Child maintenance and financial responsibility

Publication today of a DWP study of child maintenance arrangements raises some interesting and rarely discussed questions about the financial responsibility of parents towards their children after separation.

Findings from a study of child maintenance arrangements, a survey of 926 families with a child maintenance interest was undertaken by the National Centre for Social Research in 2008, prior to the formation of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission. Findings from the study show that, in the cases where there was no child maintenance arrangement, ‘the most common explanation was that the parent with care did not want any contact with the non-resident parent (33%).’

The Commission has three core functions. The first of these is ‘to promote the financial responsibility that parents have for their children’. Its website states ‘the new system of child maintenance is all about ensuring that parents who live apart understand their responsibilities and take appropriate action to provide financially for their children.’ But, does the Commission or, indeed, anyone else consider the responsibility to receive to be as great as the responsibility to pay?

The Chair of the Commission, Janet Paraskeva, was reported in The Times as wanting the organisation ‘to help to transform attitudes towards parental responsibility, and intends to start with the next generation of fathers. Under her plans, teenage boys will be taught there is no escape from maintenance payments if they father a child.’

The Times goes on to say that the Commission is working with the (then) Department of Children Schools and Families to ensure that this is included in the PSHE curriculum. Ms Paraskeva is quoted as saying ‘When mums and dads are together they look after children together. If something happens, the non-resident parent still bears that responsibility and that includes financial responsibility, even in cases where there is no contact.’

A quick look through the newspapers or online will also quickly demonstrate that the whole debate around child maintenance is framed in the same way. ‘Non resident parents’ (always fathers) are avoiding their responsibilities to provide financially for their children and ‘parents with care’ (always mums) are going without in order to keep the wolf from the door.

And it is absolutely true that some fathers don’t provide financially for their children and some mothers are going without to keep the wolf from the door. But, if both parents are responsible for providing financially for their children, then the question has to be asked whether one parent has the right to deny their children financial support simply because they choose not to have anything to do with their child’s other parent?

It seems to me that the debate around child maintenance needs to be far more grown up and far less spiteful. The ending of a relationship is almost always painful and difficult. Both mums and dads need to be helped through the transitions that accompany separation in ways that reduce anxiety and anger. And the artificial division of parents into PWC and NRP with only one being assessed for their ability to contribute to a child’s financial wellbeing needs to be ended.

Coalition government’s plans for families and children

Earlier today, the Government issued its programme for partnership government over the next five years. Amongst other policy aspirations, The Coalition: our programme for government, outlines plans for families and children.

There an encouragement of shared parenting, flexible parental leave, funding for relationship support and a ‘review of family law in order to increase the use of mediation when couples do break up, and to look at how best to provide greater access rights to non-resident parents and grandparents.’

It feels like a step in the right direction, but an emphasis on mediation (which sounds great but has a poor track record) and the use of the word ‘access’ (which is both offensive to may parents and legally incorrect) suggests that the work of educating ministers and civil servants is far from complete.

But, as I said, it does feel like there is a difference in the wind and we can, perhaps, look forward to a policy environment that don’t see fathers as optional extras who can be tolerated so long as they pay child maintenance and do as they’re told.

Well, here are four policy initiatives that I would like the Government to consider over the next five years:

Support and information should be available to both parents in ways that promote cooperation:

The ‘lone parent’ model that underpins the support to separated and separating parents in the United Kingdom means that support and information services are delivered to one parent but exclude the other.

All support and information services should recognise and value the ongoing input of both parents, acknowledge and respond to the different needs and different experiences of mothers and fathers and be available to both parents in order to support them in building new post separation relationships that are based on the changing needs of their children.

The parenting responsibilities of both parents should be reflected in the tax and benefits system:

Currently, a recognition of parenthood through the tax and benefits system is only available in one household after family separation. This fails to recognise the parenting patterns that a family has agreed and sends a powerful message that the input of one parent is valued more highly than that of the other.

Financial support, through things such as Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit should be available to both parents to reflect their ongoing parenting responsibilities.

