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Mid
2002. Produced
on behalf of the Coalition of Shared Parenting by ManKind Principles
of Equal Parenting Two years ago English Law adopted the Human Rights Act. For the first time human rights protection came into line with our European counterpart who had long ago signed up to the European Convention on Human Rights. In the European Convention on Human Rights, Protocol 7, Article 5 states that spouses shall enjoy equality of rights and responsibilities of a private law character between them, and in their relations with their children, as to marriage, during marriage and in the event of its dissolution ("Equality between Spouses"). At present this does not
happen in the UK. There is no equality of parenting and there is concern over
the amount of court time and public money spent on adjudicating on trying to
make ‘contact’ work. Currently the family
courts effectively “gift” all the parenting power to one parent, ie with whom
the child resides. The other parent becomes condemned to a mere appendage and
is excluded from that child’s life. To attempt to overcome this oblivion, every
aspect of the non-resident parents is scrutinised in order to justify
restriction or exclusion of parenting time. Court practice appears to always
placate the wishes of the custodial parent to the detriment of the other
parent. The solution to this ‘mothers
veto’ is to treat each parent as an equal partner in the raising of their
children unless there is good reason not to. We call this the “good reason
principle.” In the absence of good
reason, the State should not unnecessarily burden itself with involvement in
the child/parent relationship, particularly when marginal advantage can lead
to months and years of unnecessary litigation and effectively only results in
tearing apart the lives of children. The Coalition of Equal Parenting
asks that the following principles are applied in the Family Courts 1
Equal Parenting - The
principles of equal parenting be re-introduced as the first option for caring
for children after divorce or separation (ref. joint custody awards levels
prior to Children Act 1989). 2
Parenting Plan - the
primary task of a suitably qualified Court Reporter should be to assist both
parents to develop a practical allocation of care time for the children which
would range from 50/50 to around 30/70 depending on circumstances. 3
Risk assessment - A parent
making criminal allegations, which would affect the other parent’s, status as
an equal parent must be obliged to prove this in a criminal court. 4
False allegations /
perjury - If these allegations are found to be false or
the parent has committed perjury he/she would lose their status as an equal
parent, be obliged to apply for contact and would face criminal charges, 5
Sanctions - Either
parent who obstructs this process or subsequently does not adhere to the Care
Programme, should be denied equal parent status, leaving the other parent as
the Sole Parent with Care. The parent obstructing the process would be
obliged to apply for contact. Draft of proposed new procedure
Normal
cases – that is to say, where there is automatic presumption to shared
residence based on
the ‘good enough’ (ie to be a parent) principle. Only
in cases where ‘good reason’ exists to preclude the assumption of ‘good
enough’ parents will this not apply (see page iv below). Stage 1- Parent
files for divorce. Robust early intervention
is required by the judge. The children's time with each parent must be
apportioned immediately on a reasonable basis to help the children adjust to
the family transition. This will not apply if both parents are still residing
in the marital home. The parent seeking to
oppose this reasonable time apportionment or wishing to oust the other parent
must be required to give good reason to the court why this should happen. The
judge must be proactive and prepared to read the riot act to the recalcitrant
parent. If there is good reason to oppose shared residence, see good reason
cases. Stage 2 - Parent has
issued application On
receipt of the application, the court should automatically refer the parents to
CAFCASS/ Mediation for mandatory mediation. CAFCASS/Mediation
should provide the parents with a sound Parent Information Pack, which will
explain the process, the Court's overriding objective, and how not to damage
their children by conflict, alienating conduct, undermining the other parent
etc. The
Officer should support the principle of the children's relationship with both
parents. In
these normal cases, the Officer's goal should be to help the parents agree a
Parenting Plan, which would set out the time apportionment between parents,
holiday arrangements, sharing of festivities, how major decisions are to be
made. The timetable for achieving this should be short - around three weeks. It
is vital that the Officer should ensure that the children maintain frequent
and meaningful contact with both parents during mediation. They should also
ensure that minor issues are not turned into good reasons for prohibiting
joint residence. Both parents need to understand that this crucial period of
time is for developing a Parenting Plan for their children and not settling
old scores. The primary purpose of the
Officer is to ensure that the two fit parents develop a Parenting Plan, which
is both practical and designed to serve the children's best interests. The Officer
must be scrupulously even-handed and should not involve him/herself in
personal differences between the parents. Stage 3 - Court
appointment This
should occur within a maximum of four
weeks after receipt of the application. Most cases should have
