With Covid-19 lockdown restrictions being lifted it can be harder to know where you stand when it comes to navigating co-parenting agreements. As a result, our family law team is helping a lot more separated couples than normal to honour parental responsibility orders.
Despite clear guidance from the Law Society, in extraordinary times, we know that it can be unclear how requirements can be met. Parents that are self-isolating or who are key workers may be finding it challenging to maintain relationships but it’s important to know there’s help available.
If you need to know where you stand with a parental responsibility order, contact us and we may be able to help.
Contact us now for child law advice
What the guidance means
From what we are seeing, most parents are working hard to honour agreements and are acting in the best interests of their children’s physical and mental wellbeing. But many are unsure how their family circumstances affect the degree to which children should move between households. If that sounds like a familiar challenge, then it’s probably time to get a bit of advice.
Here are some tips.
- Parents should maintain arrangements for children, so long as it is safe to do so.
- A child should not go to a home where people are self-isolating or showing symptoms of Covid-19.
- Social distancing should not be used as a reason to stop contact from taking place.
- Making sure that children can have contact with both parents, indirectly as well as directly, is as important as ever.
We know that no two families are the same, so, where disputes arise our team uses a tried and tested ‘resolution-based approach’ that is centred on the child but that works to find a stable and clear solution for everyone involved.
When physical barriers make contact challenging
Even before the current restrictions some parents were not able to physically see their children on a regular basis because they lived too far apart. Right now many contact centres that were used for supervised contact are closed.
Despite these challenges, maintaining some form of contact is just as important as ever. If you find yourself in a situation like this, we can help you set up indirect contact during the pandemic. Be it Facetime, Skype, or a telephone call, it’s important for children to know that their parents are still in their lives during what is a confusing and strange time.
In Summary (as always) It’s Children First
At the end of the day it’s all about the children. The guidance is clear, but we know that any number of unique variables can quickly make a situation difficult. At that point a little third party assistance goes a long way to making everyone’s life easier, and don’t we all need a bit of that kind of help right now.
If you’ve got questions, my team are here to listen and help you get a handle on where you stand. You can call us now on 0151 625 9364.
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