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SCOTTISH CHILD CONTACT CENTRES: CHARACTERISTICS OF CENTRE USERS AND CENTRE STAFF
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION
INTRODUCTION
5.1 This chapter discusses some of the implications of the data provided in chapters three and four. It attempts to place the information on general user characteristics and the profile and experiences of contact centre staff within the context of selected, pertinent social issues.
FAMILIES USING CONTACT CENTRES
5.2 No figures exist which identify the total number of children affected each year by their parents' separation. Of the 11,864 divorces in Scotland in 1999, 8% (981) involved children. 18 In the region of 1013 children were the subject of residence orders and 1523 children the subject of contact orders, in Scotland in 1999. 19 It is not possible to make an accurate judgement from this research what proportion of these families use contact centres, although it would appear that this would be rather small.
5.3 The official statistics on divorce and on residence and contact orders are not disaggregated by the ages of children affected. The research showed that the largest group of children using contact centres was aged 0-5 years. Children aged 0-10 accounted for approximately 95% of the children using contact centres. Only 5% were aged 11+. Around half the families using centres had court orders in place and where information was provided, the order was for contact.
5.4 In a study piloting the monitoring of Part 1 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (Hardin et al, 2000), the researchers found that from a sample of 502 court processes, the average age of children involved in family actions was 7 years old and that 31% were aged under 4. A quarter were aged 12 or over. In non-divorce and defended actions the average age was 6 years and in divorce cases the average age was 8 years.
5.5 Under sections 1 and 2 of the 1995 Act it is a parental responsibility and right to:
- Safeguard and promote the child's health, development and welfare
- Provide direction and guidance to the child
- Maintain personal relations and direct contact on a regular basis with a child that is not living with them
- To act as the child's legal representative.
5.6 Section 6 of the 1995 Act requires those with parental responsibilities and rights to have regard to the views of the child concerned (as far as practicable). Section 11 requires the court, when considering whether or not to make an order, to give a child the opportunity to express his or her views, and to have regard to those views.
5.7 Both section 6 and section 11 contain a statutory presumption that a child aged 12 or more is of sufficient age and maturity to a form a view. The correlation across the research concerning the relatively small number of children aged 12+ and the predominance of children aged under 10 has implications for how those involved in family transition inform, obtain and regard the views of children. Parents, too, must be aware of the onus placed upon them by virtue of section 6. Such matters were beyond the scope of the work, but are issues requiring further investigation.
5.8 As Cleaver (2000) observes, case law since the introduction of the 1995 Act has followed the presumption of contact in cases of divorce or parental separation. She states "Contact between a child and non-resident parent is seen as advantageous. Indeed, case law has ruled that it is not necessary to show a positive advantage or benefit for the child from such contact" (Bispham 1999, in Cleaver 2000). This is significant in understanding the context in which contact is granted and in which contact centres may be used.
ALLEGATIONS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE
5.9 Contact centres do not generally seek to elicit information on families' backgrounds, or to exclude families on the basis of this. The implications of this, and issues surrounding appropriate referrals to contact centres will be discussed later. This section looks at some of the issues facing contact centres in working with families with a history of domestic abuse.
5.10 Previous research has illustrated that living with the fear of domestic abuse is detrimental to children, even where that abuse is not directed to them, but is carried out by one parent against the other. Hester and Radford's research on child contact centres in the context of domestic violence found that in the majority of cases where such contact is established, the child or mother is exposed to further abuse or harassment. They argue that in such situations contact should not be presumed to be in the child's best interests. (Hester & Radford 1999, in Cleaver 2000: 5-6)
5.11 It is acknowledged that there are different ways of defining domestic violence and, therefore, of measuring it. In terms of the prevalence of domestic abuse, the Scottish Crime Survey is one source of data. The Scottish Crime Survey (SCS) is conducted approximately every 4 years, with sweeps conducted in 1996 and 2000. It was found that 6% of women and 3% of men reported being the victim of either threats or force from their partner or ex-partner during 1999. Over half (56%) of all victims reported that at the time of the incident(s) the perpetrator was a current partner/husband/wife with a quarter describing the perpetrator as an ex-husband/wife/partner. Over half (54%) the incidents of threats or force involved the perpetrator having been under the influence of alcohol, while in 28% of cases they had taken drugs. In 21% of cases the perpetrator had been under the influence of both alcohol and drugs.