been resolved by this point, freeing up resources for difficult cases. Cases will fall into one
of two categories. The first will be where the children's time with each
parent has been agreed and approved. The second where agreement cannot be
reached and or where there may be some factors that preclude this. a). Agreed and Approved – these represent
probably 80% of cases. In
these cases the court should make a consent order for shared residence with
the agreed Parenting Plan annexed to it. b). No Agreement Cases - probably 20% of cases. These
cases will require the court to make an Order embodying a court-imposed
Parenting Plan based on the recommendations from the Family Court Reporter
(CASFCASS officer). If
it is discovered that there is an absence of good reason why the children
should not have normal ongoing relations with both parents, the Officer's
recommendation to the judge should be for shared residence with the time
apportionment between parents falling within a 50/50 to 70/30 range,
depending on specific circumstances. The
recommendation should usually be for shared residence in accordance with the
primary intention of the CA 1989, as voted for by Parliament, that this
should be the common form of order. These
cases must come before the court promptly to force an early resolution and to
ensure that the pattern of frequency and continuing contact with both parents
is not allowed to break down. CAFCASS
should assist with the implementation of the Order and should monitor
compliance in these cases. Incidents
of non-compliance will require the imposition of escalating sanctions by the
court, with consideration given to mandatory parent education classes. The
last resort in these marginal cases would be the withdrawal of the shared residence
order and the issuing of a Residence Order to the parent who had been
complying with the Parenting Plan. The recalcitrant parent would be obliged
to apply for ‘contact’. Good reason exists, or is alleged to exist Stage 1 - Parent
files for a divorce and one or both make a serious criminal allegation(s). In
this situation one parent will be seeking to limit the other parent's
relationship with the children on the basis of an allegation of significant
violence or abuse. The allegation should be the subject of an expedited
investigation by the criminal courts. As in the normal case scenario, robust
early intervention is required by the judge. Such offences, if proven, are
criminal and should be treated as such. In
the case of mental health, alcohol/drug abuse allegations a referral to a
suitable professional is the most likely recommendation with the appointment
of a CAFCASS Officer to supervise the case. In
the event that the allegation is found to be false, the accusing parent
should face severe sanctions in order to deter further false allegations and
others. During,
for instance, the criminal investigation or mental health and mental
stability checks, every effort should be made to maintain the parent's
frequent and continuing contact with the children. Consideration could be
given to the utilisation of care centres or a programme of supervision. Where
the parents can afford it, the cost of this supervision should be shared. The
keynote of this stage is to reach a rapid and accurate conclusion of the
allegations being made. Stage 2 - Court
appointment The subsequent CAFCASS
Officer‘s report to the judge should contain the results of the criminal
investigation and/ or the mental health checks. The
report will conclude: - a). The Allegations are false The
accusing parent will then face sanctions for wasting police / professional /
court time. The
accused parent is granted a Residence Order and the accusing parent is
required to apply for appropriate contact. b). The Allegations are true The accusing parent is
granted a Residence Order. The accused parent faces the penalties of the now
proven allegations and will have to apply for the appropriate contact order. Notes: - 1.
Successful implementation depends on the
CAFCASS Officers having effective guidelines, standards and training. These
will need to be shaped so that they serve the overriding objective namely
that maintaining the children's relationship with both parents from the
earliest opportunity is paramount. 2.
The design of the ‘Parent Information Pack’
and the format of the mediation meetings with parents will be crucial. 3.
The objective of the proposed procedure is
to prevent normal cases from becoming complex (and costly) simply for want of
early, effective intervention. 4.
A pilot scheme would be essential for
assessing and perfecting the new procedure. 5.
Shared parenting is not new to Britain.
Prior to the CA 1989 all courts were empowered to award joint custody orders.
Some courts were able to raise the ‘shared’ aspect of parenting to over 40%,
e.g. Oxford court 1986. Pilot Scheme A
pilot scheme would be essential
for testing and refining the proposed procedures outlined in the preceding
pages. We
now have the opportunity inasmuch that “Making
Contact Work” (Children Act Sub-Committee Report to the Lord
Chancellor), clearly states that :- “Accordingly, while we
question the practical application of the principle of Shared Parenting, we
would certainly wish to encourage it. If the Government thinks the concept of
joint or shared residence orders worth pursuing, it might consider setting up
a pilot scheme based on a small
number of courts to test the effect of such orders in practice.” The
essential ingredients of the pilot scheme
would be :- 1.
Complete circuits - two complete circuits - possibly one in the
north and one in the south-west - would be a good test for the system.
