Understanding Cafcass: Domestic Abuse Assessment and Tools

Philip Kedge: Retired Police Chief Inspector
Director of the Network.

Director Philip Kedge
Retired Police Chief Inspector
McKenzie Friend since 2012

Practice Directions 12 J
The purpose of this Practice Direction is to set out what the Family Court or the High Court is required to do in any case in which it is alleged or admitted, or there is other reason to believe, that the child or a party has experienced domestic abuse perpetrated by another party or that there is a risk of such abuse.

Dr Barnados DV Risk Identification Matrix
Barnardo's Domestic Violence Risk Identification Matrix – Assessing the risks to children from male to female domestic violence. The tool enables practitioners to assess the level of risks to children from male and female domestic abuse.

Safe Contact Indicator
The tool was derived from tools by Sturge and Glaser, STURGE, C. & GLASER, D. (2000) Contact and Domestic Violence – The Experts’ Court Report. Family Law 615 (September) and developed by the National Improvement Team at Cafcass

DAPP
The Domestic Abuse Perpetrator Programme (DAPP) aims to help people who have been abusive towards their partners or ex-partners to change their behaviour and develop respectful, non-abusive relationships. This tool helps determine if a course may be appropriate.

Situational Couple Violence
Where a pattern of coercive control is absent, behaviours may be evident either as an incident or as a relational pattern. This helps identify such situations.
Where a pattern of coercive control is absent, behaviours may be evident either as an incident or as a relational pattern. This helps identify such situations.

Distinquishing Domestic Abuse and Harmful Conflict

Domestic abuse and harmful conflict are distinct from one another and require different assessment/ intervention techniques. This tool is designed to be used early in the life of a case to assist Family Court Advisers (FCAs) in deciding which will be of most assistance in their assessment.

Domestic Abuse: Impact on Children

At the heart of every court report concerning issues of child contact should be the child’s experience. Understanding the complexity of cases involving domestic abuse helps practitioners focus on the impact it can have on children, who should be considered equally as the victim. When living with domestic abuse and the trauma it can cause, children will be affected in different ways.

[lostincredulity]

The maddest moment in my journey was when a group of magistrates said no to any kind of contact despite me having a senior social worker vouching for me and saying she would oversee contact and me actually working with vulnerable children in my profession. That’s PD12J for you. All because of 11th hour rape allegations which were later withdrawn as ex was given the heads up that it would have gone badly for her.

The only solice I have is that our daughter will likely be 50/50 and the way her mum has behaved won’t reconcile with her allegations. Hopefully she will never find out that happened including making me unemployed as I wouldn’t want my daughter to think she had a mum like that.

[barrysez]

Hi I have tried to go on to the website but doesn’t work

[julz]

This wasn't my experience with carcass they absolutely took the mums feelings into consideration...they are corrupt and you can't even make complaints about them

[elpadreorgulloso]

Hi. The links to further information on your site don't appear to work.

[GazzaDACEY]

This isn't even a video it claims to be it's a sale pitch for mckenzie not once have you explained the tools or how they work, CAFFCAS are not fit for purpose and apply blind reasoning to things that they shouldn't