The income of both parents should be taken into account in the statutory maintenance scheme:

Parents who are unable or who do not wish to make a private child maintenance arrangement may use the statutory scheme. However, the current and proposed future scheme divides parents into the Parent With Care (PWC) who receives payment from the Non Resident Parent (NRP). No account of the PWC’s income is taken into account when a calculation is being made and only a limited account is taken of the amount of parenting that the NRP is responsible for.

The income of both parents should be taken into account when statutory maintenance calculations are being made and the parenting time that each parent provides should be properly reflected in the distribution of maintenance.

The concepts of care and contact should be removed from family law:

Parents who divorce or separate are usually able to agree how each will offer parenting input without recourse to the courts. However, those who require the assistance of the legal system to make arrangements encounter a process that offers one parent ‘residence’ of their children and the other ‘contact’ with their children. This division is divisive, generally artificial and makes cooperative parenting arrangements less achievable.

The input of both parents should be equally recognised and, irrespective of the parenting time arrangements that are established, both parents should be supported to have meaningful parenting relationships with their children.

Well done FSA!

I recently contacted the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to congratulate them on the Separation and Divorce section of their MoneyMadeClear website.

I came across the site via a link from Child Maintenance Options and was keen to find out whether the impartial, non judgemental language of Options was reflected in the FSA’s information. I couldn’t have been more delighted! The information is well structured, easy to read, accessible and, very importantly, respectful of both parents, whatever their situation.

There is no mention of ‘lone parents’ and ‘non resident parents’, no separate advice for dads on making child support payments and keeping the peace with mum (as you’ll find on BBC Parenting – a truly awful site), just good, clear advice and a recognition that ‘separating from your partner can be a stressful and emotional time’.

I’m told by the FSA that the divorce and separation content of the website is an interim solution whilst they build a website dedicated to helping people going through divorce and separation to deal with their money matters.

All I can say is ‘well done FSA’. There are a few organisations that would do well to follow your excellent example!

Sugar and Spice, Slugs and Snails

‘He also made, I think, a very valid point about people moving off the system altogether and whether or not the Options service will be an approach were people do, in fact, get everything to which they are entitled. And I know that, for example, Gingerbread are particularly concerned that we might just see a re-establishment of what I will call traditional gender relations, and women, for the sake of peace not pushing as hard as they ought.’

Work and Pensions Minister Helen Goodman in response to a question by Steve Webb MP (LD): Debate on the Child Support Agency, Westminster Hall 16 December 2009

That single parent pressure groups like Gingerbread paint the world in simple pictures is understandable. Their mission is to lobby on behalf of one particular, but limited, experience of family separation. Generally speaking, the bigger the caricature, the more effective the campaign. Their job is to convince policy makers that the world consists of ‘single parents’ (good) and ‘non resident parents’ (bad) and, to be fair to them, they do it very effectively.

What is more concerning is that the Minister in charge of the child maintenance system should have such an unsophisticated view of family separation and the relationships between mothers and fathers. Her attitude may be just more of the same ‘sugar and spice’ versus ‘slugs and snails’ silliness that we’ve been hearing for years, but it is upon such attitudes that laws are built and policies enacted.

What evidence does she have for her assertion that women are more likely to want peace than men or, come to that, that these behaviours are traditional? She would do well to talk to some of the Child Support Agency workers that I have worked with who will tell her that women are just as capable of using child maintenance as a stick with which to beat the other parent. Perhaps she might also spend a little time talking to fathers whose relationships with their children are at the mercy of mothers and whose lives are controlled by the power to gate-keep those relationships.

Relationships between men and women, mothers and fathers are complex. When separation happens, they also become raw and painful. Anyone who argues that all men are loving, responsible and decent would be a fool. But anyone who portrays all men as scheming, irresponsible and unpleasant is equally silly.

Personally, I don’t want to live in a world of caricatures. I see, on a daily basis, how laws, policies and attitudes that are based on caricatures bring heartache and sadness into the lives of so many people. Isn’t it time we had a more mature debate around family separation?