Clearly all of the cases and their outcomes would have to be rigorously recorded
but two geographically distinct circuits would be a better test than a few
isolated courts. 2.
Training - all those involved would have to be trained and
be quite clear as to the format and expectations required of them. 3. Court
Orders - whilst the onus would be on achieving
successful joint residence orders, it would not preclude resident/contact
orders where there was good / cogent reason for such an order. 4.
CAFCASS – with regards their approach to court
proceedings there would need to be a programme to encourage a culture and
process change. No longer would it be an issue of deciding who is the better
parent. Rather it would be one of how to assist and encourage both parents to
develop a Parenting Plan. 5.
Co-ordinated approach - the judiciary and CAFCASS would need to
listen to what court users are really asking and to intellectually provide
the answers. They would need to work closely before, and during, the piloting
of shared parenting on the various circuits in order to ensure that they were
working in tandem. 6.
Alternatives - whilst there will be initial difficulties in
making such a system work, the alternative of continuing with the current
system of hostile Family Courts with their adversarial culture is
unthinkable. 7.
Benefits - the benefits to children of early intervention
would be comprehensive. They would include from improvements in health,
crime, drugs and educational attainments which normally suffer when children
are subjected to prolonged divorce and custody disputes. Legal aid, together with
the normal costs of ongoing litigation, would diminish, as the primary cause
would be replaced by mediation in around 80% of the cases. Resources freed up in this
way would then be available for the genuinely difficult cases rather than
locked into normal cases which had become complex due to a lack of early
intervention. Comparing Contact When introducing the
benefits of ‘shared parenting’ it may be helpful to readers to review the present
arrangements and the difficulties encountered by both parents and children,
and the systems administration. “Contact” is the shorthand
term used by those associated with the divorce
industry to describe our existing provisions for allocating children
after divorce. Contact leaves one parent
in near total command of the child’s life and in a dominating position over
the other parent’s emotional life (usually the father). Contact enables one
parent to be the ‘gatekeeper’ for children wishing to see their other parent.
Equally, contact effectively grants an unlimited licence to control the other
parent in seeing their children This can give rise to an
unchallengeable power, which can lead to capricious use, even abuse, directed
at the children, the father, or even the court itself. (‘Implacable
hostility’ showed by some mothers towards contact and in defiance of court
orders). The “contact” regime is not unique to Britain. It is a widely accepted model in post divorce situations. All English speaking countries have adopted it at some time, as well as some European countries. Evidence of the regime’s many shortcomings has resulted in attempts by various countries to make serial amendments. Other countries have copied these repairs but the constant fine-tuning and even legislative changes have largely proved futile. It is perhaps the persistent and inherent inability of the regime to function combined with vested interests, which has prevented the adoption of a new system and a new direction from being considered. A final clash was inevitable. However, many English speaking countries that once adopted ‘Residence and Contact’ as the default regime have either changed to Equal Parenting or are actively considering it. For Britain, 2002 is critical in so far as an opportunity has arisen for the authorities governing these issues to re-assess whether further attempts to make ‘contact’ work is as unproductive as chasing a rainbow. The prevailing view today is that the whole concept of contact is fatally flawed. At every level the disadvantages of the present system are making themselves manifest. At one level the Internet now informs as never before. Parents groups now keep in close touch, recognise the gross and common inadequacies and work together to bring about change. At another level, as more
divorce occurs, the more the law falls into disrepute. Record numbers of the
population now sees Court procedures - and leave very unimpressed. They bear
witness to a regime where justice is no longer strictly impartial or
unswerving bi-partisan. As ‘victims’ processed by the courts they see for
themselves how a dead hand has now fallen across what should be a vibrant
British justice system. Often overlooked is the
economic level. Contact is the most labour intensive and therefore expensive
regime to operate. It is expensive in court time, legal fees and lawyers
fees. In terms of support staff contact is cumbersome, involving the services
of Court Welfare Officers (now CAFCASS), judges, solicitors, social service workers,
GALRO, contact centres, mediation, counsellors, various Gov’t green papers,
local family court forums and a rash of committees. All of the above
participants then have to attend in-house training, upgrade seminars and
