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CAFCASS Experiences

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Cheese_Head_1986

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Hi all!

I'm sure we've all had dealings with CAFCASS, whether initially with the court application or even more if a section 7 is required.

These interviews undoubtedly cause stress, nobody likes being interviewed and it can feel like an interrogation sometimes and the worry of not knowing what they may ask or what to expect is very stressful.

I think we collectively have a lot of experience, knowledge and understanding of what to expect from such interviews because of our own personal experiences.

Granted no one case is the same but perhaps we could pool our collective knowledge from our cases/experiences and compile a list of all the questions that CAFCASS asked during our meetings/S7 so that there's a repository of questions and how to best answer them available for dad's who are dealing with CAFCASS for the first time or a S7

What do you all think?
 
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That is a great idea Cheese. Do you mind if I change the thread title to Cafcass Experiences? Then this thread can be the place for people to share theirs (and I’ll sticky it).

Hope there are some good ones! Because mine weren’t due to one particular nasty woman I had twice!

At my first ever court application the Cafcass Officer was ok - quite quiet. A bit useless. The Judge overrode her about phone calls. She wasn’t too bad and gave me some good advice as she had the measure of my ex. She said - always show you are the reasonable one and whiter than white. She clearly expected it to end up back in court again.

Then I was back in court for a defined order (first one wasn’t worth the paper it was written on and not enforceable).

Cafcass officer on the phone was good - pleasant, got the measure of my ex and wrote a report positive to me and critical of ex.

I then found that the officer you get in court is not the one who wrote the report.

I had a Cafcass Officer from hell at that first hearing. Maybe because I had submitted a C1A as ex was alienating son. I put psychological and emotional abuse of child (and had some evidence attached but not much).

I was literally bullied and shouted at for over 4 hours by this Cafcass Officer. Why? I have no idea. Even my useless solicitor was shocked. Both my partner and I ended up crying (embarrassed to say that but it was bad). I understand this is called dispute resolution! She wanted us to agree. Neither ex nor I would budge but she very much sided with ex. She also threatened me and said ominously “The Judge will do whatever I say”. As a result I gave way (blackmailed) into ex having unlimited phone contact in interim order (which had been causing real issues and I had asked for it to be stopped).

At least then Cafcass weren’t involved any more and it went to final hearing.

Next - an enforcement application. I cited concerns about child emotional harm. Cafcass Officer on the phone was rude, abrupt and nasty- wouldn’t let me speak. Bad Cafcass letter blaming both parents.

At court - the same bullying Rottweiler I’d had previous time. Wouldn’t let me speak - believed everything ex said (ex made up allegations after I applied to enforce but again vague minor ones with no substance).

Anyway as this is about Cafcass officers I’ll just say my experiences have been mixed but one horrific one! Who was extremely biased and insulting.

Although both times I had her were when I highlighted serious concerns over son. So maybe she is the one who gets wheeled out when a Mother faces losing residency.

Had mixed experiences with Judges too. Mostly very good but one a waste of space.
 
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My experience wasn't too bad for first application. I'd had about 3 nights a week since separation, then ex stopped it and I'd only see the kids occasionally and never knew when.

I talked about my kids a lot in the Cafcass phone call. My ex accused me of being "controlling and argumentative". The Cafcass letter was bad - nothing like what I'd said and interpreted wrongly. But basically said no welfare issues and recommended that mediation be ordered at first hearing.

Not much happened at first hearing. Cafcass tried to get us to agree to a schedule. I stuck to my guns and wouldn't agree to less than I'd applied for and said it was in childrens best interests. They dismissed ex's arguments as being about nothing and an interim order was made that reinstated the 3 nights a week. Mediation and SPIP courses ordered.

Ex breached the interim order a few times but that just gave me more evidence for final hearing :)

Had to enforce recently and Cafcass experience not so good. They seemed to side with the Mother but the outcome was ok in the end.
 
I had one very good and one very bad Cafcass officer. My Cafcass phone calls were ok but the report didn't arrive until the day before FHDRA and was full of mistakes. At FHDRA Cafcass officer just believed everything the Mother said and ignored everything I said. Just ordered a section report (my ex had made allegations). Cafcass officer doing Section 7 report was good and wrote a fair report recommending what I'd applied for. My ex complained about it and said it was biased. But the Judge took the Cafcass recommendations on board.
 
