Justine Ramsden looks at the Cafcass Domestic Abuse Practice Policy in her latest article
16th Apr 2025 | Blog
Does the Cafcass Domestic Abuse Practice Policy get the balance right between protecting adult and child victims from harm, and supporting children to have a relationship with both parents where it is safe to do so?
When I was pregnant, I imagined what my maternity leave was going to look like. I pictured myself sitting at home watching lots of online lectures and undertaking legal research whilst my angelic baby slept in a moses basket next to me. Those with babies and young children will no doubt be chuckling at my naivety!
So, as my period of maternity leave was coming to an end, I made arrangements for Faith to be looked after, so I could focus on getting ‘work ready’.
Whilst much has remained the same, there have been some major developments in public and private children law over the last year. One of the changes that really caught my attention was the Cafcass Domestic Abuse Practice Policy.
When the Policy was first published on 9th October 2024 there was a big announcement on the Cafcass website. An amended version was published on 28th January 2025, ahead of the planned July 2025 review. Despite the significant changes made to the Policy, there was no accompanying announcement and little reporting on the new version.
Interestingly, the October 2024 Policy has been removed from the Cafcass website, although the announcement from 9th October 2024 remains.
The original Policy from October 2024 can be found here and the amended January 2025 Policy found here.
Why did Cafcass need a Domestic Abuse Practice Policy?
In June 2020 the Ministry of Justice’s Expert Panel on Harm in the Family Courts published their final report ‘Assessing risk of harm to children and parents in private law children cases’.
This report provided an understanding of how effectively the family courts identify and respond to allegations of domestic abuse and other serious offences in private law children proceedings (page 3, para 2). ‘Whilst the panel identified some good practice and widespread good intentions from those working under increasing pressure within the family justice system, it also unveiled deep-seated and systematic issues that were found to affect how risk to both children and adults is identified and managed’ (page 3 para 7).
The report details the issues uncovered and the Panel’s recommendations for change. One of the key challenges identified in the Harm Report was the ‘pro-contact culture’. The report noted the following:
‘The pro-contact culture; respondents felt that courts placed undue priority on ensuring contact with the non-resident parent, which resulted in systemic minimisation of allegations of domestic abuse’ (page 4, para 8).
‘The pro-contact culture of the courts and professionals involved in child arrangement cases. Submissions highlighted a resulting lack of understanding of the different forms that domestic abuse takes, and of the ongoing impacts of abuse on children and victim parents, the systematic minimisation or disbelief of abuse, and the acceptance of counter-allegations without robust scrutiny’ (page 4, para 9).
‘Submissions identified a process of ‘selective listening’, whereby children who wish to have contact with their non-resident parent are heard but those who do not wish to have contact are not heard or pressured to change their views. Orders were reported as often prioritising a child spending time with a potentially abusive parent regardless of their particular circumstances’ (page 5, para 11).
The concerns about a pro-contact culture as identified in the Harm Report very much reflect my experience in the first 10 years of practice. There was always pressure at the first hearing to get some form of contact agreed, with a push to move contact out of a contact centre to unsupervised / supervised by family members. Whatever the circumstances, parents were expected to co-parent and work together to facilitate contact arrangements. Review hearings which used to be commonplace were frowned upon, with the focus being on making a final order as soon as possible so parents could manage contact arrangements without the involvement of the court.
Practice Direction 12J of the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (PD12J) provides detailed guidelines on the actions a court is required to take following allegations of domestic abuse. In my experience there was little understanding about coercive and controlling behaviour, patterns of abuse and the long term impact of domestic abuse on victims. I found Practice Direction 12J was being inconsistently or weakly implemented, with the focus being on trying to preserve the relationship between the child and non-resident parent.
The view of the court seemed to be that if the parents were not coming into contact with each other (so handovers being undertaken by a third party) then the child was not at risk of harm.
In 2014 the Children and Families Act inserted four paragraphs into Section 1 of the Children Act 1989, putting ‘the presumption of parental involvement’ on a statutory footing. In my experience the presumption at section 1(2A) was applied as if it were absolute, even in cases where there was evidence of domestic abuse, with section 1(6) of the Children Act 1989 and PD12J paragraph 7 being ignored. This meant that the starting point for Cafcass practitioners and the courts was that some form of contact should be taking place.
I had cases where the parent (victim) was being painted by the court to be obstructing contact and criticised for being unable to ‘move on’ from the relationship in the best interests of the child. The reality was that the parent in each case was traumatised from the domestic abuse they had experienced and only being further harmed by the court process.
