Mothers Want to Work Less

The Department for Children, Schools and Families have commissioned another study by the National Centre for Social Research providing detailed information about mothers' experiences of, and attitudes towards working.

64% of mothers are in employment with more than a quarter working full-time but according The Scotsman most women want to work less or quit their job to look after children. 65 % say they have to work because they need the money.

Somewhere else it was reported that the research found women with partners work more than single mothers. That doesn't surprise me if they are doing the majority of child care on their own.

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Public Petitions Blog

New social media has been introduced by the Public Petitions Committee at the Scottish Parliament, as part of the petitions process. The public petitions process is a key part of the Scottish Parliament's commitment to participation, openness and accessibility. It allows individuals, community groups and organisations to raise issues of concern with the Parliament and now petitioners will be able to provide videos and photos about their petitions as part of the committee’s new blog page.

Past petitions include;

PE589 Mr George McAulay, on behalf of the UK Men's Movement.

Petition calling for the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to recognise Parental Alienation Syndrome and to develop early intervention strategies to prevent parental alienation.


PE624 Ms Ann Mallaby, on behalf of the Women's Land Reform Group

Petition calling for the Scottish Parliament to take the necessary steps to introduce new legislation into matrimonial law to address the alleged violation of women's land rights and farm business in cases of divorce.


PE944 Gary Strachan

Petition calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to (a) investigate why there is no presumption of equal access/residence for children with both parents after separation in Scottish law; (b) investigate bias against fathers as equal parents in the Scottish Court System; (c) investigate why contact orders are not enforced and (d) investigate why parental responsibilities and rights are ignored by the medical, welfare and governmental institutions to the detriment of children


PE997 Peter Cox, on behalf of the Mothers for Justice Campaign

Petition calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to provide greater protection to the children and partners of abusive parents by introducing legislation to ensure that (a) where an allegation of abuse has been made against a parent, access rights are suspended pending a full investigation; (b) all previous convictions of an abusive parent are taken into account before access rights are granted; (c) all access hearings are held in open court; and (d) all sheriffs who deal with child custody cases are given appropriate training.


PE1051 Jimmy Deuchars, on behalf of Grandparents Apart Self Help Group Scotland

Petition calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Executive to make the Charter for Grandchildren legally binding ensuring that the rights of children are recognised by all public agencies and families, and enforced by law.


PE1247 Stewart Mackenzie

Open petition calling on the Scottish Parliament to urge the Scottish Government to introduce a McKenzie Friend facility in Scottish courts as a matter of urgency. (See this earlier post)

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Relationships Scotland

It is over a year now since Relate Scotland and Family Mediation Scotland merged to become Relationships Scotland so I thought it would be interesting to have a look at their website to see what services are now on offer. Apart from Relationship Counselling and Family Mediation, Relationships Scotland currently supports a variety of other family support services: Child Contact Centres, Groups for adults and Groups for children.

Child Contact Centres offer supervision at the venue, supporting the exchange of the child from one parent to the other and supporting the contact when necessary. Alternatively Child Contact Centres may be used as a venue to “pick up” and “drop off” children for contact.


Family mediation services offer support groups for adults. These may be in the form of a series of workshops exploring the emotional and practical difficulties of divorce and separation. These groups are called Surviving the Break Up. Also on offer are a one off, 3 hour parent education workshop called Parenting Apart where parents can find out how best to support their children through separation – covering the emotional process of separation, children’s different needs at different stages, and what children need to hear.

Groups for children in which they are supported to express their thoughts and feelings in a safe environment re run by family mediation services. They meet with other children experiencing their parents divorce or separation and they are able to support one another through that. In some services these groups are called Time to Talk
Some local services provide a children and young persons’ counselling service to give children and young people time to explore their thoughts and feelings about changes they may be experiencing in their life due to parental separation, divorce or moving into a step-family situation.

Not all the services are available in all locations, unfortunately, but there is a useful search facility for finding specific services offered at different locations.

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Dads' Space/Mums' Space

The domestic violence association Respect,recently launched a virtual child contact centre. The service is not just for those where there are risks, it may also be used to to enhance existing contact or when parents live a distance apart or when work commitments make contact difficult. There are two sites, Dads' Space 1-2-1 and Mum's Space 1-2-1 and they allow separated parents and children to share photos, email, chat, send gifts and cards, and play games online.

At the National Family Picnic taking place in Regents Park on 25th May awards, consisting of Family of the Year (in association with National Family Week), Mum of the Year (in association Mumsnet) and Dad of the Year (in association with Dads-Space), are to be presented. Gordon Brown has recorded this message of support.



