DOMESTIC VIOLENCE, CHILD CONTACT AND POST-SEPARATION VIOLENCE Issues for South Asian and African-Caribbean Women and Children A Report of Findings Ravi K. Thiara Aisha K. Gill NSPCC charity registration number 216401 and SC037717, © NSPCC 2012. You may use this publication for your own personal, non-commercial use and otherwise in accordance with the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 only. No part of this publication may otherwise be copied or reproduced without prior written permissions. NSPCC is a registered trade mark. All rights acknowledged and reserved. Whilst we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this publication, we cannot guarantee it and you should not rely on the contents of this publication. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research has been made possible by the time, engagement and enthusiastic input of many people. We are grateful to the members of the Research Advisory Group – Saika Alam, Tracey Dawkins, Duncan Gore, Elisabeth Hall, Joan Hunt, Khatun Sapnara, and Hilary Saunders – who provided invaluable advice and guidance throughout the research. Lorraine Radford, and other staff at the NSPCC, recognised the gap in research and supported our endeavours through important steer and guidance. We are grateful to the NSPCC for providing funding and making this study possible. Colleagues at the Centre for the Study of Safety and Well-being, University of Warwick, provided tremendous support throughout the management of this research and special thanks are due to Donna Chung, Christine Harrison, Alison Cowling and Mandy Eaton. Thanks also to the staff in the Social Research Centre at University of Roehampton, in particular Kirin Kang, Nicole O’Keefe, and Quichia Richards who assisted with transcribing of the interviews; and Linda Wilson and Joanne Sibthorpe for their administrative support and help. We are grateful to the anonymous reviewers who provided valuable comments on the draft report. Our conversations and discussions with individuals and agencies made demands on their limited time. We are deeply grateful for all their input and for simply making time to engage with us. Our greatest gratitude goes, as always, to all the women and children who embraced this research so positively, for sharing their experiences and thoughts. We hope this research makes the difference that you wanted to see in the range of services that work with women and children. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 7 Aims of the research 7 Methodology 8 Ethical issues 12 The report 12 Section 1: Research Context 14 Domestic violence and child contact 14 Domestic violence, child contact and ethnicity 19 Section 2: Snapshot of Interviewees and Contact Arrangements 23 Length in the relationship 23 Length of separation 24 Child contact arrangements 24 Children 25 Section 3: Women and Children’s Experiences of Domestic Violence 27 Living with high levels of severe and prolonged abuse 27 A range of abuse 28 Involvement of extended family 32 Women’s responses to their abuse 34 Impact of abuse on women 38 Children living with abuse 39 Children’s voices 43 Men as fathers 46 Summary 49 Section 4: Professional Responses and Women’s Experiences 50 Women supportive of safe and beneficial contact 50 Negative responses from professionals and agencies 51 Emphasis on right to contact or presumption of contact 52 Professional responses shaped by social construction of South Asian and African- Caribbean groups 53 Over-reliance on professionals 58 Distrust of professionals 59 Lack of knowledge about the legal process 60 Reluctance to use the legal process, especially African-Caribbean women 61 Extended family involvement 61 Mediation 63 Fear of abduction or separation from children 64 4 Support from domestic violence and specialist BME services critical 65 Summary 67 Section 5: Children’s Experiences of Contact 68 Experiences of the contact process 68 Impact of contact with fathers 68 Women left to deal with effects of contact on children 73 Children’s views 74 Summary 77 Section 6: Women’s Experiences of Informal Contact 78 Women under pressure to agree to informal contact 78 Women try informal contact but are subjected to continuing abuse 80 Men use informal contact to perpetrate abuse 81 Men use children to pressure and abuse women 82 Men have an ad hoc commitment to informal contact 83 Men frustrate women’s attempts to have contact 84 Summary 84 Section 7: Women’s Experiences of Cafcass 86 Limited but powerful role 87 Equality and diversity – still a ‘work in progress’ 88 Belief in the importance of contact for children 92 Other continuing challenges 97 Limited understanding of abuse after separation 99 Limited co-ordination with other agencies 99 Limited work with children 100 Summary 101 Section 8: Women’s Experiences of Legal Professionals and the Courts 103 Continuing limitations despite changes in approach 103 Views of child contact 104 Right to contact 105 Solicitors 106 Courts and judges 115 Summary 124 Section 9: Women’s Experiences of Contact Centres 126 Limited provision 