In New Zealand, both the Care of Children Act 2004 and the CYFs Act 1989 legislation require the familycaught to protect children’s access to their own family, unless to do this would endanger the children. Even then, supervised access can be used to sustain relationships, without exposing the children to serious risk.

So, although Parliament require CYFs and the familycaught to behave in these ways, the day to day reality is that a large fraction of social “workers” do not act accordingly and fail to act to sustain relationships. I have seen several applications by social “workers” to familycaught, saying I have run out of time to contact the father and ask for dispensation from this requirement. I haven’t seen a familycaught “judge” ever try to enforce the law, in this situation. I believe that this is a result of unresolved traumas in the childhoods of these social “workers” and “judges”. These old problems prevent them from professionally carrying out their jobs. History

In UK, the same fights are going on too. Different legislation, even more bureaucratic and cumbersome, even less economically efficient than in badly featherbedded NZ!!!!

So – fathers (and their families too) who have been excluded, are left to attempt to fight for their rights of access, through familycaught.

Fighting for rights through the caughts isn’t how most parents want to spend their time. A small group in UK are doing this, to fight against mothers arbitrarily cutting off access between children and their fathers.

In UK, CAFCAS for a short time, were supporting shared parenting. Then two academics protested and CAFCAS moved backwards and removed their official support for shared parenting. In the field though, I am sure that many CAFCAS social workers are still actively supporting shared parenting and many others are still sabotaging it too.

CAFCAS-encourage-shared-parenting

Families Need Fathers have the original superceded document still on their website!

There are good lessons in this for us. We must be fighting lots of small fights, win some, lose some and keep on fighting… When people shy away from fights, the situation slips slowly in the wrong direction.

Successful complaint about Women’s Refuge’s Dishonest Advertising

Congratulations Ken Maclaren!

One father recently successfully defended a crown application for screens, in a prosecution for assaulting his daughter. So, it isn’t all negative.

Best regards, MurrayBacon axe-murderer.