How do I get a good CAFCASS report? 8 things you can do

1. Introduction
2. What this blog post covers
3. Be child focused
4. Your house doesn’t have to be perfect
5. Be clear about what you want…
6. …but be flexible
7. Ask them for their advice and help
8. Don’t get hung up on small errors
9. You’re not going to change their worldview
10. Conclusion

Introduction

First of all it’s important to realise that it’s not just CAFCASS who provide the courts with reports. Social services do too – usually if they have previously been involved with the family that is in court proceedings. They can produce the same reports as CAFCASS but also compile additional ones.

CAFCASS are the `eyes and ears of the court’. A judge, magistrates, etc. will only see you in the artificial environment of the court room and will speak to you – but they won’t see you with your children, nor will they often ask you about the day-to-day practicalities of parenting.

So CAFCASS (or social services if they’re the one doing the report) can be a key link between you and the court.

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What this blog post covers

There are a large number of reports the court can request and consider. I’m going to restrict this post to Section 7 Reports.

Every case you take part in will have an initial report by CAFCASS – a `Safeguarding Report‘ (also called a `Schedule 2 Letter‘) – which provides the court with very basic details. Details about the children, what the current situation is, whether there has been prior police, social services, etc. involvement and how the parent see the situation.

This report needs to be available to the court before the first hearing. Without it the hearing will be adjourned – nothing will happen and you’ll be back at court at a later date.

The report I am going to discuss here is a `Section 7′ or `Welfare Report’.

These aren’t ordered for every case – only when the court feels it needs to investigate the welfare of the children involved.

Social services can do additional reports – Section 37 and Section 47 reports and a whole host of other ones in public law proceedings, but I’m not going to cover them here.

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Be child focused

This is the mantra if you are involved in family law proceedings and is equally as true if you are involved in a Section 7 Report.

Frame everything from your child’s point of yours. It’s not about you. It’s about your children:

• Talk about our children. Not my children.
• Discuss your child’s time with you. Not `my time with the children’.
• Don’t talk about ex as something like `The respondent’, `Ms Smith’ or `the other party’. They’re `Mum’/`Dad’ or `John’/`Mary’.
• Talk about the impact of the situation on the children – not how it makes you feel.
• Don’t talk about your `rights’. Talk about your child’s rights to have a meaningful relationship with both parents.
• Don’t talk about the children going `home’ to your ex if you are the non primary parent – your children have two homes and you provide one of them.
• Mention your child’s wider maternal/paternal family. It’s not about the children just seeing you – it’s step parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles and everyone else.

Get used to thinking and responding purely from the point view of your child.

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Your house doesn’t need to be perfect

Part of a Section 7 should be a home visit. The officer compiling the report should visit your home (ideally) while the children are with you. If they fail to speak to you in person or do this visit it can lead to the value of the report being lessened. In short – it’s a biggie.

So what is your (and your child’s home like?)

Do they have their own bedroom with clothes, toys and other stuff that is for them? Or do they sleep on the sofa or a camp bed in a spare room? As a temporary measure for many parents because they have few options, this isn’t a long term solution and you should do you best to provide your child with their own room.

Is your place messy or tidy? Your home doesn’t need to be a temple. You don’t need to spend 3 days tidying, decorating or getting in a professional cleaner in before the author of the report visits. You home needs to be `good enough’. A normal, family home. Think pictures drawn by your children on the fridge, a picture of their mum/dad in their bedroom, toys where ever toys usually go and the appearance of somewhere…homely.

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Be clear about what you want…

You are a parent. You know what is the best interests of your child. Don’t give the impression that you aren’t sure by providing a `buffet’ of options that your ex and/or CAFCASS will find problems with all of them. Or a judge will disregard because he/she doesn’t know what your plan is.

Be clear about what you want, put together a plan (or a schedule) leading towards what you want.

I’m not saying you cannot be flexible – because compromise is often a thing. But a clear goal will make things a lot eaiser for you and give the CAFCASS officer something to think about.

