Lawyers seek to increase contact and cut disputes

FAMILY LAW: call for more resources to support child contact

Family lawyers have called for more resources to help separating parents come to arrangements for contact with their children and in turn cut legal disputes.

Speaking at the 'Making contact work' conference hosted by the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA) and Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) at the weekend, SFLA chairwoman Jane Craig said: 'We want to see more resources available for educating parents to understand how important it is for children to know that both their parents support contact and are not in conflict.'

She said that if the resources were available - as they are, for example, in the US - many contact disputes would not reach court, freeing up court time for cases involving violence or abuse.

FLBA chairman Andrew McFarlane argued: 'The current law relating to the enforcement of contact orders fails the parents and children who are denied contact for no good reason.'

Also speaking at the conference, Rosie Winterton, minister for family policy at the Lord Chancellor's Department, announced that the government is to spend 2.5 million to support and supervise contact between children and their separated parents.

Most of the money is going towards building 12 supervised child contact centres, where children can have contact with separated parents.

She admitted: 'For too long child contact provision has been patchy, and this programme of extended supervised and supported contact services will begin to fill the gaps in the country.'

Victoria MacCallum