Contact us
If you’re being assessed by CAFCASS, we’d love to hear what it’s like for you. Is it going well or badly? Is it helpful and how has it helped? Are you finding it hard and if so why? What do you make of what you’re going through? Has contact been ordered after a domestic abuse perpetrator programme when it’s not safe ? Has no contact been ordered when it is safe? Have you had false allegations made about you? We want to hear about cases like this and the impact it’s having on you and the children.
Write to us at [email protected]
We are keen to help you through the process and with our years of experience working in the family court (Jill as a solicitor and George as an expert witness) we may be able to give useful advice.
We will soon be launching a new podcast which will focus on real life cases based on what people tell us. Of course, as professionals, we will respect the key issues of privacy and confidentiality but we want to help you and others by sharing real life experiences.
CAFCASS Assessments
See CAFCASS’ guidance and procedures for working with children here
See a useful account of how CAFCASS assess harmful parenting in their Other forms of harmful parenting guide
Use the links below to see what the CAFCASS Family Court Adviser (FCA) will be using in their assessment. See exactly what CAFCASS thinks is useful. FCAs are expected to follow these processes although they do have discretion in how they conduct their assessments.
SCODA – risk assessment with parental drug misuse
This is used in interviews to assess drug misuse
Used in interviews to assess drug abuse
Used in interviews to assess alcohol misuse
Tool for parenting knowledge and style
Used in interviews to explore parents’ understanding of their child’s needs according to age and stage of development.
Child exploitation screening tool
This is used in assessing any children under the age of 18 to assess a child’s risk of sexual abuse or exploitation
Used to assess ‘wellbeing’
Used to assess parents/carers view of the children’s needs and how they are coping with them
This is designed to organise FCAs’ thinking and help them to review the evidence where parents have mental health difficulties. It is not designed to be a prescriptive or definitive measure of risk
Sexual behaviours traffic light tool
This lists examples of sexual behaviour in children divided into four age categories. All green, amber and red behaviours require some form of attention and response, but the type of intervention will vary according to the behaviour