Hi chaps. The experience was pretty good for me. After an initial phone interview which was basically a list of allegations from the ex a s7 was ordered.

The report and process involved ex, kids and I. Basically the cafcass officer saw through the ex and all the nonsense allegations. The report itself also suggesting the ex had been coercing the kids in the interview the kids did with the cafcass officer.

I now have contact 3/4 weekends. Being pragmatic it worked out well.
 
I thought the first CAFCASS meeting went well, until I got sandbagged and ignored. CAFCASS said their report would be sent to me 2 weeks before the court date. My ex got the report. I got a copy 5min before the court hearing. There were numerous errors, omissions and down right falsehoods in the report (they didn't even get my name or dob right)

There was a S7 ordered and this new CAFCASS officer was a bit better.

I definitely remember her asking me if my daughter didn't want to see me (as my ex kept saying) is it in her best interest. I maintained that it's best for her to know both parents. But she kept asking if I thought it was in my daughters best interest or not.

I informed her that I attended the separated parents information program on my own and paid for it, she still recommended I attended it again though.

Overall, I felt like I was always having to justify why I should be allowed to see my daughter and all my concerns about my ex were being ignored.
 
That sounds like a complete failure of Cafcass to understand parental manipulation and coaching. Some of them pick that up - some of them just don't. Hindsight helps to think of things to say! But at the time it's difficult. Like - why would she not want to see me - she is x years old and in my view has been influenced to say this. But then of course you're accusing the Mother.

I did have something similar with a social worker who saw my son at school without me knowing (after ex made some silly allegations and reported me - saying I wasn't feeding son). All because I had moved to a better house with a partner. The social worker had him fill out some sheets of paper and told me - I believe these are his real feelings - he doesn't love you. He doesn't like xyz. I disagreed with her and said - I know my son - we know he is very happy here. This is because ex doesn't want to follow a court order. She then went onto the bit about food (can't give too many details) and said in that instance she didn't think those were his words - they were adult words. A child wouldn't say that.

I also questioned her and said - his Mother will have told him to say that. She said - she didn't know when I was going to see son in school. I said yes but she knew were going at some point? She said yes. Point made. Ex knew - I didn't. Son had been prepared. I think that may have got through and I told her a few other historical things. What helped was it was a social worker and she didn't know there was a court order. Once she knew she said - I will tell her this is for the court to decide. I kept talking and my partner and I told her lots of positive things and that this was about ex not liking the court order. I did seem to change her stance somewhat. She seemed to like our tone and attitude and said she had no issues with us and would go and talk to the Mother again.

In that instance my ex did me a big favour reporting me to social services as I had a closure report to use as evidence at court that was positive about me and negative about the ex. The scary bit was she really believed all the other stuff son had been coached into.

The advantage I had in that situation was quite a few years of co parenting with no issues previously. Not that that seemed to count to the social worker. But did to the court.

Really sorry you had that experience Cheese. What did they recommend on the section 7 in the end? Because they did make an order didn't they? There are too many cases of Cafcass enabling parental manipulation (when not understanding it). According to Karen Woodall, they are not trained in spotting parental alienation.

Sounds like Roblox Cafcass officer was good at spotting coaching though.
 
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Yes that is a big issue. And a shock to many. There is a case where a Mother was prosecuted for perjury but it seems very very rare (and it was a case with very serious false allegations of child abuse). Because it is a family court, not a criminal court, they don't deal in criminal offences! They see it as parental disagreement and people lying. But honestly. If a man was proven to have made false allegations ..... Probably still no prosecution but they'd take his PR away or something.

This brings up a big bugbear of mine that is going on a lot in the media at the moment by extreme feminists and some womens groups. Denying false allegations are false. And claiming the vast majority are "real" and the family courts are failing Mothers. It's all to do with the Domestic Abuse act - which has included Parental Alienation as abuse. These extreme feminists want that taking out and say PA is a "myth" and used by controlling Fathers to continue to abuse victim Mothers (complete tosh). It undermines anyone claiming PA. Which then doesn't protect children from it.