My concern about the way the presumption of parental involvement was being applied is echoed in the Harm Report, with the Panel recommending that the presumption be reviewed urgently to address its detrimental effects (pages 174-175, para 11.4).
Following the Harm Report, the Court of Appeal judgment in Re H-N and Others (children) (domestic abuse: finding of fact hearings) [2021] EWCA Civ 448 and the introduction of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, I began to see a subtle shift in the approach taken by the court and Cafcass Officers to cases involving domestic abuse. What I did not see were recommendations for suspension of child arrangements ‘lives with / spends time with’ orders or ‘no contact’ orders being made at the first hearing.
The October 2024 Cafcass Domestic Abuse Practice Policy
The Policy sets out its purpose on page 1, para 3: ‘This policy sets out the actions that Cafcass practitioners and managers must undertake when working with children and adults who have experienced domestic abuse and who are therefore victims of domestic abuse under the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. The policy is informed by learning from feedback and complaints from children and families, from Significant Incidents, Practice Quality Audits, Child Record Reviews, and Learning Reviews.’
The October 2024 Domestic Abuse Practice Policy gave several ‘starting points’ for Cafcass practitioners to use when considering recommendations for family time:
- When there has been a report or disclosure of any form of domestic abuse (including any sexual offence) and a child is living with the accused parent, the starting point must be a discussion with a manager and consideration of what actions are required to safeguard the child, which will include whether there should be any recommendations to change the current living arrangements (pages 2-3, para 5). Note – the Policy did not go as far as to say that the starting point was removal or no direct ‘spends time with’.
- Practitioners must not support or recommend any contact (direct or otherwise) or spending time arrangements, where the resident parent and child are currently living in a refuge, having disclosed domestic abuse by the other parent (page 5, para 16). Note – the starting point when a child is living in a refuge is no contact of any kind (including letters, emails, telephone calls and contact supervised by a professional at a contact centre).
- When assessing those who have been domestically abusive, practitioners must assess the life-long harm caused by domestic abuse and not recommend that a child spends time with a parent who has inflicted this harm on a child and their other parent, without clear evidence that the perpetrator: a) Recognises the harm their behaviour has caused their victims; b) Has taken responsibility for the harm they have caused; c) Has taken action to sustain change in their attitude and to stop their harmful behaviour, which has been demonstrated over time; and d) These changes have resulted in an assessment that the risk of them perpetrating that behaviour has been removed to the point of enabling a recommendation that family time is now in the child’s best interests. In protecting victims of domestic abuse, any departure from this starting point must be supported by a compelling rationale, discussed with a manager, and recorded contemporaneously on the child’s case record (page 5, para 20). Note – the starting point in cases where domestic abuse has been admitted or proven, and the parent has inflicted harm on a child and their other parent, is for no direct ‘spends time with’ arrangements to be recommended unless there is clear evidence of a, b, c and d.
- A separate section is given at the end of the Policy to ‘Report, disclosure, investigation or conviction of sexual offences’. There are four situations given where the starting point is a recommendation for no direct ‘spends time with’ arrangements with that parent (page 6, paras 21). The first is where there is a report of sexual offending, the second is where a fact finding hearing is already scheduled, the third is where there is a disclosure of a sexual offence and this has resulted in a police investigation or charging decision, and the fourth is if a parent has a conviction for a sexual offence.
- In protecting victims of domestic abuse, any departure from these starting points must be supported by a compelling rationale, be discussed with a manager, and be recorded contemporaneously on the child’s case record. The parent with whom the child resides must be made fully aware in all such cases of the proposed advice to the court, including the reasons for any departure from the starting points set out in this policy. (page 6, para 22). Note – the actual wording in the Policy is different from the summary given in the 9th October 2024 announcement which states ‘The starting point for recommendations about a child spending time with a parent who is being investigated by the police for a sexual offence, who has a conviction for a sexual offence and/or who has served a prison sentence for violent and sexual offences is for that child not to spend time with the parent due to the significant risk of harm and the risk of further harm to the child victim, as well as the impact on the adult victim of the abuse’. Notably, in the Policy there is no mention of ‘a parent who has served a prison sentence for violent and sexual offences’ with the Policy being worded more narrowly.
These starting points represented a huge change from what I had been seeing in practice from 2011 to early 2024 when I went on maternity leave. From speaking to colleagues in Chambers, I understand that over the last year (even before the Policy was announced in October 2024) there were many more recommendations for no direct ‘spend time with’ at the first hearing.