special college courses. The need for training thus involves yet another
small army of workers becoming enmeshed. In opting for a contact
regime we have unleashed a Leviathan. The support systems needed to run the
regime spread wide and deep. They encompasses the Dept of Health, the Lord
Chancellor’s Dept and the Home Office. All three have traditional areas of
influence that impinge on contact. All of them are, therefore, obliged to
make provision in their departmental budgets. All three of these Whitehall
departments are involved when new legislation is proposed, and when
implementing changes, e.g. special ‘disregards’, allowances, premiums, other
bureaucracies such as the Dept of Social Security and Job Centres become
embroiled. With the recently announced unitary nature of key government
departments, the Inland Revenue will also become a key player in future. The
cost to the nation of fatherless ‘non-family units’ is around £30 bn pa (at
1996 prices) and rising. The UK’s entire defence budget in 2001 was £45 bn. In an attempt to make
contact work and to limit the Treasury’s monetary haemorrhage legislation was
imported 10 years ago. At a cost of over £2 billion pounds a new institution
was created - the CSA. Unfortunately, the distinct lack of a successful track
record overseas did not dissuade policy makers from importing and adopting
it. In the US, for every tax
dollar spent on enforcing contact rights, over 340 million dollars is spent
on CSA enforcement. [1] But perhaps crucially, the
regime of contact is the very antithesis of wealth creation and of wealth
accumulation. CSA annual statistics now list hundreds of thousands of once
working men as non-resident fathers and unemployed. In 2001 there were
936,200 non-resident fathers obliged to pay CSA of which 43.62%, or 408,400,
were unemployed. [2] This should cause any government sleepless
nights. Gov’t figures show that between 40% and 50% of fathers lose contact
with their children after a few years. Is there a correlation here ? Contact and the CSA, in
combination, dis-incentivises work and deters fathers from the necessary
investment of time and emotion into their families and careers. In
combination, contact and the CSA represents “taxation
without representation”. The mainspring and pre-requisite of any
revolution, as Warren Farrell points out, is economic hurt, emotional
rejection and perceived legal injustice. Today, too many parents have
experienced all 3 of these. Contact gives rise to
problematical ethical and philosophical considerations. Viewed in the long
term this can only impact on the ability of any government to govern, the
independence of the judiciary, and the potential for civil unrest - any one
of which places a severe strain on good governance. There are some that think,
and Baroness Young gave voice to such concerns in a House of Lords debate,
that by 2020 the number of married people in the country will be in the
minority for the first time in some 3,000 years. We shall then be one of the
first countries in history not to have marriage as a basis of its society. We
already have over 1 in 4, or 2.7m, of children growing up in homes where
there is no father. Although most people marry
and 60 per cent of marriages last a lifetime, 40 per cent end in divorce. The
UK has the highest divorce rate in the European Union. While there has been a
decline in marriage there has been an increase in couples living together.
Cohabitation is not as stable as marriage and this impacts on children’s
development. However, both are subject to wide variations which reflect the
cultural norms of the indigenous population and ethnic minorities,
principally the Asian and Caribbean communities. The fall in the number of
marriages has been accompanied by a fall in birth rate, both of which began
in 1971. With only 11 live births for each thousand of the population in
1999, compared with 16 per thousand in 1979, we are just becoming aware of a
‘population crisis’. As the population ages, there will not be enough young
people to fill important vacancies. With children living in ‘contact’
households having, in general, lower educational achievements levels, those
vacancies will be even harder to fill and we may have to look elsewhere. This
will have serious consequences in the future, for among the young there will
be always be a disaffected, poorly educated ‘underclass’ unable to secure
gainful or well paid employment. This sub-class could then, as in the 1930’s,
become attracted toward a charismatic leader. We already know that the skill
shortage in some areas has resulted in the need to increase the number of
immigrants, e.g. overseas recruitment of hospital nurses, but more ominously
and prompted by political correctness, of
importing non-white police officers for the London ‘Met’. [3] The latest evidence from
the report ‘Seven Years in the Lives of British Families’, produced by the
Institute for Social and Economic Research, found that 70 per cent of young
people interviewed in the 1990s opted to co-habit. But the facts show that
only a third of cohabiting relationships last. So cohabiting couples are even
more likely to break up which in turn has serious implications for the ‘life
chances’ for the children of any such union. Lest all these views are
thought to come simply from a political or conservative perspective, Prof. A.
