Making contact : how parents and children negotiate and experience contact after divorce

The practice of contact is difficult for families and many children lose contact with their absent parent.

There is widespread debate about contact, and concerns about the effectiveness of interventions to make it work.

However, little is known about what gives rise to disputes about contact and why contact breaks down, and even less about how some families manage to make workable contact arrangements without legal intervention."Making contact" is based on a study that examined how adults and children negotiate contact, how contact is experienced and what factors or issues shape contact.

Individuals from 61 families took part in the study.

Half of the families had entirely privately orderedcontact arrangements, with the remainder having varying degrees of involvement with lawyers and the courts.

The authors considered which factors made contact work or not work.

They identified different types of contact arrangement within three umbrella groupings: consensual committed contact, faltering contact or conflicted contact.

The authors questioned why contact varies, and considered the effects of different factors, including challenges, mediators and time.

Making contact also discusses implications of the study for policy-makers, practitioners and parents.The report highlights that reliance on court orders is not enough, or even necessarily helpful in enhancing the quality of relationships that is critical to making contact work.

A wider range of services, including therapeutic interventions, should be developed that go beyond imposing an outcome without providing a solution to conflict.