CAFCASS - Please share your experiences!

[SarahMac30]

I am awaiting a CAFCASS appointment for my 5 year old dd. I have read so many posts on here that are not too positive about how CAFCASS deal with situations. It would be really helpful to hear some more experiences. Has anyone had a good experience with them or are they really just awful and don't listen to the child. Please post with your own stories.
Thanks all.

?further, how a corrupt, malicious Cafcass report results in NO legal funding (it's a silly court game, anyway.)

ie?? false 'evidence' (untested in court) report from Cafcass - LSC legal aid read and believe (of course, why ever not?!!! - LSC decide 'no prospect' in their innate wisdom - equals no legal representation - equals no prospect of 'equality of arms' (fairness) - so why play the silly court game anyway when v v unlikely to achieve any sensible result - particularly unlikely to reach sensible result (i.e. that actually benefits children) if you are AIP acting in person - do you really want to hand over your children's family life to be decided by a L A W Y E R for heaven's sake, who was possibly abused himself at his boarding school in all likelihood - and said lawyer relies on public forbearance (but who can question?) for his wages.
The Law of Duplicity and Nil Returns. Side-splitting.
Does anybody seriously imagine that (child/s lives) are ever given a truly fair hearing????? !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Monday, 4 June 2012
Much appreciated. However?

Quality LR/advice is a fallacy, anyway (re. "qualified solicitor")

Of course, my point and purpose for asking is that because LSC/Cafcass 'ultra vires', acting without authority, there is no LR/advice available
(a) because no resources to pay (or desire, effectively) to play the secret court game, and
(b) serious doubt that able/determined LR is in fact available, particularly when competent lawyers (generally) spurn the game playing in (a).

The actuality is that the public, children most of all, are appallingly served. A grain of sense tells us that the 'state' exercises the inbuilt presumption/negativity re. 'warring parents' in order to justify zero legal funding. Thus entirely ignoring what is often the obvious truth - one parent's family life at the mercy of the other 'sick' parent. The pretence that there is no gender bias is staggering.

In summary, of fifteen plus family lawyers examined by me (over 8 years), fourteen of these are effectively cheer leaders for a desperately silly and futile adversarial system. [The fifteenth, naturally, not offering legal aid.]
Who cares for the experience of the end-user whose job does not depend on recycling stupidity?
(And way past fearing adverse opinions for speaking the truth.)

Anyway, thank you for the brief outlet. Very grateful for the points on JR costs.
By all means pass this on to 'central policy' if it might be helpful to the public. It will be appropriately posted on the internet.

     Sincerely,

			Franz Kafka

On 3 Jun 2012, at 17:49, Hereford Citizens' Advice Bureau wrote:

Thank you for your two further emails. We should, perhaps, have made it clearer in our previous reply that where family law issues have proceeded to litigation, we must advise potential litigants to seek specialist legal advice from a suitably qualified solicitor because our remit and expertise does extend to the detail of family law and so we are unable to provide more than basic initial advice in this area.

Regarding your questions about judicial review, this is also a specialist area of law on which we are unable to advise in detail, and one in which we must advise clients to seek specialist advice. We can answer in limited detail some of your initial questions however:

1 If an application for Judicial Review is refused, the applicant must pay for the court fee and their own costs. If the application is accepted, proceeds to trial and the applicant loses, the court does have the power to order the costs of the defending public body be met by the claimant. In complex cases these can be considerable, hence the caveat that specialist advice is needed prior to considering an application. Costs can also be higher if the pre-action protocol is not followed correctly.
2 We cannot comment on this.
3 As far as we are aware (again, our knowledge of this area is limited) there are no ?automatic? reasons for judicial review cases. There are reasons for which decisions can be challenged but none of these will lead to the automatic acceptance of an application. As explained previously, specialist advice is needed.
4 Costs are generally payable by the losing party, so if an applicant was successful in their claim, the court would have the power to order the public body to pay the applicant?s costs.

A guide on judicial review is available from the justice.gov.uk website which may answer other questions that you have. Unfortunately, we will not be able to provide any further advice on the issue of judicial review, apart from assistance in finding a suitably qualified solicitor.

With regard to your general complaints about the perceived unfairness of the CAFCASS and LSC systems, we will pass these on (in general terms) to our social policy co-ordinator, who will, if appropriate, forward them to the central policy unit.

Monitor everything. Challenge everything. Do not take what they say as read. It is nothing more than opinion, often not based on anything other than personal experience of the officer involved. Easily manipulated, if that helps you. Usually ex- something else, like probation or social workers. I live in hope that the service will be reviewed and scrapped as it is wholly inadequate and not fit for purpose. Complain formally if necessary and do not be intimidated.

