Exploring Cafcass’ role and the launch of ‘Planning Together for Children’

What is cafcass? 

Cafcass stands for ‘Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service.’ Its focus is the welfare and safety of children and young people involved in family proceedings. Although the service is independent of the courts and social services; its role is to work with children, young people and families and help to advise the courts on what they feel is in the best interests of the children and young people involved. 

Launch of ‘Planning Together for Children’ 

The negative effects that relationship and family breakdowns can have on children and young people is widely recognised, including deterioration to their mental health and wellbeing due to high levels of conflict and lack of communication in many cases. Ongoing court proceedings only add to the damaging and detrimental effects experienced by the child or young person. 

Launched on 3 April 2023, Planning Together for Children replaces the Separated Parents Information programme in private law proceedings. It has three stages; to include e-learning modules, group workshops for parents and inclusion of an online parenting plan. 

The resource focusses on assisting parents to prioritise their children’s needs during relationship breakdown and separation, with an emphasis on positive communication, and importance of parenting arrangements being agreed without the need of further court hearings. It aims to reduce the time families spend in the family court and reduce the number of families having to return to court for subsequent hearings. 

The attendance of Planning Together for Children can be ordered by the court or the parents can be referred to the resource by a Cafcass officer at any stage in proceedings, subject to consideration of the appropriate risk assessments, and attendance being deemed appropriate. 

Increase in Cafcass involvement 

Cafcass has reported since 1 April 2022, it has received 36,487 new private law children’s cases; involving 55,627 children. 

The service notes they have worked with 102,486 children in private law proceedings in 2021/22 compared with 82,818 in 2017/18, showing a significant increase of 23.7%. 

Approximately 2/3 of the children Cafcass work with each year are involved in private law proceedings. 

Resources available 

It is important that co-parents continue to promote a shared understanding of the child’s needs, two useful resources are detailed below: 

The ‘Parenting through Separation’ guide from Resolution , aims to promote the reduction of conflict between co-parents to ensure the relationship breakdown has as little impact as possible on the children involved. 

The Cafcass Parenting Plan used as part of the Planning Together for Children programme is available without the need of referral, on the Cafcass website. This is a written agreement worked out between co-parents and can include any agreements and actions that have been agreed to meet the children’s needs.