FNF Newsletter 31st May 2019

Hello Visitor,

Welcome to the second May issue.

In this issue:

As always, thank you for your continued support.

With best wishes

The Team at FNF

P.s. FNF AGM and Conference - A provisional date has been agreed for this to be held on Saturday 14th September in London. We will confirm the date and announce speakers, venue and activities separately and we anticipate an interesting and useful day.

P.p.s. The Swindon FNF meeting this month will take place on Monday 3rd June at the earlier time of 6.30pm to 8.30pm. See details on our website.

'Contact at all costs' Campaign

Review of how family courts protect children and parents in cases involving domestic abuse and serious offences

Families Need Fathers seeks to provide balance on the Victoria Derbyshire Show

A number of organisations have lobbied MPs to persuade them to back a campaign for an independent review of how family courts protect children and parents in cases involving domestic abuse and serious offences. The campaign's focus appears to be the suggestion that courts are making orders for 'contact at all costs', following the deaths of four children over the last four years or so who were killed by fathers on contact. The Victoria Derbyshire Show earlier this month in which we took part (this episode can be viewed here until 13th June 2019) was based on this premise, whilst ignoring incidents of children killed by mothers, including those on contact. It was also the basis of a letter from 123 MPs calling for an independent review.

Most of our service users will know that the suggestion of 'contact at all costs' is far from the truth and certainly not based on any evidence. Our experience tells us that is is precisely the opposite.

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Indirect Contact Orders

Indirect Contact: On what basis do such orders promote the welfare of children?

We regularly hear from many dads and some mums about judges and Cafcass Family Court Advisers proposing indirect contact only with children after separation i.e. sending and receiving of letters, cards and gifts, without any parenting time at all. Often they express the view that this will consequently lead to direct contact developing. What, we ask, is the basis for such optimism? A survey we carried out suggests that there is no basis for this at all, with just one out of 154 respondents saying it led to direct contact. The May 2019 issue of legal journal Family Law Journal published an article by barrister Sarah Phillimore and Families Need Fathers exploring the issues further, sharing some of the detail of our survey results and calling for the Ministry of Justice to publish data on how often these orders are made by family courts and to commission research into their outcomes.

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Parental Alienation Recognised by World Health Organisation

Parental Alienation Recognised by World Health Organisation (WHO)

And Other PA Updates

Positive news - The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on 25th May 2019 that they have accepted Parental Alienation within its classification of health conditions. It does not come into effect until 1st January 2022, presumably to give nation states and researchers time to catch-up. It is, however, an important marker that the effect on children of alienating behaviours is a major health problem that needs to be more widely recognised and addressed. 

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