Death of Robert Enke highlights need for new attitudes

The apparent suicide of Robert Enke, the Hannover 96 and German international goalkeeper has come as a shock to the world of football and is a tragedy for his wife and family.

Reports suggest that he had suffered from depressive illness for many years and that this was exacerbated by the death of his daughter Lara in 2006 when she died of a rare heart condition at the age of two. His wife Teresa said in a press conference, following his death, that he feared that their adopted baby daughter Leila would be taken away if his illness became public knowledge. She said, “It was the fear about what people would say about a child with a depressive father.’

This raises some serious concerns about the way men deal with their own experiences of depression. According to The Royal College of Psychiatrists, men suffer from depression just as often as women, but they are less likely to ask for help. It reports that men are around 3 times more likely to kill themselves than women, with suicide being most common among men who are separated, widowed or divorced.

The Australian men’s health organisation, Foundation 49, also says that men tend to resort to destructive behaviours when depressed. It claims that men are twice as likely as women to abuse drugs and alcohol.

It is clear that many men find it difficult to ask for help when they are depressed. Notions that men must be emotionally and physically strong run very deep in our society. Many men don’t feel comfortable discussing their health – physical or mental – and are reluctant to seek help. The Royal College also suggests that service providers don’t diagnose the condition as readily in men as they do in women. It says:

‘Men who are depressed are more likely to talk about the physical symptoms of their depression than the emotional and psychological ones. This may be one reason why doctors sometimes don’t diagnose it.’

Fathers who are experiencing divorce or separation very often approach support services – if they approach them at all – with caution. Wary of the responses they might receive, they present with a coping, resilient face that masks their true emotional state. Services that don’t understand this and don’t respond accordingly fail to help men deal with their grief and loss.

It needs to be okay for men to express their feelings. Depression should not be viewed as weakness or failure. Our support services need to respond effectively and smartly to the hidden experiences of many, many men.

For help with depression:

CALM Campaign against Living Miserably
Helpline: 0800 58 58 58 Lines open 5pm – 3am.
The campaign against living miserably is about fighting depression amongst young men.

Depression Alliance
Tel: 0845 123 23 20
Information, support and understanding for people who suffer with depression and for relatives who want to help.

Samaritans
Helpline: 08457 909090 (UK) or 1850 609090 (Eire); email: jo@samaritans.org
Samaritans is a registered charity based in the UK and Republic of Ireland that provides confidential emotional support to any person who is suicidal or despairing.

Clear English and respectful language

I was delighted to learn, recently, that a leaflet I produced for the Child Maintenance Options service has received a Clear English award from the Plain Language Commission. There is no doubt that parents who are going through divorce or separation need information that is easy to read and easy to act on. However, what delights me more is that the Options service is producing information that is respectful to parents, irrespective of their circumstances or status.

The original Child Support Act used the appalling label ‘absent parent’. This was changed in 1993 to ‘non resident parent’. Not quite so awful, but not particularly helpful, either. Unfortunately, the language of the Child Support Agency matched the draconian intents of the legislation that brought it into being. The state was no longer going to pay the cost of family separation and it was going to crack down on ‘feckless fathers’ and ‘single mothers’.

In particular, all fathers whose marriages or relationships failed were tarred with the same brush. They, so the myth had it, not only caused family breakdown but failed to meet their financial responsibilities. And you need only pick up a newspaper to see that the language has changed very little since 1991.

The language of the Agency is still fairly brutal. It talks in numbers and targets rather than circumstances. It thinks in labels and stereotypes rather than people. But maybe that isn’t so surprising given the task it has been set and the attacks it has had to withstand.

It is my fervent hope that, as the Child Support Agency is replaced, its language will die with it. Because changes in language are not about being politically correct; they can indicate and set in motion very real changes in culture.

Using language that is respectful of parents does one other significant thing, and that is that it engages people rather than distances them. A parent who is providing hands on day-to-day care for their children does not want to be described as ‘absent’ or ‘non resident’. They want their parenting contribution to be recognised. And, by recognising that contribution, an expectation that both parents will work constructively for the wellbeing of their children is set.

