From utility to rights? The presumption of contact in practice

Bailey-Harris, Rebecca; Barron, Jacqueline; Pearce, JF

doi:10.1093/lawfam/13.2.111

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

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“…This has major ramifications for the wider terrain of family law. There is a growing tendency for courts to work with the assumption that contact with both parents is essential for the well being of all children and that a lot of contact is better than a little (Hunt, 2003;Smart et al, 2003;Bailey Harris et al, 1999a, 1999b. This can lead to a context in which a virtual rule becomes established and this rule may be applied regardless of the situation of the individual child.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equal shares: rights for fathers or recognition for children?

Smart

2004

Critical Social Policy

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The fathers’ rights movement in England has recently been given a huge boost by the involvement of Bob Geldof who has become their influential mouthpiece in the media and elsewhere. The movement has also diversified and adopted more high profile tactics more akin to those used in Australia and New Zealand. These tactics have challenged family law to adopt a principle of pure equality between mothers and fathers and demands that, on divorce or separation, children should be shared equally. In this paper it is argued that this demand ignores entirely the experiences of children who have lived an ‘equal shares’ arrangement for many years and that it reduces children to passive objects who can have no voice in a system designed only to create equality between adults. It is argued that rather than pushing the principles of family law back towards simplistic notions of equality, what is needed is a policy based on recognition rather than rights.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Equal shares: rights for fathers or recognition for children?

Smart

2004

Critical Social Policy

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“…This is a prevailing and powerful myth, despite being challenged and unquestionably dismissed by the established bank of research evidence (Trinder et al, 2010). Notwithstanding the established correlation between domestic abuse and child abuse, and between post-separation contact and continued abuse, contact is rarely denied (Bailey-Harris et al, 1999;Coy et al, 2015). Instead, an almost universal judicial focus on looking towards the future rather than the past renders prior histories irrelevant, even where those histories involved abuse, severing the relationship between domestic abuse and its impact on children (Elizabeth et al, 2012;Harrison, 2006).…”

Section: Contact: the Decision-making Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domestic Violence and the Paradox of Post-Separation Mothering

Holt

2016

Br J Soc Work

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This paper reports selectively on findings from a mixed-methods study to consider the paradoxical post-separation position many women find themselves occupying when child contact necessitates the continued and mainly unmonitored presence of abusive men in their lives and the lives of their children (Holt, 2011). Having engendered blame and being held responsible for the exposure of their children to domestic abuse, mothers may find themselves resisting post-separation child contact and again engendering blame for daring to interfere with the father-child relationship-the same relationship they were charged with protecting their children from. Echoing Thiara and Humphreys's (2015) call for social worker practitioners to recognise that domestic abuse can continue even in the abuser's absence, this paper reflects on an issue of particular relevance to social work practitioners-that the continued presence of domestically abusive men, post separation, may compromise the child's recovery from the experience of domestic abuse due to continuing abuse and undermining of the maternal role and mother-child relationship.

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“…Many authors consider assumptions problematic as they limit the practice of deciding what is best for each individual child in their unique circumstances, by applying knowledge (albeit informed by research) about an abstract or universal child's needs and interests to each and every individual child, without attending to the needs and wishes of the child in question (Bailey-Harris, Barron, & Pearce, 1999;Piper, 2000). Echoing this concern, James, James, and McNamee's (2004) research examined a random sample of 481 contact court files in three different UK county courts, and concluded that interviewing each child appeared unimportant and unnecessary because the professional already ''knew'' what was best for the child based on assumptions of universal knowledge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Domestic Abuse and Child Contact: Positioning Children in the Decision-making Process

Holt¹

2011

Child Care in Practice

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From utility to rights? The presumption of contact in practice

Cited by 15 publications

References 0 publications

Equal shares: rights for fathers or recognition for children?

Equal shares: rights for fathers or recognition for children?

Domestic Violence and the Paradox of Post-Separation Mothering

Domestic Abuse and Child Contact: Positioning Children in the Decision-making Process

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