Shared Parenting Information Group (SPIG) UK
- promoting responsible shared parenting after separation and divorce -
Reform of UK support for families
In November 1998, the UK Home Secretary issued a consultation paper: Supporting Families.
Click here for the full text in Adobe format (472K)
The paper stresses the importance of families and among other things proposes education programs for marriage, parenthood and also post divorce parenting.
The government's family policy is claimed to be based on three simple principles:
- Children must come first
- Children need stability
- Families raise children
The report concentrates on five areas where the government believes it can make a difference:
- ensuring all families have access to the advice and support they need
- improving family prosperity and reducing child poverty through the tax and benefit system
- making it easier for families to balance work and home
- strengthening marriage and reducing the risks of family breakdown
- tackling the more serious problems of family life, such as domestic violence, truancy and school-age pregnancy.
Contrary to press reports which claim that it proposes jailing parents who obstruct contact it, the report proposes education programs:
4.34 Education programmes might also be
introduced for couples who have already split up, if
one partner is frustrating the other in obtaining the
contact with their children which the courts have
decided is in their childrens best interests. In theory,
courts can fine or even send to prison those who
deliberately obstruct contact: but these remedies are
frequently ineffective, if not counterproductive, and
the courts use them only as a last resort. These
programmes, in contrast, would be positive and
constructive, showing how continuing contact with
both parents is normally in a childs best interests.
(Safeguards and exemptions would again be needed
in cases where violence was or had been an issue.)
[page 36]
Essential reading!
Contents
Foreword by the Home Secretary
Introduction
CHAPTER ONE: Better Services and Support for Parents
- A new National Family and Parenting Institute
- A national helpline for parents
- An enhanced role for health visitors
- Targeting areas of greatest need: the Sure Start programme
- Other initiatives to support families
- Support for future parents
- The wider family
- Consultation questions
CHAPTER TWO: Better Financial Support for Families
- Child Benefit
- Working Families Tax Credit
- Childcare tax credit within the Working Families Tax Credit
- The New Deal for Lone Parents
- Education Maintenance Allowance
- Modernising child support arrangements
CHAPTER THREE: Helping Families Balance Work and Home
- Family-friendly employee rights
- Promoting family-friendly employment practice
- Consultation questions
CHAPTER FOUR: Strengthening Marriage
- Support for marriage
- Supporting adult relationships
- Reducing conflict on relationship breakdown
- Consultation questions
CHAPTER FIVE: Better Support for Serious Family Problems
- Problems with childrens learning
- Youth offending
- Tackling teenage parenthood
- Domestic violence
- Consultation question
CHAPTER SIX: The Next Steps -Your Views
Consultation Questions
Summary
Related Government Publications
David Cannon
Last updated - 7 November 1998
SPIG Home Page