Supervised, Supported and Indirect Contact Orders: Research Findings

Child contact with non-resident parents has become a key issuein family law and policy. Within the substantial and growingbody of research into how legal systems deal with child contactdisputes, there is little empirical data on the use courts makeof orders for supervised, supported or indirect contact. Thisarticle presents empirical research findings focusing on theuse of these sorts of contact orders in England and Wales. Theresearch involved an examination of 343 court records, 60 follow-upinterviews with parents and ten interviews with judges responsiblefor making the orders. Use of orders for supervised or supportedcontact was relatively common as a short-term measure, whileorders for indirect contact were made only as a matter of lastresort. On the basis of the post-court developments in contactwithin the families in the sample and the parents' largely negativeexperiences of the court system, we conclude that future policydevelopments ought to focus on finding alternatives to court,which would aim to provide assistance rather than adjudicationto the families in dispute.