Children and Their Families

Andrew Bainham is a Fellow of Christ's College,Cambridge and Reader in Family Law and Policy at the University of Cambridge. Bridget Lindley is a solicitor and family mediator and was a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge. Martin Richards is Emeritus Professor of Family Research at the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. Liz Trinder is a Reader in Family Studies at the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at Newscastle University.

• 1.Introduction - Liz Trinder Section 1: Children and their Families 2.Contact and Children's Perspectives on Parental Relationships - Judy Dunn 3.Making and Breaking Relationships: Children and their Families - Claire Hughes 4.Children's Contact with Relatives - Jan Pryor Section 2: The Law and its Limits 5. Contact as a Right and Obligation - Andrew Bainham 6.Connecting Contact: Contact in a Private Law Context - Jonathan Herring 7.Supporting Cross-Household Parenting: Ideas about 'the family',Policy Formation and Service Development across Jurisdictions - Mavis Maclean and Katrin Mueller-Johnson 8.Squaring the Circle - the Social, Legal and Welfare Organisation of Contact - Adrian James Section 3: Mothers, Fathers and Children 9. Contact: Mothers, Welfare and Rights - Shelley Day Sclater and Felicity Kaganas 10. The Real Love that Dare Not Speak its Name - Bob Geldof 11.Father after Divorce - Bob Simpson, Julie Jessop and Peter McCarthy Section 4: The Hand of the State 12.Contact for Children Subject to State Intervention - Jo Miles and Bridget Lindley 13.Contact and the Adoption Reform - John Eekelaar 14.Adoption and Contact: A Research Review - Elspeth Neil Section 5: Challenging Contact 15.Assisted Reproduction and Parental Relationships - Martin Richards 16.Contact in Containment - Belinda Brooks-Gordon 17.Making Contact Work in International Cases: Promoting Contact Whilst Preventing International Parental Child Abduction - Donna Smith 18.Disputed Contact Cases in the Courts - Ann Buchanan and Joan Hunt 19.Working and Not Working Contact after Divorce - Liz Trinder

...valuable insights on the law, government policy, and sociological research, as well as a topical consumer critique of the family law system. Helen Rhoades, The University of Melbourne International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family April 2005 ...essential reading for parents and professionals, as it explores the meaning and significance of parent-child relationships after family breakdown An informative and inspirational book for all who care about the well-being of this nation's children. David Cannon Shared Parenting Information Group October 2003 This collection of essays offers valuable insights into different aspects of contact to all those working with families experiencing separation. ChildRIGHT March 2004 The major benefit of this book for me was to highlight the tensions within the different disciplinary perspectives that both explain and complicate the problematic area of continuing contact with children in families that, for whatever reason, become disrupted. The book contains a wealth of data, research studies, literature, ideas and arguments that should be valuable to practitioners as well as academics seeking to engage with the current issues. Fiona Raitt Scolag Legal Journal June 2004 The issue of contact is explored in depth from a variety of perspectives, and results in an informative and compelling read... Family court advisers across the board are likely to find topics and themes that will inform and potentially enhance their professional skills, knowledge and practice. It is the sort of operational and professional issue that CAFCASS, as a social work agency, ought to think long and hard about. All CAFCASS offices should have access to a copy of this book. Jim Lawson, Family Court Adviser Family Court Journal August 2004 ...this collection provides a good review of the social, legal and psychological research that demonstrates the complicated issues faced by the law, by policy-makers and particularly by family members as they come to define and express their children's welfare in the context of contact. Alison Diduck, University College London The British Journal of Sociology May 2005