The URL to this so called Dr's report has changed to kidsgoapeblog.com/?s=cafcass

Im looking for any and all helpful advise as im trying to do some research on CAFCASS because of an up coming interview. I haven't yet come across a nice review or feeling towards them which worries me, but also I would like to know if anyone else had problems with meeting locations as they want me to travel quite far and im not sure how to get hold of them as in the past they have left me waiting till the last minuet and put it down to not being able to get hold of me (making me feel like its my fault). Im a very shy and nervous person any way and I worry the most that I wont be able to speak up for myself if the worst should happen.

This I know - you can get a job with cafcass as a newly qualified social worker with no other experience

Whereas in other areas of statutory sw you need 2 years post qualifying experience before you can do court work or hold child protection cases. I find this really frightening since cafcass are dealing with children at high risk

Today I was in court regarding my ex and my 6 year old son, Cafcass interviewed us together for about 20 minutes and assured me that the magistrates would not take any of my concerns I have regarding my ex's behaviour when she has our son into consideration and as a result I felt compelled to withdraw my objection to her having him. In hindsight I think I've done the wrong thing but don't know what, if any, steps that I can or should take now and would be grateful for any advice.

I feel nothing that caffcas do will be used in court
You can still raise your concerns and ask for action
Your ex will still probably have contact but it can be done in a safer way
Hope all's going well

There was an assesment done on me by cafcass. When I went to the assesment the cafcass worker made me feel very comfortable and seemed to have fully absorbed what I had explained. When I received a copy of the assesment it was absolutely appalling. It greatly upset me just reading it. It heavily favoured my sons mother, words was put into my mouth. Things I had no idea about i was ment to have said. False situations with no proof was described as "risk factors". Many things I mentioned that worked in my favour never got mentioned in review. My statements was regarded as alleged but my sons mothers statement was taking as fact. I was doubtful about cafcass before I went to assesment. As I had read many other people's bad reviews about them and they had lived up to the low expectations I already had. It is upsetting that this is the organisation that is responsible for the out come of children.

I had a scheduled telephone appointment with a cafcass officer this morning. The lady was so aggressive, negative and kept talking over me. She said that even if the children say what they want that this will virtually not be considered by a Judge. The phone call was harrowing, the lady was very personal. I now feel sick and the closest way I can describe the experience is that I now feel violated. What should I do?

On the cafcass website, their strapline/Mission statement reads:
'Putting young people and children first in court'

The lady I spoke to this morning does not echo this statement. The person she seemed to be putting first was the person who got their story in first, with endless lies, my ex husband.

This is very sad

The first Cafcass lady I saw was really very strange. Her report was weird, including giving one of my children the wrong name and saying I’d gone to a refuge “because my school friend worked there”! (I didn’t know anyone there at all).

The second was much more sensible.

Hi anyone had problems with cafcass and does anyone no the contact of the top office as our complaints are being washed over by our local office.

Cafcass officer wrote report. It didn't make sense, very bad English. Even spelt my name wrong. Turned up to court and completely different cafcass officer to the one who wrote the report. I fejt with her I was on trial and she even said "not that I'm taking sides" she clearly was!! Horrid horrid lady who made me very in the wrong. Turns out court listened to my views and disregarded the cafcass officer. So what was the point of her?

Hello,

I just started the petition "Protect and Safeguard our children from Cafcass!" and wanted to see if you could help by adding your name.

My goal is to reach 100 signatures initially and much more so that I can take it to Parliament to make Cafcass accountable for their lies, corruption, unprofessionalism, unfair and bias treatment of parents who are trying to protect their children. Most importantly to protect our children as Cafcass and their officers put children's lives in danger by failing to listen to and protect children from violent and abusive parents. I need more support. You can read more and sign the petition here:

chng.it/ggyKJDST

Please Sign the Petition - Protect and Safeguard our children from Cafcass!

Please share this with as many friends and family members as possible. We need to protect our children from Cafcass who destroy children's lives as well as the parents who are trying to protect them.

Thanks!

I have been in the court system for 4 years. Cafcass have destroyed my life and are working desperately to destroy my little girl’s life too. Cafcass officers are failing to listen to my daughter’s alarming disclosures about what my ex does to her, during her unsupervised contact with him, even though they have independent evidence of my daughter’s treatment at my ex’s hands, as well as having it heard directly from my daughter herself. They do not consider leaving a 3 year old child unattended in public places, in a car, in a locked room or being slapped, her hair being pulled and being called fat as safeguarding issues. The Cafcass officer has implied that my daughter is a liar and she is very concerned that I am actually believing my daughter, and therefore has labelled me as being” fixated” on my daughter’s disclosures.

