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.
It may be that the full report would give me some reassurance about these things, and it may be that I am being unfair – I’m fully open to the possibility that I might change my view when I’ve read it. It’s worth recalling that the survey is not a survey of childhood survivors of the litigating population of separated parents – but of the general population of the children of separated parents. The summary does not make clear whether data about court involvement was collected or not.
But those are the questions which scream out to me from the summary and the strength with which the reports conclusions are expressed, and the direct attack on shared parenting policy a subject known to be highly controversial – is inviting this kind of scrutiny. I will not be the only person posing these questions upon launch of this report. The question is whether the full report contains the answers – unfortunately the summary does not even appear to anticipate the question, which leaves the authors of the report open I think to accusations of having “an agenda” (dun DUN DUUUUUN!). I hope that the direct courting of controversy in this way does not lead to those valuable insights into the child’s experience being lost or drowned out in the noise that will follow.
Below are some of what I thought were the highlights of the summary (yes, a summary of a report of some research):
…manipulation was reported, but only extremely rarely and then usually with young children in circumstances where their mothers had good grounds for their own concerns. Our findings suggest that if and when the children resist contact visits, they do so, not as brain washed children, but for reasons of their own, often in response to the non-resident parent’s own behaviour….
…there was overwhelming agreement that there were circumstances, such as an abusive parent / child relationship, where contact should never take place. There was also a strong view that contact should not start or continue if it did not promote the child’s best interest and that no contact was better than bad contact…
…Responsibility for contact not happening at all or not being regularly maintained was very largely attributed to the non-resident parent, and typically explained in terms of that parent’s lack of commitment to the child…
…The foundations of successful contact…are laid down pre-separation…
…Being subjected to adult pursuits or being ignored were taken as indications of their own lack of importance to the no-resident parent. Equally they were quick to pick up subtle signs indicating the strength or absence of that parent’s emotional investment in their relationship together…
…In contrast our findings indicate that structural matters such as the frequency of contact and its format – when, where and how often contact occurs; the inclusion of overnight stays; whether or not there was a contact schedule – were not strongly associated with respondents’ positive experiences of contact or the closeness of their relationship with the non-resident parent…
…Overnight stays did not emerge as a significant factor in explaining respondents’ positive experiences of contact or the closeness of their relationship with the non-resident parent…
…Two key points emerged from the analysis of the structural elements of contact. First, they seemed less important than other factors, such as the continuity of contact, the pre-separation relationship between the child and the non-resident parent, and the quality of contact. Second, and crucially, there is no blueprint for contact which will work for all, or even the majority of children. Indeed one of the central messages of this study is that each child is an individual and that contact arrangements need to be tailored to their unique needs and circumstances…
…One of our clearest findings was how rarely respondents reported that the resident parent had prevented contact or tried to undermine the relationship between the child an the non-resident parent…in contrast a strong and consistent theme…was the extent to which resident parents had encouraged the relationship between their children and non-resident parents, in some cases even when they had themselves suffered from the non-resident parent’s violence and even when the children themselves opposed the contact…
…Our findings suggest that parental alienation is extremely rare in the general population and that when children resist contact with the non-resident parent they often do so for their own independently formed reasons. The courts should therefore be extremely cautious before they extend the use of transfer of residence orders as a sanction when a resident parent is refusing to comply with a contact order on the grounds that the child does not want contact. The courts should also be cautious about increasing the use of shared residence orders, and should take account of the advice of the young adults in this study – viz that such orders should not be made unless : parents live very close to each other; children can attend the same school; parents are on good terms; parents can provide their children with two sets of rooms, clothes and school equipment. Above all the children themselves should be happy with such an arrangement.
[POSTSCRIPT – Don’t shoot the messenger please chaps]