CAFCASS

[ladyclare]

Parents who leave domestic abusive relationships to protect their children are being forced by CAFCASS & family law courts to hand over their children for contact with the very people they are trying to protect them from, therfor placing them at risk. They are putting the rights of the abusive parents before the needs and rights of the child that needs protecting, often without even doing the relvent checks on the abusive parent. Why is this being allowed to happen? It must be stopped now, before yet another child becomes another sad statistic! Please help us parents who had the courage to leave an abusive relationship, protect our vulnarable children. An abusive parent is NOT better than no parent!
www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/group.php?gid=79880221892
petitions.number10.go v.uk/legalisedabuse/
protectchildren.labourspace.com/view_campaign?CampaignId=176

According to cafcass and the courts the current belief is that any biological father should be in their child's life. Not so.

Here is the research that proves contact with violent fathers is NOT in a child's best interest.

www.jrf.org.uk/sites/files/jrf/sp100.pdf

Their conclusion - The starting point should be the presumption of no contact.

Joseph Rowntree Foundation are very well known and highly regarded. crapcass and the courts need to seee this one.

Make sure you use this as evidence in your case with a violent ex.

good report ladyclare - some good points

Most mothers initially wanted children to see their fathers for a variety of
reasons; however, contact arrangements broke down because of violence.
There was no evidence to support claims made by many of the professionals
interviewed that contact arrangements broke down mostly because mothers
were ?hostile? to the idea of contact between fathers and children.

this is particularly relevant to my case - my cafcass offcier, while overall made good reocmmendaiton ie for continued supervised ocntact - felt that i contributed to the anger and hostility - in reality - i have only been defending myself against his bullying... largely biting my tongue to him in emails etc - and eltting it out to cafcass officer which was perhaps my mistake...

"Mediation is not appropriate in the majority of
cases where there has been domestic violence.
Forced agreements are likely to break down."

precisely - we have cafcass family conference ordered but i am going to have to be very careful...

tho have just seen this is 1996 - is there anything more recent??

hmm carter,supposing your son picks up on your ex being violent to women...and copies? or simply grows up thinking its acceptable to behave towards women this way,after all,dad does it!

cafcass have told me that this does happen. especially with boys!! no way am i having that!! foryunately,cafcass agree with me....

www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/017.htm

Here is the truth backed up by research.

I'm not really sure what the courts are expected to do. Children generally love their parents, even if the parent's behaviour leaves much to be desired by most peoples' standards. Separated parents often making allegations about each others behaviour and courts will have difficulty choosing between the two without independent impartial evidence. When there is evidence children suffer harm because they are exposed to DV it is balanced against the evidence from psychiatrists and psychologists of the emotional harm children suffer when one parent is cut out and the child looses an attachment with one parent and half of their genetic identity.

Any risks a parent might pose are weighed against any strengths, including measures that might be put in place, to assess whether their parenting is "good enough." This works both ways and is also true when, for example, a mother has mental health problems. Only in exceptional cases when a perpetrator presents a high risk is it likely the harm caused by exposure to DV outweigh the importance of a child's attachment and identity.

i need your help..

kelly

Ok , what's the problem?

I was involved with a cafcass worker not only 3 months ago. It was a very difficult case - Long story short - Abuse occurred from father, mother took baby on alone in estranged country to keep father & daughter together. Mother tried getting her and baby out of situation, mother contacts social services, they managed to help mother and baby out to their country for baby's security. Mother & baby are forced back to UK (father reported mother as kidnapper) Mother & baby goes back to get consent from court on conditions.. Father was allowed to be alone with baby (after reported abuse) Mother takes this into court consideration. Court gets Cafcass worker involved. This is where the fun began, mother very vulnerable in estranged country, cafcass worker has appointment with mother and father. Mother tried to explain to everyone about father not caring for child (use baby as object to derail mother) Cafcass was the only people who saw father has Obsessive Ex Syndrome - meaning he is a stalker.They saw he is out to get revenge on mother and might potentially harm baby. After court case father posted numerous posting of how he hates cafcass and and. Because they did a good job of placing baby in my care noticing his vulgar, cruel yet selfish intentions and obsessions. Baby is very well, never been better. I do not stop access or contact, but he is in another country yet he dont try and help financially nor call and so on, all he keep doing is threatening if I dont come to visit in his country so he can see her and so on. CAFCASS is awesome and credit to Judith in Cafcass - Brilliant job!

Is that the full picture though?

if you would like to take a look at the OFSTED reports for all the cafcass across the country you will find that all reports were inadequate and found cafcass to be putting children in dangerous situations through a lack of safeguarding or paying attention to evidence, recommendations often being made to the court with no actual evidence to back that recommendation.
i believe it is a travesty that cases in which a childs future is determinded is decided by a report that is written by a person who does not know the child or the parents, is often not willing to investigate or properly safeguard the child and who is often bias and unwilling to listen to reports of assault and concerns.
Please do not delete this post I shall not post links again, just trying to get a valid point across.

Anyone that would like to know more pls contact me on facebook Domino savethechildren

Recent OFSTED reports have been better. If there is no evidence to support CAFCASS recommendations they can be challenged in court. When good cause is shown a judge does not have to adopt the recommendations. By the law of averages 50% of people using CAFCASS are likely to feel naturally aggrieved because they "lost" their case.

