Are Cafcass as terrible as I have heard?

[SlipperyGhost]

Sorry, not really AIBU but has anyone got any experiences of Cafcass please? I am in wales so it’ll be the Pathfinder process and I’m due to have my first telephone interview/meeting very soon. What am I to expect? Are they as bad as I’ve heard?

Thanks!

I had a bad experience with them but I'm sure most people don't.

Sorry you had a bad experience. What sorts of questions do they ask you? Thanks ☺️

My experience was that CAFCASS repeat what another parent has said. So you could be the best mum in the world and if Dad says you’re shit, you’re shit. And equally you could say Dad is a Disney Dad and never does anything with the kids, and that’s what they state to the court.

I didn’t get a sense from them that they were interested in discerning fact from fiction, nor did I get a sense they did anything other than ask for opinions and stick it in a report, and I was relieved that social services had involvement from a child protection perspective because that had more weight and more factual reporting based on actual evidence from other agencies such as police, GP, school etc.

It depends on the officer you get. The telephone interview ones aren’t as good as the in person officers.
The phone interview ones want to hear about the problems. They don’t always write up the answers you give accurately.
Be really clear, they can’t cope with lots of information…even when you’re just answering the question they’ve asked!!

Mine minimised the abuse I'd gone through and it's effects on the children and said there was no reason other parent shouldn't have unsupervised contact despite evidence of threats and alienating language used around the children towards me.
Funnily enough it's still continuing and I'm expected to just shut up and put up because other parent 'has rights'.

access at all costs is supposed to be changing isn’t it? The damage to children is abuse.

Our experienced was that they’re biased towards mum.

That’s awful. I’m sorry you had that experience.

Our experience is that they don't give a toss about actual evidence but the "more probable scenario" by societies standards. Had the evidence to disprove what the other parent was telling them (in emails), offered to send it them, cafcass said there wasn't any need for them to see it but that what one person was saying was completely different to what other person was saying. Got the report and it was a more diluted version of the other person's story. Told by solicitors not to challenge it because it wasn't anything that would matter in the long run, it didn't make a difference in court in the end but basically there's a cafcass report that presents the other person's made up story as if it was fact, which is frustrating as because it's on a professional report people tend to believe that version of things rather than the truth.

My multiple experiences with CAFCASS wasn't great. On one occasion in court, my ex admitting to 'prepping' our 7 year old to agree with what he wanted in her individual interview, and the CAFCASS rep told the judge she didn't see any problem with that.

To me, CAFCASS saw us as nothing but a tick box exercise.

My experience with CAFCASS was really good. Our officer was amazing, she recognised our sons additional needs despite ex claiming I was exaggerating to “win”. Shot down his wants of overnight, after not seeing our son for years and pushed for supervised contact. She also recognised the abuse from my ex and made sure I would be safeguarded from any further abuse, stating there should be no contact between my ex and I. Although I don’t think my ex helped himself by threatening her with her job after she stood up against his false accusations.

They don't seem to have any training on talking to children, or analysing evidence

Eg. They spoke to my son and asked him leading questions "you feel safe with your dad don't you" (it was in the pandemic they knew i was in the room as son had insisted) and expected him to open up to someone he had just met on a video call.

They also trotted out some stupid lines about "if he didn't want to go to the dentist you would make him go". Well no . If the dentist had put my child in fear of their life I would have found a new dentist FFS!

But this was 5 or 6 years ago. Maybe they have got better

My experience was that they were biased towards Dad