Giving parents labels like ‘resident’ and ‘non resident’ creates division and builds barriers to ongoing parenting. It suggests that one parent is more important to a child than the other. It creates an imbalance in power that becomes reflected in services delivery and in the actions of parents themselves.

Those who brought into being the Child Maintenance Options service should be proud that they have set in motion a new way of working with family separation, one that should be nurtured and developed.

[The Child Maintenance Options leaflet Emotional Wellbeing can be found here]

Families need support in tough times

Last month, I came across an article in the Telegraph finance section headed Divorce: how to minimise costs in a recession. The piece focussed on how an economic recession can make an already bad situation worse and offered ten tips from Marilyn Stowe, one of Britain’s best known divorce lawyers, to help reduce the financial impact that divorce invariably brings. From making interim arrangements for paying bills to thinking about using a collaborative lawyer, all of the advice looked sound and sensible.

The recession, anecdotally at least, is heaping huge amounts of pressure on marriages and relationships. The Centre for Separated Families‘ helpline has seen a large increase in calls from parents whose relationships are in crisis because of financial circumstances.

But then we probably shouldn’t be surprised that house repossessions, redundancies, failing businesses and the many other effects of the economic downturn are going to cause havoc in people’s private lives. Solid marriages and relationships can suddenly be shaken to the very foundations as families try to negotiate the impact of a financial crisis at home.

Very often, parents turn on each other as fear and uncertainty sets in. It’s invariably those that we are closest to who we lash out at and seek to blame. Divorce or separation can be just around the corner and an article offering ten tips on how to survive it may actually seem like a small glimmer of hope in a maelstrom of acrimony, recrimination and worry.

The sad thing is that many of the parenting relationships that are falling apart may well, all things being equal, be perfectly sustaining and solid for both parents and children alike. Were it not for the pressure of outside events, many would remain so. In other words, it is the circumstances that families find themselves in rather than anything intrinsic in the relationships that are the problem.

It seems to me that waiting for a relationship to fall apart and only then stepping in to offer help is an odd way of responding. Wouldn’t it be better to make support available before a relationship ends? Working in this field shows me, time and again though, that this is a view that is not universally accepted. Indeed, many organisations, academics and others believe that supporting families to work through difficult times is, somehow, a blow to personal freedom and a threat to an individuals right to leave a relationship.

I would argue that, ultimately, whether parents choose to stay together is a matter for them. Although I would also argue that bringing children into the world brings with it some responsibilities. But it seems crazy that we can’t talk about supporting families who are in crisis. Family separation lasts a lifetime. It’s painful for children and usually painful for parents, too.

I believe that, as a society, we need to move beyond viewing everything in terms of individual rights and start thinking about our interdependency. Parents whose relationships have really come to an end need to be supported to build new cooperative post separation relationships that put the needs of their children first. Parents who find their relationships in crisis need to be supported to examine and deal with the causes.

Family separation has profound consequences for children. It seems to me that talking about how to support families to stay together should not be off limits.

When is a parent not a parent?

I recently worked with a parent who was, in equal parts, angry and upset. Classed by the Child Support Agency as a ‘non resident parent’, they had received a letter that contained the following:

We worked out your child maintenance assessment using the information you and the parent of the child(ren) gave us. Although you provide day-to-day care for the child(ren), we did not take account of your income in your child maintenance assessment because you are not a parent under child support law.

Perhaps to law makers, bureaucrats and single parent lobby groups, statements like this are considered acceptable. But ask yourself what that must have felt like for this particular parent. A parent who is trying to do their best by providing care for their child three days a week. A parent who receives no financial support to do that AND is paying child maintenance to the child’s other parent.

In the United Kingdom, we have a system that recognises one parent and one… well what? Not a parent, clearly.

With law and policy like this, is it any wonder parents find themselves unable to negotiate the ending of a relationship without bitterness and acrimony? What kind of messages does it send to our boys and our girls?

Isn’t it about time that we began treating both parents with just a little bit of respect?