No doubt in some of those cases there will be injustice but Ilovetiffany is correct unless the full picture is known the truth is unverifiable. Because of privacy the courts and CAFCASS cannot answer accusations made against them. That leads to the family courts being labelled secret. No one is saying transparency couldn't be improved but do families, in particular children, really want to wash their dirty laundry in public?

I asked that very same question to the CAFCASS officer ... how do you know your doing a good job. I also asked about the poor OFSTED report my CAFCASS office had got.

OK so I got no response to the how do you know your doing a good job, but having been through the legal system it basically works like this ... there are enough different agents are work here that if anything goes wrong each can blame the other.

CAFCASS can basically say it was the courts fault or the parents fault for things going astray, there role is to recommend but it's for the court to actually make the decisitions.

The Court can basically say it's not our fault it was either CAFCASS not giving enough guidance or it's the fault of the parents, and their legal council not doing their job correctly.

Basically everyone can blame everyone else for the children loosing out because of poor decisions. And hell everyone keeps there job and goes home with a days pay.

It's my view CAFCASS is a failing organisation without the resources to do it's job properly, hence anyone who works for that organisation will quickly either say "stuff this I can't do my job properly I'm letting these kids and their parents down" and they go, and you left with the "hey it's just a job I don't really care, so long as at the end of the day I protect my own arse and get paid."

I saw it happen with my case ... CAFCASS goes "hell we've got more important cases we're out of here, let the court decide", the court goes, hey wait we need guidance because we really don't know what we're doing here. CAFCASS goes, oh well if you really insist, here is some rubbish report we did without any resources it maybe right maybe wrong ... but your kids arn't in serious danage so we're basically going through the motions and produce any old shit in the hope that the court and parents or anyone else can sort it out.

As to my response to asking about the poor ofstead report, the guy I had said basically "hey there was a time when farthers felt they were being descriminated against because all the officers were female, but we've hired some male officers now so that's OK.

If you look into CAFCASS and what their being asked to do by the govenment and the higher management it's basically "get through more cases faster."

VENT OVER!

STIDW - "Because of privacy the courts and CAFCASS cannot answer accusations made against them."

CAFCASS can however be hauled infront of the court by the judge for making a really poor report .. as in my case. However, seeing as you don't awalys get the same judge .. when CAFCASS to get to court the judge goes ... "erm, why is CAFCASS here? Lets stop waisting there time ... right CAFCASS off you go." ...

Also you can complain to CAFCASS which I strongly recommend you do not do, CAFCASS complaints is basically firefighting and is basically there to help CAFCASS fend off complaints ... rather than to investigate and improve the service.

Finally you can complain to the govenment ombudsman, in cases where you can clearly prove that the outcome of a court case is specifcally down to CAFCASS they will investigate. How the hell you can possible do that I have no idea.

Some very interesting points made. I have a feeling there is a good chance some of you have never experienced being in a family court or having experienced Cafcass.

I have, as have many others and the post above is correct about trying to make a complaint... they read them, as they are an independent organisation, sometimes they will just change the officer but they will come down very hard on you. I have proof of my own dealings with them of lies, fabricating truths and documentation that shows them contradicting their findings on my case. Of course 50% of people are happy because there are only 2 sides in the case. A judge at court will never not follow their recommendations or ask for proof supporting their findings, I dont even know why they bother having Judges in family courts any more. There are thousands of cases that Cafcass have lied to support what they are saying.. one ended up in prison and got sentenced because her lies were found out. Some of you may have been lucky but for some, innocent children are being placed into the hands of the other parent with drug,mental issues as in my case. They are even considering giving residency, and no I am not a drug user or drinker. The people that are blind to Cafcass are the ones who will fall the hardest. I understand people may want to protect their great paid jobs, but at what cost??
At the cost of our children.
why are cafcass inspected by ofsted?
Why when I want to make a complaint ofsted doesn't want to know? and infact wont even reply to my complaints?
Why cant you have someone to witness what is being said at interviews?

Why is there a report online from someone that works in a very high position at Cafcass, stating that they do not agree with content that is put into reports and feels uncomfortable with what he is witnessing being done to innocent families?

I agree there is room for improvement and on the whole there is no point complaining about CAFCASS. They do make errors of fact and law and that is best challenged in court.

The point I was making is that the truth cannot be verified when the only source of stories is a group of people who are very naturally going to feel deeply wronged regardless of the reality. There will of course be some cases where there is a miscarriage of justice but sadly many of them will be in denial, unable to see or to accept the whole picture.

I disagree with you, if CAFCASS is to make a report that is placed before the court as evidence, that evidence should be unbiased correct and analysied correctly. For example if a CAFCASS report says "I believe it is in the best interests for this to happen" you would expect a report to break down how and why CAFCASS has come to this conclusion so you or your solicitor can go, oh you thought this is happening but we can prove it isn't ... or that the only evidence for this part of the basis of your recomendations comes only from one source say an aggrieved parent. However, CAFCASS doesn't have time to perform this anaylsis it just says "we have heard all the evidence and beleive this to be in the best interest of the child/children."

We all have opinions but seriously,
If anyone needs more information or would like to raise awareness about Cafcass or even just needs support, or help if going through the family courts please find me on facebook
Domino Savethechildren

Thank you