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…but be flexible

Compromise is a thing. While you should have a clear goal you need to be prepared to give a little. If you are the immovable, uncompromising one you’re going to look unreasonable. If you have a `my way or the highway‘ persona the court may decide that as you can’t be reasoned with it is going to ignore you and make the order regardless of what you think or do.

Be seen to work with the court and report writer!

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Ask them for their advice and help

I’m not saying Section 7 Report recommendations are always wholly followed by the court. But your life is going to be much easier if you agree with them. Which means making sure you are the easy option when it comes to that recommendation. So work with the report writer. They’ve seen thousands of cases like yours and almost as many people talking about their rights, fighting them, fighting their ex, fighting the court and doing everything they can to force them to back down.

Be reasonable and you are going to be like a breath of fresh air. Draw on their experience and ask them what you can do to make things as easier as the children. Just asking this will help. If you really want to take things to the next level – take on board what they’re saying.

See if from their point of view – they have two parents – one of which is being reasonable, asking for help and being child focused…with the other seemingly out to cause as many problems as possible to force the court to give them what they want.

Which one is more likely to be looked upon favourably?

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Don’t get hung up on small errors

The report is typically 25-30 pages long. That’s a lot of words.

It’s tempting to want to go through it with a fine-tooth comb and pick it apart word-by-word to find errors, particularly if you aren’t happy with it. But don’t spend your time and energy making lots of noise about a grammatical error, a typo or a small detail that makes no odds whatsoever.

Let them pass.

If you decide you are going to do otherwise – ask yourself how this makes you look. Is your insistence on changing a few spelling errors in the report reflective on the way you are with your ex – are you liable to take them to court for the sake of them turning up to handover the children a few minutes late? Or are you more laidback and not going to cause a huge fuss over a simple mistake that doesn’t mean that much?

In any case, the most important part of the report are the recommendations. If you’re happy with those it’s worth overlooking errors and focusing on why you agree with them rather than turning it into a fight when you may not present yourself in the best possible light.

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You’re not going to change their world view

CAFCASS and social workers get a lot of flak about being biased. They should, of course, be impartial when it comes to writing reports and their personal views should not be factored into whatever it is they recommend.

But if they are…you are not going to convince the feminist author of the report that feminism is wrong and they need to change what they think. The same goes for someone who doesn’t believe parental alienation exists. You may well have your own views on this, but you are not going to convince them and arguing with them won’t get a more favourable report – but it may harder their attitude towards you.

Trying to change the mind of someone who has entrenched and deeply-held views is pointless – it’s not your job to educate them or change their world view. You are there for the report.

The key here is to focus on the report, not the author. If you don’t agree with recommendations you will get a chance at a trial to cross examine the author (unless it is being done on submissions) and you can explore the reasoning behind those recommendations.

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Conclusion

Even a report with a recommendation you don’t like isn’t the end of the world.

In my experience, what is recommended is not automatically turned into an order. You will get a copy of the order and be able to tell the court if you agree with the recommendations or not. At the hearing that happens it is – like at every other hearing – possible to negotiate with the other party and see if you can come up with something both agree to.

If that doesn’t work another hearing – usually a final one – is scheduled to enable you to cross examination the author of the report. You’ll need to focus on asking them questions that either highlight why you feel the report is not in the best interests of your children (or it is, if you agree with it). But that will only happen if the hearing is a trial rather than being dealt with `on submissions‘ (a legal way of saying the court will look at statements both of you submit and then the court will ask you questions about it but the author of the Section 7 Report won’t be there to answer questions). This typically happens if you are both litigant in person, with the court quite reasonably thinking you won’t know how to put together a Practice Direction 27A bundle, write relevant cross examination questions or know how a trial works – which is fair enough. If you are both litigants in person the court will usually work on this principle and won’t even offer you a chance for a trial for this reason.

But the take home from this blog? Whether you’re represented, a litigant in person or with someone like me by your side there are lots of things you can do free of charge with no legal background at all.

One of our Ask Me Anything online sessions will leave you fully prepped too. Speak soon!

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