My daughter is refusing to see my ex, but I have still taken her despite her refusals to go. Due to my daughter’s refusals to see him, my ex has taken me back to court. I have provided Cafcass with evidence from the contact centres where I drop my daughter off for handovers to my ex, who then takes her into the community unsupervised, that I do bring my daughter in for contact despite her crying and that it is my daughter who refuses to see him; it is the contact centre staff who tell me to take her back home as she is so distressed. Despite this evidence, the Cafcass officer has told the court that I am in breach of the court order and that my daughter’s residency with me should be reconsidered and that a section 37 report should be considered, which means my little girl could be torn away from a loving, caring and secure home for no reason and put into care. As well as this, the officer has suggested appointing a guardian from NYAS to represent my daughter. Meaning my right as a mother to defend my daughter might be taken away, they did this last time I was in court. NYAS are just as biased and useless when it comes to protecting children.

The Section 7 report has been written based on how the Cafcass officer feels about me, as I had the audacity to complain about the officer assigned to my daughter’s case because during her interview with me, she categorically stated that my daughter’s disclosures would not stand in a court of law, as there was not enough evidence of her abuse, despite the fact that she has several written statements from independent witnesses of my daughter’s ordeal at my ex’s hands. The Cafcass officer also said that my ex had not done nothing wrong, this was prior to assessing my daughter and without any proof, because he has denied everything, the Cafcass officer has believed him. When I challenged her as to why I should not believe my daughter, she replied that if my daughter was to wake up in the morning and said she saw the boogie man, would I believe her. I informed the Officer that I was fully able to tell the difference between a dream and what my daughter had confided in me, she did not like this and as such as put no safeguarding measures in place and has given false information in her report.

I have started a petition on change.org called Protect and safeguard our children from Cafcass. The link is chng.it/ggyKJDST. Please sign my petition and get as many of your family members and friends to sign it too in order to keep my daughter and thousands of other children as well as yours like her, safe. Thank you.

I tried to get the name of the top officer at Cafcass as the local complaints officer did absolutely nothing, just brushed everything under the carpet and carried out no investigation. It is pointless complaining as they never go against their own and are untouchable as they are not accountable to anyone. They know that they are untouchable so do as they please, that is why I have started a petition to change the law and make Cafcass and their officers accountable, it's called 'Protect and safeguard our children from Cafcass' on change.co, the link to sign the petition is chng.it/ggyKJDST please sing this petition and get everyone else you know to do so too so we can protect our children. Thank you.

I've been reading these comments with some interest. First of all I must state that I'm a farther of a beautiful little boy of 5 years old and that my case is still on going.

Sadly my case has been very long and difficult and has involved CAFCASS from the start due to my ex wife domestic abuse towards myself.

This was further confirmed at a Fact Finding in late 2019, an Appeal against the verdict in early 2020 and the Section 7 Report by the CACASS Officer.

The CAFCASS officer has subsequently been made my sons Guardian due to the mothers hostility towards the court and constant breeches of Contact Orders. As a result I have not seen my son for two years and a Child Contact Intervention has been ordered.

My personal experience with the CAFCASS officer is of that of a highly dedicated professional dealing with an extremely difficult case. I do not think for one second that he is on my side or is hostile to my ex wife. He is only concerned with one thing and that is the wellbeing of my son. He is always extremely polite and makes his thinking clear.

I do not always agree with what he says eg. the only contact I have been allowed is indirect once a month. This is despite no findings were found against me and all my accusations against my ex wife were proven as facts. However, once I have spoken to him he explained that in his view it is much more harmful to start direct contact with my son only for it to fall apart due to the mother's hostility towards myself and the legal process. I may not like it but I respect his judgement and have complied with his instructions for nearly a year now.

I do not know how my case will end. Nobody will until the final hearing but I do have some tips.

1. Stay focused on the things that matter which is the child. CAFCASS are not there to determine who did what and when. That's for the courts to decide. If there has been convictions, findings of fact, etc. (especially if its against you) accept it and move on! You can't change the past but you can alter the future.

1. Your own and your ex partners feelings towards each other don't matter. Mud slinging will get you nowhere and the fact that both parties can't get on and dislike each other is not a shock to anybody. Put simply if you can't move on things will never move forward!

