Expert Domestic Abuse Risk Assessor Explains Why UK's Secretive Family Court System Is Broken скачать в хорошем качестве

Expert Domestic Abuse Risk Assessor Explains Why UK's Secretive Family Court System Is Broken

Why is getting a fair deal on child access almost impossible for dads? Calvin Bell, the UK's foremost expert risk assessor of parents where violence or abuse within the family is a concern, explains. As a psychotherapist in Plymouth he created a groundbreaking service for men in the early 1990s which won a contract with the Home Office Probation Service. His agency Ahimsa (Safer Families) became the only one to be funded by the Department of Health. When he began receiving requests for risk assessments in court there was no precedent and so he established his own methodology and has been fully booked ever since because judges, barristers and local authorities value his ability to bring rigour to a field plagued by confusion, politics and bad practice. I asked him why entering family court is such a minefield for separated dads. (Notes are my words and interpretations - see video for Calvin's exact views). 1. Family law operates in the dark. Family court proceedings are not open to public scrutiny. In this secretive industry standards are impossible to enforce and no analysis can happen. There is no overarching professional narrative about the state of play. 2. There is no accountability or overview of how risk assessment is performed, and standards are still appalling - in nearly 30 years Calvin has yet to see a risk assessment report that states its methodology, despite this being a stated requirement by the Home Office. Two thirds of risk assessment reports were scored "poor" or very poor" in a 2012 review for the Government by Jane Ireland. 3. Funding has been cut over the past 15 years so that social workers and Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) case workers have unmanageable caseloads. Cafcass case workers often do not have time to interview parents and children and can only offer telephone calls. Sometimes they cannot even attend court. In London 50% of social workers are part time and can't see individual cases through. Those dealing with child protection cases may typically have 75 or more cases at a time to manage. Their training on domestic abuse and risk assessment is close to zero. 4. Judges think they can tell the difference between truth and lies - they can't. 5. The very low base rate of violence and murder of women (2 women a week killed by partners or former partners in the UK) in no way reflects typical male behaviour yet it is often cited by the mainstream media as a problem that is out of control. Our culture views things in a binary way, eg men are either abusive or they are not. But there is far more complexity - relationships often have elements of bidirectional abuse and violence. 6. Rates of violence and domestic abuse between men and women are hotly disputed. There are 200 studies that demonstrate parity in the West, but Calvin cautions that it is impossible to measure this with reliability because it is so changeable depending on context and therefore almost impossible to measure with accuracy. 7. In the mental health field, domestic violence is invisible. During seven years of training, for example, psychologists receive just one hour of training on domestic abuse. 8. However, family courts look to mental health practitioners to provide guidance on this area and provide expert risk assessment. So the blind are being led by the blind. 9. The welfare of the child is often subsumed under that of the mother and there is no mention of the child in risk assessment literature. 10. Tools for risk assessment used by the police, social workers and family lawyers are not good enough. They do not acknowledge the need for appreciating typologies and instead use one size fits all templates such as the DASH checklist. This asks questions such as "are you very frightened?" and "do you think he might kill you?" - this constitutes a back of a fag packet checklist for professionals who have no time or training in domestic violence or risk assessment and may provide a good measure of immediate danger but cannot provide value in contested legal proceedings after the couple have separated. Therefore it's completely untenable, because women are capable of lying and obstructing child contact for reasons that have nothing to do with domestic abuse. There are a whole host of reasons why women obstruct contact for less than genuine reasons, and the DASH at that point becomes a convenient tool for the mother and her legal team and the mother can use it to pretend to be a highly vulnerable victim. Separated fathers are therefore caught in "a trawler of false positives". I am a UK-registered psychotherapist specialising in supporting separated fathers. To see video testimonials of my 3-month online course for alienated fathers visit https://zacfine.co.uk/ceasefire-method *Next course starts November 16 2021. Email zac@zacfine.co.uk to request a no cost phone call to confirm you are suitable and book a place. Spaces are limited.