Domestic Abuse and Child Contact: The Interface Between Civil and Criminal Proceedings Workshop
A workshop on Domestic Abuse and Child Contact: The Interface between Criminal and Civil Proceedings was held at the Advanced Research Centre of the University of Glasgow on 19 January 2024. It brought together family law practitioners from across Scotland to discuss the issue of domestic abuse in the context of child contact cases.
The workshop follows the publication in 2022 of a research report, which highlighted concerns and set out a series of recommendations that could be implemented to address them. The aim of this workshop was to allow legal practitioners to give their view on how they thought the recommendations from this research could be achieved in practice.
On the day, practitioners discussed four key recommendations which covered different areas of the research. These four recommendations focused on information sharing between civil and criminal processes, training on domestic abuse, court processes - in particular child welfare hearings - and children’s rights. Lead researchers on the project, Professor Michele Burman, Dr Ruth Friskney, Professor Jane Mair and Professor Richard Whitecross helped to facilitate and record these discussions.
Practitioners agreed on the benefits of information sharing between processes, while highlighting the practical challenges of implementation. They agreed that ongoing and comprehensive training on the nature and impact of domestic abuse is essential for solicitors and sheriffs and ideally should start at an early stage in legal education. Practitioners also stressed the importance of the early presentation of domestic abuse in child welfare hearings and ensuring that child participation is meaningful, and that the child’s views are properly considered. One of the key messages from the workshop is that practitioners feel there are some inconsistencies in practice in the way that domestic abuse is dealt with during child contact cases.
In the closing session of the workshop, Helen Hughes, a specialist family lawyer who is one of the trainers on the Scottish Women’s Rights Centre Domestic Abuse Training for Solicitors, spoke to participants about the importance of training on domestic abuse and the difference it can make to victims.
Dr Ruth Friskney, one of the researchers on the project said that “We have been really excited to see the enthusiasm and commitment from civil legal practitioners to contributing to this piece of research and how it can be taken forward. The event was energetic with people bringing a range of ideas and experiences around how the child contact system works and could work better on the ground. We hope that this event is the start of a conversation and look forward to continuing to work with legal practitioners around the implementation of the research recommendations.”
Further Information
The graphic minutes of this event are now available online, summarising the conversations at the event on the four recommendations on the day:
The full version of the report along with summaries of the four priority recommendations can be found at https://scjh.org.uk/projects/domestic-abuse-and-child-contact-the-interface-between-criminal-and-civil-proceedings/.
More information on the SWRC Domestic Abuse Training for Solicitors can be found at SWRC Approved Domestic Abuse Training for Solicitors | Training | Scottish Women’s Rights Centre (scottishwomensrightscentre.org.uk).
