful for an early meeting with him. His previous experience has been working with people with disabilities.

In meeting with Justin Tomlinson MP, we found the minister in listening mode, perhaps rather more interested in how shared-care arrangements worked than in matters relating to affordability, other than that the thresholds for paying a % of income had not been reviewed for 20 years. On shared care, there was a sense of him trying to understand better why a 4/3 days a week split of time resulted in an assessment of CM of 4/7 of the full amount.

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Research into Men’s Experience of Female Aggression

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Published: Wednesday, 09 August 2017 00:28

Research into Men’s Experience of Female Aggression

Are you a man who has been in a relationship with a female partner, and have experienced physical and verbal aggression, emotional aggression, and/or have felt you have been controlled and manipulated by your partner or ex-partner? This may include false allegations or issues relating to your children. The questions should make it clear what is relevant.

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Father's Day 2018

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Published: Saturday, 16 June 2018 23:42

 Father’s Day Message – 2018

Father’s Day is our opportunity to celebrate fatherhood. It is a chance for all dads to be reminded that they are loved and needed by those who they have cared for and loved throughout their lives. It is a recognition of the unique and vital role that fathers play in their children’s lives.

Tragically, at Families Need Fathers, we all too often work with dads whose children will not be able to celebrate Father’s Day with them. Many of them will have in their possession an order from the Family Court to say that their children should be seeing them regularly, not least on Father’s Day, but the order will not be obeyed.

Other fathers will have no hope at all of seeing their children on Father’s Day, because they have been “awarded” indirect contact. So all they can do for the child who needs them and whom they love is to send them a letter a few times a year – in the hope that it reaches them.

Worse still, many of their children will feel pressurised to reject their much-loved dads. Sometimes this will happen through coaching, but more often it will be because their main carers make coldly clear to these young minds their feelings towards their ex-partners. Why do they do this – could they have valid reasons? More often than not it is because they would not accept that the relationship had ended, because they started a new one of their own, because they were upset that their ex has started a new relationship or because they fear that their ex’s new partner will somehow usurp or diminish their role as a mother. Of course, these reasons are driven by adult emotions and it is harmful to burden the children with them. Children have more than enough capacity to love both their parents and extended families whether they live together or apart. Parents collaborating can do so much to help children to get over their parents' divorce or separation.

It is amazing that in 2018 there are still Cafcass Family Court Advisers, judges and social workers who don’t recognise alienating behaviours or appreciate their effect – putting a child in a position of having to suppress and deny their love for their father - a love that dare not speak its name. Over the last year or two Cafcass have accepted that parental alienation is child abuse and they are beginning to develop pathways and tools for identifying it and hopefully for dealing with it too.

That said the message has not reached all of them yet. Only last week we heard from an entirely reasonable, good dad whose child has been turned against him - yet neither the Family Court Adviser nor the judge showed any interest in why this might be. Incredibly, the judge and Family Court Adviser described the father as arrogant and naive for challenging the professionals' views when they had considered the wishes of his brainwashed child. The judge’s decision was horrifying – condemning a father simply for loving their child above all else – for wanting to remain part of the child’s life. They should do better. They need to be better trained. They need to have a far better understanding of recent research into child psychology and the long-term impact on a child of having to keep secret or trying to destroy their own love of a parent in order to protect themselves from the fear of loss of the other parent. It is amazing that, despite alienating behaviours being recognised by Cafcass nationally and by many experienced judges there are still those who look out to the horizon and conclude that the earth is flat. ‘Professionals’ who ignore all the evidence from those who have sailed those seas and yet when challenged don’t even show the slightest curiosity. Why for example might a child phone and say "I really wanted to see you on Father's Day, but mummy said no" and then a few weeks later, having not seen him, say "I never want to see him again"?

Of course, there are abusive men and women and a small minority will seek to hide their abuse with claims of alienation. This does not mean of course that alienation does not happen and experienced professionals can easily tell the difference. The earth is round, and no amount of denial will make it flat.

Today our thoughts are with all the good dads out there, but most especially with all those children and their dads who are needlessly apart, failed by their main carers and failed by a broken family justice system that is behind the times. Those dads will continue to suffer every single day, as will their children, many of whom will grow up living with the effects of the daily guilt of having to deny their love for one parent in order to hold on to the love of the other.

It will be very hard for these children and their alienated parents to forgive the Government and the courts for their obstruction and inaction. But if we all work constructively together, for the sake of all those children of separated families, progress can and will be made.

We wish everyone a Happy Father's Day.  If you are a father, and you are in touch or with your children - have a great day. If you are a father and for whatever reason you cannot be with your child or children, we hope that they will be happy and much loved and appreciated in your thoughts throughout the day and in the future.

17th June 2018

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