Scandinavian countries show the way ahead

I was fortunate enough to be working in the Czech capital, Prague, last week. I say ‘fortunate’ not just because Prague is one of the most beautiful and peaceful cities I’ve visited, but because of the people I was working with.

Following the highly successful Putting Children First: best practice in support to separated families conference, held in London last October, the Centre for Separated Families felt it was important to look at best practice across Europe. To that end, we have spent the last few months making contact with organisations, projects and individuals from across the continent. And last week brought us together to share understanding and practice and to find ways to strengthen links for the future.

As a result of the meeting a new organisation, the European Network on Shared Parenthood, has come into being. The network, which currently has representatives from eight countries, aims to provide a forum in which ideas around shared parenthood can be examined, discussed and developed.

I think that what struck me most about the meeting was its positive tone. I have become used to the cynical and often hostile environment in which family separation is debated in the United Kingdom and the open and friendly atmosphere in which discussions were held last week was a real breath of fresh air.

Here were practitioners who had no agenda other than that of producing better outcomes for parents and children. There were no axes to grind, no points to be scored, no battles to be won, just a genuine and honest belief that, with the right kind of support and information, most families can make decisions that put the needs of their children first.

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a meeting of European Utopians! No one present was anything other than rooted in the real and messy world of family separation. But the starting point for discussions was not what must not be allowed, nor which parents rights should take precedence, but what could and is achieved by many, many parents. Yes, many people need help, but the focus was on what is possible rather than what is not.

The problem in the UK, it seems to me, is that the organisations that exist to work around divorce and separation are locked into arguments about power and parental rights. There are organisations who support mothers that argue that men should only be fathers to the extent that mothers allow them to be. And there are father’s groups who seem so focussed on abstract ideas such as justice and rights that they lose sight of the fact that we live in an inter-relational world.

What is even more saddening is that these organisations have so much lobbying power that any other voices are invariably drowned out.

Our colleagues from Norway, Sweden and other more enlightened countries are shocked at the situation we describe. For them, the idea that both mothers and fathers have an ongoing role in the children’s lives after separation is simply taken for granted. In urban areas of Sweden, for example, most children living in separated families spend half the time with mum and half the time with dad. They just don’t appear to have the same poisonous debates around parenting and gender.

And the governments in those countries actually support family relationships and invest in making them work – when children are born, when families are in crisis and when families separate and reform. In the UK, supporting relationships is often seen as being wrong. It is only a few months ago that a senior and powerful academic told me that we should not be looking at how we might support intact families who are experiencing difficulties because that would appear to be pro-marriage. What kind of crazy thinking is that?

There are things that we do well in the UK, but we have so much to learn. The European network offers a real opportunity to share understanding and best practice across the continent. I’m really looking forward to building links and bringing the best of the European experience to my work back home.

Keeping prisoners and children connected

When a parent is sent to prison, it is not only they who have their lives turned upside down. Whole families need to adjust to the circumstances and children very often lose an important influence in their lives.

If the bond between an imprisoned parent and a child is not to be completely broken, it is vital that some sort of contact is maintained. For young children, especially, the understanding that a parent who is not present is still part of their lives can be a huge factor in helping them to come to terms with the new situation.

This is where the charity Storybook Dads comes in.

Storybook Dads is a charity based in Dartmoor prison. Its aim is to maintain family ties by allowing prisoners to record stories for their children. Prisoners are recorded telling a story with the use of a microphone and a minidisk recorder.

The story is downloaded onto a computer and any mistakes are edited out using digital audio software. Music and sound effects are added and the final story is put onto a CD.

Although the charity title suggests that the project is only for male prisoners, the scheme now also includes women’s prisons.

Because of the editing process, it is possible for less able and, even, non readers to record a story. And now, the charity is working with DVD so that children can see their parent as well as hear them. As one child put it “I worried about dad in prison, but he looks happy on the DVD and that makes me happy too”.

This ability to reassure children is one of the most important aspects of the charity’s work. A child who is able to see or hear a parent is less likely to be traumatised by their imprisonment.

The idea is very simple but the benefits are huge. This is a charity that is doing fantastic work for children.