H. Halsey, Professor of Social Policy at Nuffield College, Oxford, and
co-author of English Ethical Socialism,
has written: - “Children of parents who
do not follow on the traditional norm (i.e., taking on personal, active and
long term responsibility for the social upbringing of the children they
generate) are thereby disadvantaged in many major aspects of their chances of
leading a successful life. On the evidence available, such children tend to
die earlier, to have more illness, to do less well at school, to exist at a
lower level of nutrition, comfort and conviviality, to suffer more
unemployment, to be more prone to deviance and crime and, finally, to repeat
the cycle of unstable parenting from which they themselves have suffered”. The same message comes
from a report produced in 1998 and reviewed by the Joseph Rowntree
Foundation. Indeed, Prof. Norman Dennis authored several books on the topic
as long ago as the 1980’s and 1990’s. It is not a new phenomenon. In the 19th
century the early sociological surveys showed the same pattern we see today. In 1994 the then Gov’t
estimated that family breakdown was costing £5 billion pa in benefits and
other expenditure. A more recent report has put the cost at £16 billion (cf.
our more comprehensive costing above). It compares poorly both with the £4
million annual support to marriage and relationships promised by the Lord
Chancellor and with the budget for training CAFCASS officers. A study by Krein &
Beller showed that the longer the period of time spent with a lone parent the
greater the reduction in educational attainment for the child. A British study found
children with poor linguistic skills and minimal vocabulary were more likely
to come from disrupted backgrounds where "paternal (father)
absenteeism" was prevalent. “Permitting” fathers to
participate in their children's middle years was found to foster educational
achievement and career plans. This can only enhance social integration and
minimise the premature leaving of home, especially for negative reasons. A British longitudinal
study of children in the Midlands showed markedly poor results for West
Indian children in regards IQ, verbal tests, further education and employment
compared with White and Asians. West Indians families were found to have a
41% level of fathers absent from the home and only a 37% marriage rate. The
comparable marriage rate for Asians is 98%. The legacy of educational
experimentation, beginning in the 1960's and still on-going, has not been
helpful to children’s literacy, regardless of ethnic origin. Britain’s future
economic position in the new millennium was acknowledged in the mid 1990’s by
Govt' departments “…. to be influenced by the quality and relevance of it's
educational system today”. Contact is not, therefore,
of marginal interest, or an esoteric curiosity reserved for the
intelligentsia. It has real, concrete and practical impacts on everyday life
of millions of parents and children. The breakdown of
discipline in schools is a prime example. Most teachers report that
discipline is more difficult today. It is not unusual to hear of four and
five year-olds arriving at school “completely out of control”. One reason for
that is the absence of supportive parents. Here one can see the effect of the
absence of fathers. In their Green Paper, Supporting Families, the Government
acknowledged that, "rising crime and drug abuse are indirect symptoms of
problems in the family". And in their publication, published most
recently, Fighting Violent Crime Together,
An Action Plan, the Government again points to a strong link
between crime and broken marriages, stating, "Numerous studies have
shown parental separation to be a good predictor of both juvenile and adult
offending". Crack cocaine addicts, many
of whom commit crimes to feed their habit (sometimes amounting to around
£800.00 per week), are estimated to cost the country over £ 11,000 each per
annum (BBC TV News, 24/6/02). Contact does not begin to
address or ameliorate the link between crime and broken marriages. Nor does contact open the
debate on ill health. Indeed, advocates of Contact will not acknowledge any
linkage. An uninformed populace cannot make educated judgements that allow
the necessary remedial links to be made. For instance, recent research shows
that unemployment and early separation from both parents may be key factors
behind the higher rates of schizophrenia in British African-Caribbeans. [4] However, many commentators are beginning to believe that shared or equal parenting while not providing all the solutions, might provide a remedy for the most pressing. We are now at a particular crossroads. We can either adopt a seemingly new system but which, in reality, is a historic and well proven model that is increasingly being shown to give better result (for families and for children), or we can persist with the old failed model of contact. Should we persevere for another 5 or 10 years with the old model (that has not ‘delivered the goods’ for the last 30 years) in the hope that some small improvement might be secured ? Reluctance to face this dilemma has until now been largely responsible for holding us back. But we face many others. One of them involves custody law. The entire paradigm is fraught with ideological and quasi-conservative assumptions about the `appropriate' roles of men and women. [5]Lawyers are well aware of these stereotypes and make good use of them in custody disputes. Custody law is anything but child centred with children having no legal status except as "chattels" or as weapons to secure property rights. Custody law needs radical change to reflect the interests of children Another dilemma is the "the child's best interests" mantra. This has never been objectively stated and is subject no test or measurement. Arguably, if