My worry reading the October Policy was that, in trying to combat the pro-contact culture raised in the Harm Report, Cafcass may have inadvertently tipped the balance too far the other way, with children being denied a relationship with one of their parents unnecessarily.
The fact that the Policy was amended before the planned review in July 2025 suggests that in too many cases not enough analysis was being undertaken, with recommendations for no direct ‘spends time with’ being made too readily.
The amended January 2025 Policy
The Policy sets out its purpose at the top of page 2: ‘This policy sets out the actions that Cafcass practitioners and managers must undertake when working with children and adults who have or may have experienced domestic abuse and who therefore come under the terms of the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. It is informed by Practice Direction 12J and by our understanding of the impact of domestic abuse and harmful parenting on a child and the child’s primary and protective carers. The protection of children from harm or further harm is the central and fundamental purpose of this policy.’
The updated version of the Domestic Abuse Practice Policy removed all reference to ‘starting points’. Emphasis was instead placed on Cafcass’ statutory responsibility to assess harm and risk for children, reinforcing the importance of FCAs independence and their responsibility to assess and advise the court of the unique characteristics and vulnerability of the child’ (page 10). The Policy stresses that ‘Practitioners must provide a clear, unequivocal, evidence-informed, and compelling rationale in their reports to court for recommending ‘time with’ or ‘live with’ arrangements with a parent when domestic abuse and harm has been shared with the practitioner by the child or by one or both parents’ (page 2, para 5).
With the removal of the starting points, the onus was put back onto the Cafcass Officer to assess the individual case before them with reference to section 1(2A) of the Children Act 1989 and the relevant paragraphs of PD12J, rather than relying on a generalised ‘starting point’.
It is specifically highlighted in the Policy that the presumption of parental involvement is not absolute, and that the presumption falls away when the parent has caused harm or there is risk of harm or further harm to the child (page 5, para 22).
Rather than simply refer to paragraphs 25 to 27 and paragraphs 35 to 37 of PD12J (as in the original Policy), the amended version has a separate section on Practice Direction 12J (pages 6 to 7) with the relevant paragraphs being set out in full.
The Policy states that PD12J paragraphs 35-37 ‘must be followed to evidence the risks to the child’ (page 6, para 26). ‘Where risks are identified, consideration must be given to whether it is in the child’s interests and whether it is safe to continue any ‘direct time with’ arrangements that may already be in place, until the next hearing’ (page 6 para 27) i.e. whether all direct contact should be suspended.
The Policy also states that Practice Direction 12J paragraph 25-27 on ‘Interim orders before determination of relevant facts’ must be followed when undertaking an assessment of whether interim arrangements are safe for the child: ‘As part of this assessment practitioners must provide to the court clear advice or recommendations as to whether any order to spend time with a parent would expose the child or their other parent to any ‘unmanageable risk of harm’ taking into account the specific definition of domestic abuse and the impact any abuse can have on the emotional well-being of the child and the safety of the other parent. Any arrangements must be in the child’s best interests’ (page 7, paras 28-29).
The section in the Policy on sexual offences was replaced with a section ‘Investigation or conviction of domestic abuse offences, including sexual offences’ (pages 5-6). This removed the focus on sexual offending and widened the application to situations where a parent has a conviction for an offence in relation to domestic abuse (including coercive control), violence or a sexual offence, or there is an ongoing police investigation (including repeat investigations that have resulted in no further action) in respect of the same. In these cases, the Policy states that ‘practitioners must consider that the adult concerned presents a risk of significant harm to the child, connected children and main carers, and their advice to the court should clearly set out an analysis of risk of harm and how this affects the advice regarding contact and / or live with arrangements, including any action that should be taken to protect the child and their main carer from harm or risk of further harm’ (page 5, para 23).
Conclusion
The amended policy waters down the original policy somewhat with the removal of ‘starting points’. This may make it harder to advise clients on what Cafcass is likely to do. However, the more detailed policy provides a helpful template for how Family Court Advisers and Children’s Guardians should go about their analysis and assessment with reference to the relevant paragraphs of Practice Direction 12J. The hope is therefore that the risk of harm will be considered on a case by case basis rather than there being a presumption of contact (as there was before) or a presumption of no contact (‘starting points’).
I wait to see how this amended Policy will work in practice and whether it now strikes the balance between protecting adult and child victims from harm, and supporting children to have a relationship with both parents where it is safe to do so.
Justine Ramsden
2025