Anyway the bugbear is the statistics they publish. So after 2012 when legal aid for family cases was scrapped - legal aid was only available where there was domestic abuse. As a result the numbers of allegations against Fathers increased dramatically (plenty of info online around that time - 3 times as much I think). A lot in the media about the increase in false allegations.

So the womens groups have been fighting back and claimed they are real allegations and its just that Mothers are not believed. They published some statistics stating x thousand of prosecutions by the CPS for domestic abuse but very few prosecutions by the CPS for false allegations.

Funny that! Because of course there are very few prosecutions by the CPS for false allegations because those are CRIMINAL prosecutions, not false allegations from family court.

It's a mess. But scarily these extreme feminist groups are getting a lot of publicity at the moment - the Channel 4 programme, articles in mainstream newspapers citing genuine victims of abuse who were not believed by the family courts. Basically suggesting that most Dads are abusers! And in particular if a Father claims PA that they are an abuser. But for some time most Dads are aware not to use the term "parental alienation" in court applications, even if that is what it is - and just describe the behaviours. Because even before this recent gender war stuff in the media, Cafcass used to suspect anyone of claiming PA as being an alienator themselves (because that is what alienators do! Accuse others).

Anyway - I hope they don't take PA out of the domestic abuse act. But some of these extreme feminist groups are unbelievably biased and anti men.

Even more unbelievable is they are so biased they are doing a spectactular own goal. Because PA isn't gendered. Although the majority of people who try to severely alienate children are female, there are some men who do it as well (a case linked on here). But these are exceptional cases. Most cases don't involve serious PA (there are quite a lot of cases of mild PA and obstruction though). PA is basically brainwashing a child to reject the other parent.

Ok rant over. However Cafcass are the good guys in this area at the moment and still publish their definition of PA as a valid thing.

"While there is no single definition, we recognise parental alienation as when a child’s resistance or hostility towards one parent is not justified and is the result of psychological manipulation by the other parent. It is one of a number of reasons why a child may reject or resist spending time with one parent post-separation. All potential risk factors, such as domestic abuse, must be adequately and safely considered, reduced or resolved before assessing the other case factors or reasons."

PA Cafcass

Having said that - not all Cafcass officers know what it is.

It's one thing to coach a child to say they want to spend more time with the Mother and less with the Father - and another thing to pressurise them into refusing to see the other parent.

The way things are at the moment - it deters any Dad from trying to highlight that the Mother is alienating the child. The way to do it is hint at it and use different language. And let them pick up what's going on (as it seems you did Roblox).

Most of the negative - anti Dad online media is from two particular female "professionals" - a barrister and an academic. Both of whom were in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme which gave a very skewed and biased look at the family court system.

They are just fuelling a battle of the sexes and ignoring child welfare! I find it confusing too - I thought feminists were supposed to want equality!

So you can see why Mothers don't get prosecuted for making false allegations - 1) not in the remit of the family court 2) it wouldn't be in the interests of the child if one parent was prosecuted - so lets just try and hope they get on after a court order's made. 3) It would cause an outcry from womens groups of innocent women being prosecuted.
 
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Cheese Head - you were let down. You're her Dad. So my experiences. Bad but good result in the end. Bad because Cafcass believed everything Mother said and only spoke to the kids when Mother was there. However after Section 7 they found no issues with me. Judge ordered what I asked for.
 
My Partner's experience wasn't too bad. I was there at first hearing. Didn't say anything though. Cafcass officer wanted both parents to sit in the same room together to discuss but his ex refused so the Cafcass officer went backwards and forwards trying to get agreement. No agreement of course! So interim order was made and it went to final hearing.

We're about to go through it again though with enforcement so that might be different!
 
Despite all the CAFCASS blunderings initially, the new agent who conducted the S7 at least appeared to try being impartial. But they still seemed suspicious of me.

ultimately I got what I asked for in terms of a slow progressive contact order.

But I'm back to less than square 1 now after almost 5 years..

My ex says all the right things they want to hear, but doesn't deliver and that's my fault apparently...
 
