How CAFCASS assess parental alienation
As part of their Child Impact Assessment Framework (CIAF), CAFCASS have guidance on how to assess families where there is thought to be parental alienation and how they should work with children in such cases.
The links in this blog will show you exactly what the Family Court Adviser (FCA) will use to assess or analyse your family and you can see exactly what CAFCASS thinks is useful. FCAs are expected to follow these processes although they do have discretion in how they conduct their assessments.
Assessing child refusal/resistance
When a child is resisting or refusing to spend time with a parent/carer, there may be a number of causes. The CAFCASS guide describes the range of potential causes and how they should explore the impact on the child of adult behaviours. It also provides guidance on assessing children’s wishes and feelings and on making recommendations to court.
Link to the CAFCASS guide to ‘Assessing children’s resistance and refusal to spend time with a parent’
| CAFCASS Resource | How it’s used | |
| Assessing children’s and young people’s wishes and feelings | This guidance describes how FCAs should listen to and analyse what children say about their wishes and feelings. | |
| Typical behaviours exhibited where alienation may be a factor | This helps FCAs in their analysis of the information from their interviews with parents and children and from others such as school, police or Local Authority. | |
| Recommendations for the child when alienation is a factor | This is advice about what FCAs should recommend in cases where the child is being harmed by alienating behaviour. | |
| Children’s beliefs about parental divorce | This is used to help FCAs understand children’s beliefs about their parents’ divorce. | |
How CAFCASS work with children when there is parental alienation
Listed below, with links, are all the forms used by CAFCASS when they work with children to assess the impact of parental alienation. Use these links to see exactly what your child will be asked and how they will be assessed.
Assessment of older children
- My needs wishes and feelings summary for older children
- About me for older children
- Important things that have happened to me for older children
- Things that make me feel safe for older children
- My thoughts for older children
- What I want to happen next for older children
- My needs option 1 for older children
- My needs option 2 for older children
- Feelings about my future option 1 for older children
- Feelings about my future option 2 for older children
- My plan for older children
- Express yourself for older children
- What I want to say for older children
- Factsheet for older children
Assessment of younger children
- My needs wishes and feelings summary for younger children
- About me for younger children
- Important things that have happened to me for younger children
- Things that make me feel safe for younger children
- What I need now for younger children
- My needs for younger children
- How I feel about my future for younger children
- My plan for younger children
- Express yourself for younger children
- What I want to say for younger children
- Factsheet for younger children
Child impact tool
CAFCASS use what they call the ‘child impact tool’ to help FCAs gradually build up to talking with children about potentially more distressing aspects of the child’s life. It can be disclosed to the court as a record of what the child has said. The practitioner guidance provides information about how this tool should be used.