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 Children
and Divorce > Court Procedures
Court procedure if you apply for a parental
responsibility order, residence or contact order, prohibited steps
order or specific issue order varies a bit from locality to locality
because of resources.
Typically though if you make an application to
the Court for one of these Orders then either before or at the first
hearing both parents are invited to attend a short meeting with a
CAFCASS officer (Children and Families Court Advisory Service, a
probation worker or children’s guardian who is experienced in
dealing with children disputes) to see if there are any areas of
agreement.
At the first hearing, the District Judge will ask
if there is any agreement and identify the issues in dispute such as
child custody disputes or the
visitation rights fathers/mothers. A
CAFCASS officer is sometimes present during the hearing. The
hearing is usually quite short, and more often than not the parents
do not speak to the District Judge.
If there is no agreement, the District
Judge may ask CAFCASS to prepare a detailed report. This can take
anything between 12 and 16 weeks, and because of this delay, it is
not uncommon to try and come to some sort of “interim” agreement.
CAFCASS will interview both parents, speak to
school, may observe contact and may speak to extended family members
before reporting back to the Court in writing. Depending upon the
ages of your children the CAFCASS officer may speak to them alone.
Both parents see a copy of the CAFCASS report which will recommend a
course of action to the Court.
There will be a further short Court hearing. Many
cases end at this point when both parents have read the CAFCASS
recommendation, or something is tried out for a while, and then
reviewed. Final Orders are not necessarily made by the Court.
If a parent will not agree to follow the
recommendation of a CAFCASS officer a final hearing takes place when
the Court hears evidence from the parents and witnesses and makes an
Order.
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