Academics at the London School Of Economics have just published their findings on child outcomes after parental separation, using a sample of about 19,000 children born between 2000-2002. The researchers analysed data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, (MCS) to look at how children experienced contact with resident and non resident parents after separation.
However, despite claiming that the survey is the largest of its kind, the conclusions are rather short sighted and typical of previous analyses which only scratch the surface on child outcomes and mistake separation as a cause, rather than a symptom of family breakdown and its effect on children.
As with research before it, the survey claims that marriage is an important factor in child wellbeing, rather than stopping to consider whether this would actually resonate with children in this context, or whether there are underlying factors which in reality have little to do with the marriage contract and much more to do with social, educational and economic factors. We have written extensively on why marriage is not a blanket solution to child welfare issues, and you can read our thoughts on the blog, including this piece of research which shows quite clearly why family breakdown is far more complex than the debate around marriage.
There are other gaping holes in the survey’s analysis, which the researchers are good enough to admit. We haven’t had a chance to read the entire report yet, but what we have read so far reads very much like reports written previously by others. We’re just not sure why the government felt the need to fund yet more of the same.
As with so much research in this area, the focus tends to be on the symptoms of much broader phenomena like social, economic and educational disadvantage rather than the root causes of these things. Please do tell us if we’re wrong about this latest piece of research, it’s Friday and we’re a little sleep deprived.
You can check out the Ministry of Justice’s announcement of the report and the report itself, here.
Researching Reform 
There is more to be known then meets the eye, why am i being told constantly by very loving families that some lawyers and social are telling parents they must live apart and divorce if they want their kids back, so many parents are made afraid and do as they are told but still they lose their kids to the care or adoptions, then go to the parents who split up due to not being in love or what ever and use the kids as weapons when i have spoken to such parents told them not to contact the S/W they do and for those parents they need to be educated as they are causing more problems in the system for the parents who do care for their kids, Having spoken to kids from care and housed them in the 80s with many in the psycic wards all they ever wanted was to be loved and hugged as a child by their parents and when out of the system any one can give them love and boy is it returned, this can be seen in one of the videos i made on the streets of London with a young girl saying because you care, going back to my days of setting up the hostels for homeless from the care system i had to teach many how to bath in fact i use to bath a few my self so bloody sad, so if a kid is bought up not knowing how to have a bath how can any child know how to live, and before i could go to collect my own son from school i first had to go to Hackney public baths to be deloused can you imagine any Lords Sirs or who ever hugging kids from care then have to be deloused, what do they know they just talk and talk same as the meeting i was refused to go to they refuse to listen to people who know first hand and it seems like the victims will never be heard
LikeLike
Pingback: Child Outcomes After Separation – New Research | The Story of my Twin Boys Oliver and Oscar Ferreira
This research appears to be for private law. Forgive me if I have that wrong. However it stands to reason that contact with both parents would be beneficial, (unless there are dire reasons that would prevent contact) for good outcomes for the child.
Where is the same kind of research for kids in care?
When a child is in care, there appears to be an emphasis on the child/foster care relationship with the child, which is ultimatly transient. It effectively ousts the birth family. Since the welfare of the child is supposed to encompass the whole of the childs life, contact with the birth family should be encouraged and support should be given to facilitate good, meaningful contact. When the child leaves care where will that child go? It won’t be to the foster carers as they will not be paid! Twice a year contact in an office supervised, is hardly meaningful!
The way contact, if it happens at all, occurs now is a very hit & miss affair. Just like the non resident parent, contact dwindles as social workers deliberately set up care plans for looked after children that barely include the birth family. The law clearly states contact with the parents and wider family should be encouraged but there are no checks made to see if this is happening.
We all know of the appalling outcomes for children in care which might have more to do with the lack of contact with their family than anything else. No matter what is said or by whom, it carries more weight to the child if the family say it!
Another way that the law is being flouted by social workers is through Special Guardianship Orders which are not supposed to sever contact with birth families but does. Originally for kinship care, its been hijacked by foster carers. I now see Special Guardianship Orders as” Forced Adoption through the back door”. Contact between the child and the birth Family is being severed, especially if the child was originally subject to an adoption order.
If social workers have guidelines, who is setting those guidelines? Can anyone tell me why there are such fluctuations in Contact with kids in care? The amount of contact, the venue, if supervised, appears inconsistent. They have research at their disposal to make educated decisions but invariably ignore it, for their convenience or the foster carers/Special Guardians, certainly not for the child’s best interests!
LikeLike
Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
LikeLike
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/children/
Have parents become the enemy in social work?
David Tobias is not the only voice that says keeping children with their families is less damaging than taking them into foster care.
Molly Mcgrath Tierney Baltimore chief of Social Services. Rethinking foster care.
U tube video.
NCCPR.
http://www.nccpr.info/the-evidence-is-in-foster-care-vs-keeping-families-together-the-definitive-studies/
What more does the government need? Kids are better off at home!
LikeLike
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3454458/The-children-stolen-start-Nazis-master-race-Moving-exhibition-chronicles-fate-300-000-youngsters-snatched-Ayran-citizens-Reich.html
this link is from todays papers half way down it states many children died with out knowing they had a family, well well the same question needs to be answered for the forced adoption of the UK kids
LikeLike
http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/07/08/simply-encouraging-referral-resulting-increasing-amount-detected–child-abuse
The current child protection system puts too much pressure on social workers.
Stark difference between what is estimated by NSPCC and what abuse is actually detected by referrals.
NSPCC’s account of the prevalence of child abuse in England differs from that of ESRC funded research. Rethinking Child Protection Strategy.
“Urgent need for transformative reforms”.
The NSPCC has just received government funding for Abuse helpline.
LikeLike
http://www.cypnow.co.uk/cyp/news/1155917/increasing-numbers-of-care-leavers-in-unsuitable-accommodation
todays news in the link which goes back to my days in the 80s of the hostels for kids mostly from care, so what has changed not a lot many kids are stolen from loving homes lose their identity no bedtime stories no hugs love no affection then only to be dumped in the streets or cheap BB and it is by the research we know many social workers have a limited company in the property game, what better then to be paid by the SS kids in care again its called.
LikeLike
Who is the Trojan Horse inside Social services? whose job it is to wreck the traditional loving family unit?
Common Purpose of course-a charity that uses public money to train graduates to lead outside authority.
This is where the NLP groomed leaders act like they are not answerable to Ministers or service users.
I had the honour to meet a few of them on their way to training a few months ago.
They were shocked that I knew what was in their paperwork and how they had no idea how their minds were about to be twisted.
Again its nothing new in history. Its all been done before under Nazi Regime and before that in Indigenous tribes, Ireland etc.
The only country that did not allow CP to take over is Holland.
http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwotavistockbestkeptsecret.shtml
“Any technique which helps to break down the family unit, and family inculcated principles of religion, honor, patriotism and sexual behavior, is used by the Tavistock scientists as weapons of crowd control. “
LikeLike
I just have not had any time to read this report. But it seems that every report, every survey, shows that kids achieve better outcomes if they are brought up knowing both parents, even if those parents don’t live together. But the best outcomes of all are when the parents do stay together and the statistics seem to indicate that married couples stay together longer than those who cohabit. Family breakdown damages all those who are involved in it, in all but a very few cases; it’s sometimes good for the parents but it seems it is never good for the child or children. Keep families together!
LikeLike