matters are solely decided on the basis of “the child’s best interests” then inevitably this clashes with the Human Rights and interests of both the mother and the father. The ‘best interests test’ is said to be based in anecdotal reports from Anna Freud and others. These reports were based on her observations of Korean War Orphans living in institutional care during the 1950's. From this emerged concepts such as the tender years doctrine (giving preference to women as primary caregivers of the under 5's). Her books, (“Best Interests of the Child”, and “Beyond the Best Interests of the Child”) were co-authored with lawyers. These texts were highly influential during the 1970's, a period when custody laws were being revised. It is from these legal revisions that the “best interests test” emerged and then became entrenched. It must be recalled that the work and writings of Anna Freud were seriously influential at political and governmental levels. Adherents of Freud were regularly consulted by governments throughout the long years and mind games of the “Cold War”. Perhaps we should not now be surprised that the concept is at times applied very idiosyncratically. At a domestic violence conference in Nov 2001, Dame Butler-Sloss, President of the Family Division, gave a glimpse of the thinking behind custody awards invariably favouring mothers. She said :- “As
in other areas of family law where children are concerned, the stability of
the placement for the child is of crucial importance since its breakdown, or
the undue fragility of the primary carer, can have serious consequences for
the child ……… It is clear from the body of mental health and social work
research and a long line of authority that the protection of the primary
carer for the benefit of the child is of primary importance.” - Regents Park Conference, 6/11/01. This view excludes the concept that the very instability (the undue fragility) of the primary carer which may have been a pre-existing condition, can pose a very real threat and an on-going risk to any children under her care. The minister Estelle
Morris MP, has faced up to her own entrenched forces in the educational
establishment. She has been brave enough to decide that comprehensive
schools, and the “One size does not fit all” approach is not the answer. She
accepts that too much ideological humbug has surrounded the debate. Her motto
of “Reform and Achieve” places the emphasis on product quality, not quantity
or political sacred cows (BBC TV news 24/6/02). Erroneous views of domestic violence, particularly as to scale and prevalence, have been thrust into the custody debate. They have now become entrenched mantras. This has unduly influenced custody awards and badly damaged any prospects for betterment. It has proven very difficult for these lobbyists to take on board the conclusion and implications of HOS 191 and other objective research. They seem unwilling to accept that only 4.2% of men and 4.2% of women experience domestic violence or that it is class (socio-economic) related phenomenon. It is, however, a truth that is becoming more widely accepted. Donna Laframboise of the National Post, quoting ‘StatsCan’ wrote on August 1st, 2000; “ … Only 8% of women and 7% of men say they've experienced a violent
incident with an intimate partner during the past five years. (According to
this study, "violence" includes shoving, pushing, grabbing and
throwing objects as well as beatings and stabbings). Since the vast majority of these incidents
took place in relationships that people have already left, only 2% of women
and men report violence with their present partner during the past year. – “Violence against men deserves attention, too" Therefore, not only are the figures much smaller than special interest groups would have us suppose, but it is also aggregated into ‘partners’. Without demarcation by age or martial status, ie husbands and wives not dealt with separately, the figures become meaningless. The recent riots in Oldham, Leeds, and Burnley, have shown that in many areas of social policy we are on the brink of disintegration. Policies are simply not working. Disaffection is rife at street level. ‘Community leaders’ are isolated by events as members of the communities feel under siege and react. If we are to survive relatively intact we have to capture and treat the malaise of both racism and custody sexism. Attention must be focussed on what are the critically important key factors in the coming 5 years and solutions found. Attacking a culture with secular solutions will not go unrebuked. Custody will have to become ‘outcomes’ based rather then ideologically driven. The old `reasoned' mantras
have led us into a political wilderness. The old paradigms have failed us as,
one by one, they reveal themselves to be social policy cul-de-sacs. For those reasons the one size fits all mentality of
‘Residence and Contact’ must be rejected. The equal parenting model returns
society to ‘quality’ over quantity. X |
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[1] “Father and Child Reunion” – Warren Farrell, 2001, p8.
[2] Child Support Agency. Benefit - status of resident
and non-resident parents for Great Britain :-
169, 500 non-resident
parents on Income Support, 113, 100 on JSA (IB), 22, 700 on JSA (cont.), 34, 200 incapacitated or disabled, 128, 500 other, 49, 500 self- employed and 478, 300 employed. - May 2001. How many of the 408,400 cannot work or ‘refuse’ to work ?
[3] A prediction first envisaged in G.K Chesterton’s “The Flying Inn” (1914).
[4] Social factors 'cause ethnic schizophrenia" -
BBC News, on line 22 June 2002, King's College London
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_2057000/2057205.stm
[5] Thorpe LJ - decision in the “House Husband” case, 2002, reversing custody and awarding it to the mother.