5.12 A new question was added to the 2000 survey that asked whether children had seen or heard any incidents of force. Whilst only 63 respondents answered the question, in households with children, 37 of these (58%) saw or heard at least one incident of force 20.
5.13 Scottish Police figures for April - December 1999 recorded that 26,000 incidents of domestic violence were reported. 21 In 93% of incidents where the sex of the victim was recorded, the victim was female. Where the perpetrator's sex was recorded 93% were male. The majority did not lead to the recording of a crime/offence (57%). Where a crime/offence was recorded this was mostly for petty assault (21%) and breach of the peace (18%). Serious crime accounted for 5% of all incidents.
5.14 Both stages of the research seem to indicate that there is a relatively high prevalence of domestic abuse - either historical or current - among families using contact centres. The first stage of the research found that approximately a fifth of total centre users had made an allegation of domestic abuse and a quarter of new referrals. Predominantly the allegations involved the contact father abusing the resident mother. A quarter of children from newly referred families came from households where there had been an allegation of domestic abuse. The second stage found that 79% of centre workers surveyed had worked with families who they believed had a history of domestic abuse.
5.15 In the survey of centre staff, respondents were not questioned specifically about their experiences in working with families with a history of domestic abuse, nor about the identity of the alleged abusers and victims. However they were questioned on the ability of the centre to cater to the needs of such families. The most common concern among centre workers was that measures should be taken to ensure that parents do not have to come into contact with each other when attending a centre. Three respondents (9% of those who had worked with families with an alleged history of domestic abuse) reported that this problem existed in the centre that they worked in; these respondents all worked at different centres; in other words, at least three contact centres in Scotland had this particular problem.
5.16 It is not possible to tell from this research whether any of the children witnessed the abuse referred to. It must also be borne in mind that the figures for domestic abuse relate to allegations; as previously stated, contact centres do not seek to substantiate such claims.
ACCESS TO SERVICES
5.17 There was a lack of data in the study on centre users and centre staff from ethnic minority groups. It is notable that many of the centres included in the study were located in areas with the largest ethnic minority populations, particularly Glasgow and Edinburgh. The evidence gathered in this research, however, is far too small-scale and inconclusive to suggest that the uptake of contact centre services is especially low among members of ethnic minority populations.
5.18 The recruitment of centre staff from ethnic minority groups, however, is of course only one issue that may affect the inclusivity of the service. For example, only 21% of respondents to the staff survey had received any kind of cultural awareness training. Language barriers may be another issue from centre users' or potential centre users' points of view, although staff had rarely experienced situations while working in the centre where they had felt that language barriers had been an issue.
5.19 There are, of course, many other access and equality issues that this research did not address, although some anecdotal evidence supplied by staff during the course of the study may be worth noting at this point. One example is that it was reported by some centre staff that there was no access to the centres for wheelchair users. We may also refer back to the observations of centre staff on the requirements of families with a history of domestic abuse; clearly the use of a centre is problematic for people if the structure of the building does not allow them to avoid an abusive ex-partner.
5.20 One accessibility issue that was not investigated as part of this research is the apparent lack of services available in many parts of Scotland. It is also clear that services generally have extremely limited opening hours, and tend to be restricted to weekends only. It is not within the bounds of this research to suggest whether or not there is unmet need for contact centre provision; however this may usefully be investigated further.
SUPPORTED AND SUPERVISED CONTACT
5.21 As stated earlier in this study, under 'supported contact' the venue is supervised, but the contact itself is not, unless the parents agree an independent chaperone. In the latter case, the contact becomes supervised contact. However, Scottish centres do not tend to provide statutory supervised contact (with the known exception of the centre in the Western Isles discussed in Chapter 4, due to its remote location and small size of the community served).