126 Variations in practice and training 127 High numbers of (inappropriate) referrals 128 Language 129 Lack of cultural awareness 130 Safety 130 5 Women want supervised contact but shortage of contact centres 132 Women bear burden of contact arrangements and of pick up and drop off 132 Men not spending quality time with children during contact visits 133 Men ‘play devoted dads’ with professionals but play games with women 134 Summary 135 Section 10: Women’s Experiences of Post-separation Violence 137 PSV a significant issue 137 Men use legal process to continue abuse 138 Contact and children used to undermine women 140 Wide ranging, extreme and prolonged PSV 142 PSV prevents women and children from moving on 144 PSV poorly understood and responded to 145 Summary 146 Section 11: Recommendations for Change 147 General recommendations 147 Suggestions for Cafcass 151 Suggestions for legal professionals 152 References 154 6 INTRODUCTION A recognition of domestic violence as a serious problem is reflected in wide-ranging developments to tackle it over the past 15 years. Emphasis on prevention, protection and justice has enabled criminal justice and other responses to be increasingly embedded. In practice, however, a number of contradictions remain in addressing this pervasive issue that challenge established notions of family life and a defined gender order, parenthood, and the rights of individuals, including children. It is in the area of child contact, in the context of domestic violence, that these contradictions are exposed more than any other by a growing body of research, in spite of significant policy and legal developments in recent years. Despite this increased knowledge in relation to the general population, child contact issues for black and minority ethnic (BME) women and children remain unknown and are assumed to be similar to those of the general population. Currently, there is no research which has directly explored the ways in which ethnicity, domestic violence and child contact may intersect and differently affect BME women and children’s experiences. AIMS OF THE RESEARCH Devised as a qualitative study, this research was aimed at addressing the existing gap in our knowledge about contact issues where there has been domestic violence as they are experienced by two groups of women and children – South Asian and African-Caribbean. It was intended to nuance and inform the ongoing debate about this contested area of policy and law and to ultimately promote the safety of women and children by raising issues that can help to increase the understanding and practice of the numerous professionals involved in this area. The decision to focus on these two groups was made because of repeated concerns, expressed by practitioners supporting them, about the serious issues encountered by women and children in relation to contact with their ex-partners and families, on the one hand, and their treatment by relevant professionals, on the other. Although it was not the intention to provide detailed comparisons, a decision was made to focus on two parts of the country with a high proportion of these two groups to capture possible differences in professional practice and issues faced by women and children. In exploring the experiences of post-separation child contact among South Asian and African-Caribbean women and children, the aims of the research were to: • Develop further understanding of the range of issues faced by women and children in relation to child contact in the context of domestic violence and post-separation violence. • Identify the services being accessed by and available to women and children and to explore how these services were responding to and experienced by them, including their experiences of assessments, contact processes, and actual contact arrangements. • Ascertain experiences of and the kinds of support required by women and children in such situations. • Make recommendations for policy and practice. 7 Domestic Violence, Child Contact and Post-Separation Violence Among the many questions the research sought to answer were: What are the particular issues and experiences of South Asian and African-Caribbean women and children of post-separation contact arrangements? What are the differences and similarities with the general population? What role does child contact play in the post-separation violence experiences of women and children? What attention is given to issues of safety and protection and to ethnicity and their culturally specific locations? What gaps have women and children experienced in policy, legislation and available services? What are their needs and what service responses are required by women and children? METHODOLOGY Since an in-depth exploration of women and children’s experiences and professional responses was aimed at, a qualitative methodology was adopted for the research. It incorporated women and children accessing a wide range of service settings, including domestic violence services (refuges and floating support), Cafcass, contact centres and other community based services.