Yes some exes are very good at saying all the right things and doing something else. Your ex is failing in her parental responsibility to encourage contact with the other parent. Which is a failure of parenting on her part and failing to acknowledge daugher's rights and needs to have a relationship with both parents. While Cafcass may spot that her "child doesn't want to go" is a failure of parenting, they then think - what can we do to make it happen. In some cases Cafcass are ordered to monitor the order is being followed. But if a young child kicks and screams and refuses to go - Cafcass sometimes don't spot that is parental alienation. The pandemic did no favours either.
 
I feel I've gone off on a bit of a personal rant, which wasn't my intention for this thread, my apologies.

It's been a long time since my first interaction with CAFCASS, but from what I remember they initially wanted to know:

How me & my ex met
How long we'd know eachother
How long we'd been living together
How long were we together before getting married (may not always be relevant)
Did we plan to have a child
Why/how the relationship broke down
Why mediation hasn't/won't work
Are there any ongoing police/social services investigations
How do you see contact working out
(Re last question) Why do you want contact to work like that

That's all I can remember from the initial CAFCASS call/interview.

I'll dig out my S7 documents and notes and hopefully I can add a few more examples of questions I was asked.
 
I think we can all have a personal rant on this topic! Cheese that is really interesting - the questions they asked. And in fact reading the list of questions it's almost like they are seeking to be judgemental. Ok so they want to build a picture of any history/stability of relationship/intentions etc - but does that really have any bearing whatsoever on being a Father?! I don't think so. I had no relationship with the Mother of my child (other than the obvious one for a few weeks) - it was a brief dating period of a matter of weeks, which she ended.

Having said that, that is probably some of the things Cafcass are trying to assess - what kind of relationship was it - was it bad from the start, how did the parties behave etc. (Well in my case it started with manipulation and threats and it continues!).

I wonder if they asked your ex the same questions (maybe to compare what you both felt/said about the situation). Reason for relationship ending isn't supposed to be relevant. Relationships end and it isn't usually a happy state of affairs.

But it's really helpful and useful to know what to expect from a Section 7 report. Anything else you can find would be great.
 
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My CAFCASS experiences related to a specific issues application I submitted last year.

CAFCASS safeguarding call with officer: I remained polite, factual and honest. Ex threw allegations at me which CAFCASS officer spoke of. I refuted all allegations as they were untrue. I received the CAFCASS letter which was worded appallingly, in many instances not even using the word "alleged" or "allegation", just repeating the ex's statements. Her recommendations were so off-base that the judge at the first hearing ignored them and re-focused the next steps on the specific issues application. One of the recommendations was for a S7 report to focus on the specific issues.

I had S7 call. The officer was polite. I was polite, factual and honest, not saying anything bad about ex and most importantly remained child focussed. During the call, I felt something was wrong, as the officer didn't want to speak about the specific issues at all, instead saying she had read my witness statement which was sufficient for her. The 30 minutes was spent quizzing me about my relationship with ex and eldest child, which I found odd.

i received the S7 report, and it was basically 80% her view of my relationship with my child and ex, 20% related to the specific issue. I was gutted.

At the final hearing, which she attended, she provided her opinions and views on the specific issue, many of which were factually incorrect. Ultimately, her opinion of the specific issue (which was against what I had requested and evidenced with facts) led the judge to rule against my application.

All-in-all, I found CAFCASS to be unprofessional and felt that they were scared to offer an impartial view. Considering the power they wield in the family court, I believe that the way they operate is destroying families and relationships.
 
CAFCASS wont offer an impartial view in my experience - they just want not even what is best for the child, but what protects them from the most litigation if they make a mistake.
 
InvisibleIntellectual said:
CAFCASS wont offer an impartial view in my experience - they just want not even what is best for the child, but what protects them from the most litigation if they make a mistake.
Click to expand...

I worked that out when the ex's case was so poor in quality and facts. In any normal real-world situation, the ex's stuff would have been laughed at and ignored.

I came away feeling that the non-resident parent (dad) has to have a rolls royce of a case/application to stand a chance to get something just a little bit fair. I do feel for the Judge's who have to rely on such a poor service for guidance.
 
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