At the moment the service only works through a referrals process and for more information about the service , or to make a referral, you can write to the Dads’ Space 1-2-1 Team at: info@dads-space.org

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Blog Round Up 4

There are only a handful of Scottish blawgs and I still haven't come across a family law one (Jonathan Mitchell QC does the occasional excellent post about family law) which I think is a great shame because blogging is a great way of engaging with the public and correcting any misconceptions. To spur lawyers on there is Charon QC's post The Bar Urged To Use The Internet Thingy to Market Themselves..... Shock Horror


Lucy Reed of Pink Tape makes valid points about the disadvantages of using an online divorce service here. Firstly, the fastest ‘UK’s best selling managed divorce service’ is causing a logjam and therefore the court local to them is perhaps no longer the 'UK's fastest divorce court.' Secondly, someone who is someway down the separation route might discover they need to travel a great distance to resolve a dispute about children at the court local to the online divorce service where the divorce petition is pending.


John Bolch of Family Lore asks is Tagging:A Good Thing? after the case of Re A Minor (Family Proceedings: Electronic Tagging) [2009] EWHC 710 (Fam), when the mother, who had twice wrongfully removed the child from the jurisdiction, agreed to be electronically tagged whilst the child was with her.


Marilyn Stowe's post about a mother denied all access to her children by the court provoked some interesting reaction. According to The Times the woman was judged to be too indulgent a parent an banned from seeing her children for three years. Marilyn raised concerns about whether the court should have taken such action and John Bolch played the Devil's Advocate asking how is the court to deal with a parent causing children to suffer serious emotional harm? Of particular interest are the informed, objective comments on Marilyn's blog from those professionals involved with intervening in difficult contact cases advocating a 'whole host of interventions that might be attempted before drastic measures are taken.'

Rarely in my experience do these cases boil down just to the behaviour of one parent. We really need to more in terms of providing education and support to families going through break down at an early stage to give people coping strategies and prevent as many of these cases as possible in the first place.


Judith Middleton of Judith's Divorce Blog has an excellent topical story about listing income needs.

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Flexible Working for Parents Extended to Millions

The right to ask employers for flexible work arrangements will be extended to parents of children aged 16 from today. The Government said the move was aimed at helping families balance their work and home lives. Previously the right only applied to those with children up to age six. Where a child is disabled, the age limit remains at 18.

Harriet Harman, Minister for Women and Eqality, said: "Children don't stop needing their parents' time when they reach their sixth birthday. "We have already built a strong foundation of support for families through the right for parents with children under six to request flexible work. But, as any parent knows, older children going through the teenage years need just as much support and guidance."
Full story Source The Herald 6/4/09

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The Mum Song

Last week I posted a sentimental video I'm Watching You - Dad so this week I'm posting an unsentimental video with a full apology to Gioachino Rossini.

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Deadbeat Dads v Obstructive Mums

A new study, Problematic contact after separation and divorce? (pdf), from Gingerbread and the University of Oxford challenges the perception that single parents commonly obstruct contact between children and their other parent. However, it reveals the extent to which parents – most of whom do not involve the family courts in their disputes - struggle with contact issues, and want more help. No single ingredient was held responsible for making contact work or not work. It was the attitudes, actions and interactions of all family members that were determinative. Making contact work required the commitment of both adults and children.

The survey of 559 separated parents found;

Most children do have contact with their ‘non-resident’ parent (71% according to resident parents, 85% according to non-resident parents). Parents (both resident and non-resident) often want there to be more contact.

But few families find contact straightforward: even where the child does see their other parent, around 7 in 10 parents report problems since the separation (71% of resident and 68% of non-resident parents).

A minority of non-resident parents (most of whom are fathers) said their contact had been stopped (13% said it had happened quite a lot). The resident parents (generally mothers) who had stopped contact often said this was because of a safety concern (36%) or because of the child’s feelings about contact (29%).

Many resident parents had been worried at some time about the quality of the other parent’s care during contact visits (24% had worries about some aspect of care and 11% had concerns about serious welfare issues such as substance abuse). A similar level of concern about the resident parent’s care was reported by non-resident parents – 23% had worries and 9% had concerns about serious issues).

The vast majority of separated parents (more than 90%) do not go to court over contact. The research shows clearly that these families are not problem-free – although many of them are managing most of the time, often with the help of family, parents wanted more support.

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Divorce Income Changes

Both The Observer and The Independent report new research, Marital splits and income changes over the longer term, carried out by Professor Stephen Jenkins, a director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and chair of the Council of the International Association for Research on Income and Wealth today. Stephen Jenkins combined data from 14 different British Household Panel Surveys over 1991 to 2004 with the findings from five European surveys.

The study confirmed previous research that there are large falls in income in the year after a marital split for separating women and children, but not for separating men. Over a six year period 1998–2004 after splitting the immediate large fall incomes for separating wives did recover but not to their previous levels. Women who did not have a job in any of the five years after a marital split, or who did not find a new partner fared the worse. Stephen Jenkins pointed out the differences were not influenced so much a gender but more to do with the parenting differences of fathers and mothers.

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