Does complaining help you see your kids?

Steven Wadehttps://familylawassistance.co.uk/our-founders/

Taking the fight to…`them’?

It’s a question I asked in a Facebook group recently

Did making a complaint about CAFCASS, Social Services, the court, etc. increase the amount of time a separated parent saw their children?

We’ve got one goal here at Family Law Assistance – doing everything we can to help our clients get the possible result for their children, their finances and their divorce.

That’s it. Nothing else. So when I asked this question I want to know if our opinion and experiences so far gelled with what others going through the family courts had experienced.

It was a pretty clear thing.

The view from people in the system

Things were pretty clear. I read through the posts…and almost everyone said it didn’t help. A couple of people spoke about being able to prove bias in the system and beating CAFCASS but not much else.

It gets better/worse:

Complaining can damage your case and your chances of a relationship with your children.

I admit. This is a massively unscientific survey. The people I asked could be unrepresentative of everyone in the family court (they probably are..people who are happy with the outcome tend to move on from groups like this because they quite understandably want to put the `bad old days’ of the family court behind them). The question I asked is loaded (it’s social media and I want engagement, right?)

But there’s a broad point to this. Even if you assume that everything I have said up until this point is rubbish.

The risks/benefits for making a complaint

It’s possible you’ve got a legitimate grievance. I don’t know your case. It’s possible your complaint could be the one that proves whatever you think about CAFCASS, Social Services, whoever is completely correct and you’ll end up on the steps of the Royal Courts of Justice, being interviewed live by the BBC, prompting the Government to massively reform the Family Law system with your name in lights as a tireless campaigner who made their mark on the world.

There’s a more likely outcome though:

You’re going to damage your case and the chances your children are going to be with you.

It’s a real gamble.

You risk:

• Alienating the people making the recommendations and orders in your case – because despite contrary to popular opinion, they’re only human and get fed up with criticism.
• Wasting time, money, effort and focus – concentrating on your complaint the expense of why you went to court in the first place.
• Demonstrating that you lack insight. That despite a huge team of experts all agreeing…they’re wrong and you’re right (especially if you say there’s a huge conspiracy and they all `look after their own’).
• Believing it’s all pointless and damaging your own mindset.

In my opinion…this is much more likely than you achieving your goal of blowing the whole thing wide apart (if that’s what you want to happen).

Are you saying `Don’t complain?’

In a word.

No. The system isn’t perfect and wanting to improve it is entirely sane. But I’m a steely-eyed pragmatist. So if I’m assisting you and you’re doing stuff (or thinking of doing stuff) that isn’t going to help – and even damage – your case…I’m going to tell you.

Scratch that…I’m going to tell you even if I’m not assisting you.

The process is a hard one to navigate and many people fall by the wayside, bitter, ground down and feeling it’s all futile; this is one of them. Focus on your case. Focus on your goals. Don’t lose sight of everything else. If it’s a child case – give your kids all your bandwidth, time, effort, resource so you know you’ve done your best.

And when it’s all over…find a group and work towards the change in the system you want to see.

About the author…

Steven Wadehttps://familylawassistance.co.uk/our-founders/

Steven Wade is the founder of Family Law Assistance, a team of McKenzie Friends supporting litigants in person through the family court system in England and Wales. With nearly two decades of experience in family law starting in 2006., Steven has guided hundreds of clients through proceedings involving child arrangements, parental alienation, financial disputes, and non-molestation orders as well as finance and divorce matters. He's run branches of Fathers Need Fathers in England and Wales (now Both Parents Matter), hosted workshops for separated parents, trained McKenzie Friends to assist litigants in the family and travels around the country to assist men and women in and out of court. Steven regularly produces content to demystify legal processes both in blog posts on this site and also on Tiktok and is known for his empathetic, practical advice. He has delivered training and support to parents and support workers dealing with the route through the family court.