Sussex Law School will today publish a report on research by Emeritus Professor Jane Fortin and Dr Lesley Scanlan, of Sussex University and Joan Hunt, University of Oxford (here). The report is an empirical study, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, and looks at how the contact arrangements made by separating parents for their children affect children’s long-term relationships with their parents throughout their childhood and then into adulthood. Based on a survey of just under 400 young adults, plus in-depth interviews with 50, it elucidates what features of contact arrangements work and do not work for children – both in the long and short term.
The report’s findings challenge the government’s plans in respect of shared parenting – and do so directly. One of the strongest messages from the research is the importance of tailoring contact arrangements to the needs and wishes of the individual child in the particular circumstances. “The new legislation would commit the family courts to a one-size-fits all solution when dealing with parents’ contact disputes” opines the PR material on the Sussex Law School website, rather inaccurately.
I’ve only had the summary made available to me in the preparation of this blog post, and from that it is evident that it covers an important topic and really interesting and valuable reading. However.
The report surveyed 398 individuals who had experienced parental separation as children post implementation of the Children Act 1989 and who had at least some contact with the non-resident parent thereafter. For me that’s a gap in information base when looking at the conclusions drawn from a pool of respondents who all had some contact, such as the “extreme rarity” of parental alienation.
Similarly, the conclusions drawn appear to take at face value respondents own understanding of the background to arrangements for contact and of why things worked or did not work well. It is axiomatic of course that these adults were at the time of events in question experiencing them without an adult understanding, and perhaps with only partial information. If they were manipulated by parents in one way or another would we expect this to be self evident from their self report? Adults who consider themselves to have been manipulated or let down will say so, but how do we understand whether a portion of those who say contact failed because of a lack of commitment by a non-resident parent are accurate historians? We just don’t.
