Shared parenting: the Law, the Evidence and Guidance from Families Need Fathers

Joan Hunt (University of Oxford) Judith Masson (University of Bristol) and Liz Trinder (University of Exeter)

Families Need Fathers (FNF) recently produced a series of four sets of guidance on Shared Parenting including Guidance for Cafcass Case Officers for Teachers and Schools for Surestart and for Litigants in Person. According to the FNF webpages the guidance was subsequently endorsed by Cafcass the President of the Family Division and the Minister of State for Children Young People and Families.

The reason that this matters is that the four sets of guidance including the guidance for Cafcass officers start from a presumption of a 50/50 division of the child?s time including in litigated cases. As academics with considerable experience in this field we have grave concerns about the guidance particularly but not exclusively those for Cafcass. Our concerns are threefold:

(1) that the guidance and the inclusion of a 50/50 presumption does not reflect the current law;
(2) that the guidance is founded upon a distorted interpretation of the available research evidence;
(3) that the guidance was produced without consultation with any other stakeholders apart from it seems Cafcass.

Consequently ...

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