5.22 The staff survey results indicated that 57% of respondents had been asked to provide supervised contact. 31% of respondents had actually provided supervised contact at some stage (from 8 centres, or 57% of the centres represented in the survey population) over the past 6 months. 26% had been asked to provide Statutory Supervised Contact (SSC) at some stage while working at their current contact centre. Only 3 respondents stated that their centre had actually provided SSC at some point - these were all volunteer workers at the contact centre in the Western Isles, and the statutory supervision itself was provided by social workers within the centre (in accordance with social work legislation on SSC).
5.23 These results can be set against the findings of Furniss' 3-year study of English child contact centres (Furniss, 2000). The research included an in-depth examination of 9 centres and interviews with referrers and parents. Her work identified diversity in service, not only in terms of facilities and opening times but also in the type of service offered. Supported contact was offered by 99% of the centres surveyed, which involves staff keeping a general eye on families and contact and offering unbiased help. In contrast, supervised contact was offered by 12% of centres (defined as contact taking place in private rooms where only 1 family at a time has contact, with at least 1 professionally trained staff member in the room at all times).
RESPONSIBILITY FOR APPROPRIATE REFERRALS
5.24 This study found that solicitors and the courts account for the largest number of referrals (combined over the three months of the study they accounted for 72% of all referrals). Scottish centres also accept self-referrals, which accounted for a fifth of total centre users self-referred. The research also found that approximately 5% of referrals were made by a social work department. It appears from the views expressed by respondents while participating in the research, and from other research in the area (e.g. Furniss, 2000) that the terminology surrounding the type of contact offered by centres and the inter-changeable use of terms seems to be confusing, for users, referrers 22 and workers alike.
5.25 The SNCCC does not have a screening policy that it recommends to its centres, and it is not a universal practice of contact centres to actively seek information on families' backgrounds that may impact on families' requirements for additional support and / or vigilance. There are also not recommendations on exclusion of such families by reason of their histories.
5.26 However anecdotal evidence from this study suggests that there is a great deal of diversity in contact centre practice in this area, and that there are differences in the ways that organisers may exercise their discretion in not accepting a family (for example, in making the decision whether a non-resident parent with a history of perpetrating domestic abuse should be permitted to use the centre).
5.27 For contact centres the issue of responsibility for appropriate referrals is something which needs to be carefully considered. The assumptions underlying referrals must be made explicit, either by the referrers or identified by the centres at the point of intake. In any case, it would seem to be important that referrers should have clear information on the services provided by the different centres that may fall within their jurisdiction. This may require the Network to co-ordinate an audit of services across the various centres, to ensure that such information is regularly updated and to ensure comprehensive dissemination of the information.
5.28 Furniss's work has demonstrated the ways in which diversity can lead to confusion for referrers and parties and create potential for inappropriate referrals. She found that someone working within the family justice system had referred the majority of users: judge, magistrate, solicitor, court welfare officer or guardian ad litem. Often solicitors, court welfare officers and judges worked together in recommending a contact centre to parents. Her qualitative work revealed confusion over the different type of contact on offer and she quotes examples were this confusion has affected solicitors and in turn the information they provided to their clients.
5.29 Her work also revealed that centre co-ordinators were over-optimistic in their assumptions regarding the level of information provided by referrers to users. In the absence of pre-contact visits, referrers may be the only source of information upon which a parent bases his/her decision on whether to use a centre. Referrers could be placed on a spectrum which ran from those who saw it as their duty not to refer families where they believed that this was likely to cause further problems, to those who would refer anybody to a centre, regardless of the level of support that was available at the centre and of any problems in the family's history. Furniss counselled against contact centres placing too much reliance upon referrers and concluded that there was a greater role for centres to develop their own practices. She posited that where a centre cannot meet a family's needs then a referral should be refused (Furniss, 2000).
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