1. ENGAGE FULLY! I can not stress to you how important this is! If you don't co-operate fully and honestly things are not going to end well for you. Remember CAFCASS do not care about you or your ex partner, they only care about the child! At best they may turn round and say that you care more about your own ego and interests than that of your children. At worst they may remove contact all together!

1. What CAFCASS recommends to the court is going to happen! Accept it and most importantly do what is ordered! Even if you feel its unjust towards yourself! Remember CAFCASS only care about the children NOT you!

1. If you disagree with the CAFCASS Officer talk to them in a civil manor! You may not like their thinking but it might help if you can understand their view point..... that of your children.

@ah1985 I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on point 4.
My ex is a vile and dangerous abuser, and the domestic abuse perpetrated towards both my daughter and I was documented via the local authority. There was 19 police call outs in a space of 2.5 years.. I had to flee for our lives with the intervention of the local authority and police who removed us from the county and relocated us. I left with 3 black bin liners of toys and clothes and had to start again completely.
Cafcass couldn't endorse contact in the interim because of how highly dangerous my ex is and the fact we've fled domestic abuse through the intervention of the local authorities.
The judge at our FHDRA hearing went against this and ordered contact in the community to commence immediately because my exes counsel said this wasn't a no contact case and this is a mother who is purposely withholding contact because she's bitter..
A few contact sessions in my ex was stalking me and behaving threateningly after contact.. An emergency hearing was called by the court because cafcass were notified by the local authority in my area as to what had happened.. Cafcass urged the judge to revise the order and stop contact. We were in front of a High Court Judge and our cafcass officer was at the hearing firmly stating there should be NO Contact in the interim because of the onward risks to us both. Judge again went against this because my daughter had already had contact with him and now was placed in a difficult position.
So no. What cafcass recommend isn't always going to happen. Cafcass are only there to advise the court not order them.

Unfortunately my experience with a CAFCASS Guardian has been totally negative. My 10 year old Daughter was moved to her Grandparents when my Wife made allegations that were false against me. My Wife was and still is a Hoarder with learning difficulties but she was still functioning as a care worker and had done so for some considerable years. Some years ago I started suffering from Peripheral Neuropathy and being older than my Wife, I started struggling to keep our house clean and tidy. My Wife's Parents made many anonymous calls to Social Services and finally they took my Wife at her last PLO meeting to live with her Parents and Daughter at their home.
The allegations by my wife were all lies and I had been cooperating with Social Services, be it at a slow pace due to my wife's mental state. She had also lost her client and had recently been made redundant which didn't help. This was around 20 months ago and at first my Wife who had a very bad experience with her Parents throughout her own childhood, did a great deal of complaining about being (as she called it) forced to live with her Parents. It was a disaster and my Wife barely had a day go by without some argument with them.

When the CAFCASS Guardian got involved she told me on the first time we met that she was most likely going to support my Wife. This was a real shock to me as I genuinely expected fair consideration rather than a biased pre decision automatically against me. to get on with my predicament I and my wife both had Individual Social Worker reports. My Wife's was negative but mine was positive. This changed the Guardians decision from her supporting my wife to supporting my Wife's parents in their application for an SGO. It now looks like I am going to lose my little girl to the people who have done a great deal to orchestrate this situation in the first place. There is nothing one can do when the Judge makes his decision. My little girl desperately wants to live with a parent with the Social Worker in charge stating that her first choice is me. What's the point of making many changes? What's the point of a ten year old child wanting very much to live with you? What's the point of having an ISW report in your favour? When it all comes down to what CAFCASS decide. As for the Judge going against them there is little chance of this happening. I have read that 96% of the time where the Social Worker in charge and the Guardian agree, the Judge finds in their favour.
So it seems that with my failing health and soon to be unable to drive, also with my little girl going to be placed over 50 miles away, I will hardly seen much of the rest of her childhood.

From my experience, they listened to the child but ignored what I said!

My child is being coerced by the other parent and I have been abused by the other parent but caffcass ignored me and wrote out a string of bad things I had apparently done which I hadn’t in fact done!

A biased, factually incorrect report, based on the lies of abusers and the words of a child who is being coerced.

my experience was also that the allegations against me were lies from the abusive other party and I found caffcass biased and basing their account on hearsay and they seem unable to want to get the truth of matters. I have not been given a chance to defend myself to give my side

All I’ve done is cried and smiled in front of my daughter and they wanted to give me supervised contact just for that. It’s hardly a crime to cry or smile. They called it emotional harm