Problematic contact after separation and divorce? …

1 Problematic contact after separation and divorce ? A national survey of parentsVictoria Peaceyand Joan Hunt Problematic contact after separation and divorce ? A national survey of parentsVictoria Peacey and Joan Hunt Problematic contact after separation and divorce ? A national survey of parentsISBN 978 1 85199 299 5 First published July 2008 2008 One Parent Families|Gingerbread. All rights Peacey is Research and Policy Officer at One ParentFamilies| Hunt is Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Family Law andPolicy, Oxford and thanks are due to the following people: The parents who gave up their time to be interviewed. Our steering and advisory committee, whose input and comments have been enormously valuable in the design of the survey and during theanalysis of our data. The staff of the Omnibus at the Office for National Statistics.

2 Tina Haux, who co-wrote the funding application with Joan Hunt. The Nuffield Foundation, whose generous support has made this used in the tables:RPResident parent NRPNon-resident parentThe Nuffield Foundation is a charitable trust established by Lord Nuffield. Its widest charitable object is the advancement of social well-being . The Foundation has long had an interest in social welfare and has supported this project to stimulate public discussion and policy views expressed are however those of the authors and not necessarilythose of the Parent Families|Gingerbread255 Kentish Town Road, London NW5 2 LXTel: 020 7428 5400 Fax: 020 7428 4851 The National Council for One Parent Families is a registered charity no. 230750 and a company limited by guarantee and registered in London no. 402748. 1 Introduction52 Methodology93 Patterns of contact184 Factors associated with contact and contact frequency285 Satisfaction with contact frequency406 contact trajectories457 Making decisions about contact arrangements508 The extent and nature of contact problems569 Which problems affect contact ?

3 6310 Concerns about the other parent s care7811 Stopping contact8612 Parental attitudes to contact9313 Summary and discussion96 Appendix 1121 Appendix 2126 References1413 ContentsThe studyThis report sets out the findings of the first stage of a project exploring the nature andextent of contact problems in the general population of separated families and theirrelationship to contact patterns. This involved a quantitative, nationwide, face-to-facesurvey of 559 separated parents. The survey addressed the following questions: 1 What proportion of the separated population have experienced and are currentlyexperiencing problems with contact ?2 What is the nature of these problems and their respective (reported) incidence? 3 Are there any broad differences between parents reporting and not reportingproblems and the nature of the problems reported ( gender, previousrelationship status, years since separation , age of child)?

4 4 Is there a relationship between the problems reported, or their absence, andwhether contact is continuing, its type and frequency? 5 What is the balance between problems being resolved and contact taking place: contact continuing but problems persisting and problems only ceasing becausecontact has ceased? 6 What proportion of non-resident parents allege contact denial or obstruction?What proportion of resident parents say they have stopped contact ? 7 What proportion of resident parents perceive lack of commitment to contact onthe part of the non-resident parent to be a significant problem? 8 What proportion of parents reporting contact problems have been involved incourt proceedings/used professional advice?The second stage of the project, which is still underway, involves qualitativeinterviews with a sub-sample of parents and children.

5 A second report will bepublished which integrates the findings of the two to the researchParental separation affects around three million of the twelve million children in theUK (DCA, DfES, DTI, 2004). Research indicates that while many children willexperience short-term distress around the time of the break-up (Richards and Dyson,INTRODUCTION51 IntroductionIn families where parents have separated, children commonly live for most of the time with oneparent (the resident parent). In the UK, the time they spend with the other parent (the non-resident parent) is now known as contact , although the older term access is still sometimesused, while some organisations representing non-resident parents argue that a betterdescription would be the more neutral term parenting time . In some other jurisdictions, thepreferred descriptor is visitation.)

6 contact is the word used throughout this ), most are resilient (Kelly, 2000). Some, however, have long-term problems ofadjustment (Amato and Keith, 1991; Buchanan and Ten Brinke, 1997). Children s adjustment after parental separation is affected by a complex interplay ofdiverse factors (Kelly, 2000). One of the protective factors is a positive ongoingrelationship with the non-resident parent (Pryor and Rodgers, 2001). This can bemisinterpreted as meaning that contact , per se, is a good thing, whereas the weight ofresearch tends to show that it is the nature and quality of parenting by the non-resident parent that is crucial (Gilmore, 2006; Hunt, 2004). Moreover some contact can be very damaging. In addition to the obvious risks froman abusive or neglectful non-resident parent, or being affected, directly or indirectlyby domestic violence, research particularly highlights the more subtle dangers tochildren of being caught up in parental conflict (Harold and Murch, 2005).

7 Since it is impossible to maintain any relationship unless parent and child are intouch with each other, public policy has increasingly sought to promote contact . TheGreen Paper Parental separation : Children s Needs and Parents Responsibilities, forinstance, states that the government firmly believes that both parents shouldcontinue to have a meaningful relationship with their child after separation , as longas it is safe (DCA/DfES/DTI, 2004). The UN Convention on the Rights of the Childand the European Convention on Human Rights both support the rights of the child and in the case of the latter, the rights of the parent to have contact . Unlike someother jurisdictions, there is no statutory presumption of contact in the Children Act,1989, the key piece of legislation, which is based solely on the welfare principle, paramountcy of the best interests of the child.

8 However, where parents whocannot agree about contact take their disputes to court they are likely to encounter astrong pro- contact stance (Bailey-Harris et al, 1999). Indeed in their desire to securecontact for children, it is acknowledged that the courts have sometimes takeninsufficient account of risks to children and parents (Advisory Board on Family Law,1999).Despite this strong emphasis on the potential value of contact there are manychildren who lose touch with their non-resident parent. Estimates, however, varywildly across the various studies (Hunt, 2004) from less than 10 per cent (Attwood,et al, 2003) to 40 per cent (Bradshaw and Millar, 1991). This highest figure,however, is somewhat outdated, was based on a low response rate, and has not beensupported by more recent research. Most estimates of the proportion of children wholose contact altogether conclude that the figure is around 30 per cent.

9 In the past, the primary explanation for lack of contact tended to be framed in termsof non-resident parents failing to keep in touch the deadbeat dad research indicates that this is still perceived to be a factor behind some caseswhere there is no contact (Blackwell and Dawe, 2003; Bradshaw et al, 1999;Eekelaar et al, 2000; Smart et al, 2005; Stark et al, 2001; Trinder et al, 2002;Wikeley, 2001). A nationally representative study by the Office for National Statistics,for instance, notes that among the minority of resident parents who were dissatisfiedwith contact , 31 per cent wanted more contact to be taking place (Blackwell andDawe, 2003). Similarly, a court-based study of contact disputes reports more residentmothers complaining that fathers failed to exercise the contact they had beenawarded than non-resident fathers who complained about contact being thwarted(Smart et al, 2005).

10 The failure to exercise contact has never been addressed in publicpolicy and has been described as a invisible problem (Smart et al, 2005). Problematic contact after separation AND divorce ?6In contrast, a competing explanation, obstruction by a hostile resident parent, iscurrently attracting considerable public and policy attention. The Children andAdoption Act 2006, for example, gives courts wider powers to prevent and deal withnon-compliance with court orders. Opposition parties have sought morefundamental reform, a presumption of reasonable contact , with the aim ofpreventing contact denial by strengthening community expectations of substantialinvolvement by both parents in post- separation parenting. Research with non-resident fathers in the UK reports that they perceive contactobstruction to be a common experience and a major reason for contact breakdown(Bradshaw et al, 1999; Mitchell, 1985; Lund, 1987; Kruk, 1993; Simpson et al,1995; Wikely, 2001).