Guidance Notes

We have published a series of Guidance Notes on topics which people seem to struggle with. We hope they make things a little clearer.

Parenting at a distance – a correct use of section 20

Use of section 20 Children Act 1989 for the voluntary accommodation of children has long been subject to controversy. Critcisms of practice have ranged from alleged coercion of parents into agreeing and lack of fully informed consent, through to allowing children to...

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Remote Court Hearings Guidance Note

This short guide explains what remote court hearings are and how they will work. It answers some common queries that users may have. We hope that it will be useful for parents involved in family court cases about their children - or for anyone else involved in family...

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Common Law Marriage Guidance Note

We have produced a guidance note about the myth of common law marriage and the rights of people who live together as a couple, but who aren't married or in civil partnerships. You can view or download the guidance note here. This is v2 (March 2019).

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Domestic Abuse Guidance Note

We have produced a guidance note to explain how family courts deal with cases where there are allegations of domestic abuse. You can view or download the guidance note here. This is v2 (December 2018) which is very slightly modified since v1 in November 2018....

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Media Guide

We have produced a short guide for journalists and bloggers, explaining what the rules are around reporting family court proceedings. See Media Page. This page is in need of some updating, but we've decided to await the outcome of The President's Transparency Review...

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Other Resources

Included in this list are sites that we think are generally reliable and balanced sources of information about family law in England & Wales. We can’t guarantee they will get everything right all of the time but we think they may be useful to people looking for more information.
Reporting Pilot Expansion – training video for lawyers

Reporting Pilot Expansion – training video for lawyers

On Monday 29 Jan the (children) Reporting Pilot expanded to a whole host of new courts across England and Wales, and a new Financial Remedy Reporting Pilot began. Overall this will vastly increase the potential for reporters to observe and write about the work of the...

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Hague Mothers

Hague Mothers

'A good law gone bad' is how the Hague Convention on International Abduction was described in a session organised by the Filia Hague Mothers project at an international feminist conference held in Cardiff over the weekend. The Convention was drafted in 1980 and...

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Defining expertise

Defining expertise

There has been a lot of discussion recently about experts in the family court, prompted partly as a result of the recent publication of a 'memorandum' on the topic by the President of the Family Division, and partly as a result of some recent press coverage relating...

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Remote Court Hearings Guidance Note

Remote Court Hearings Guidance Note

This short guide explains what remote court hearings are and how they will work. It answers some common queries that users may have. We hope that it will be useful for parents involved in family court cases about their children - or for anyone else involved in family...

read more

TP Launches information leaflet about legal blogging

Now that the legal blogging pilot has been extended in duration we thought it would be helpful to produce a short information leaflet that can be provided to people whose cases a legal blogger wants to observe. We hope that the information will give both litigants and...

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Joint Research : CAFCASS and Women’s Aid

CAFCASS and Women's Aid have collaborated on research about allegations of domestic abuse in child contact cases. We published a guest post by psychologist Sue Whitcombe on this here : Looking beyond the headlines: domestic abuse allegations in family proceedings. We...

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Young Parents Advice

The Family Rights Group have developed a website to support young parents whose children are deemed 'at risk', in care or adopted. The site aims to share legal and practical information to help more young mothers and fathers and young parents-to-be to keep their...

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Attachment

Attachment is a technical psychological term with a specific meaning, but it is used an awful lot in care proceedings and other cases about children, including by people who are not psychologists. It doesn't help that attachment has a meaning in everyday language,...

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Children Law for dummies!

Andrew Pack, Transparency Project member, has written some really useful basic explanations of the law relating to family law (children) - primarily for social workers, but also helpful or any other non-lawyer wanting an accessible explanation. Law for social workers...

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Reporting restrictions in the criminal courts

Guidelines on Reporting Restrictions in the Criminal Courts issued jointly by the Judiciary, the News Media Association, the Society of Editors and the Medial Lawyers Association have now been revised, as of May 2016. You can download the full PDF here. We have now...

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Media Wise – for better journalism

The MediaWise Trust – formerly PressWise – exists to: provide free, confidential advice and assistance for members of the public affected by inaccurate, intrusive, or sensational media coverage; deliver use-of-the-media training for the voluntary sector and members of...

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Press Reporting of Care Proceedings

Transparency Project members Lucy Reed and Louise Tickle wrote an article on this topic for Family Law Journal in January. Jordans have kindly given permission for that article to be republished here. If you would like to read the article please click here to download...

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