The Thirty-Minute Assessment

A professional body is responsible for advising family courts on what's in the best interests of children. Its officers interview parents and children, then produce reports that judges rely on heavily — often more than anything the parents themselves say. This piece is about what happens when that body doesn't have the time or resources to do its job properly — and what the consequences can look like for a father.

Cafcass — the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service — plays a central role in contested family proceedings across England and Wales. In principle, an independent body focused solely on children's welfare should be a useful check on the competing claims of two parents in conflict. In practice, Cafcass is severely under-resourced. Officers carry caseloads that don't allow for thorough, careful work. Waiting times are long. Quality varies significantly between officers. And there are widespread concerns, including from within the family justice system itself, about practices that fall short of what complex cases require.

I want to be fair. There are good Cafcass officers doing difficult work under impossible pressure. But my own experience was not one of them.

What happened in my case

The moment I want to describe came toward the end of a second set of family court proceedings. I had gone back to court to apply for a variation — to increase contact with my children, having done work the court had previously recommended. Over the preceding year, my children had initiated significantly more contact with me of their own accord. I had what I believed was clear evidence that they wanted our relationship to develop. I went into the proceedings with that evidence and with some hope.

The Cafcass officer assigned to the case had other ideas.

Her recommendation, when it arrived, was not for increased contact. It was for contact to be reduced further. At the time, I was already limited to one letter a month to my children — a thin thread, but a thread. Her recommendation was to cut that to one letter every six months. Two letters a year. That was what she was proposing, on the basis of her assessment, as being in the best interests of my sons.

I don't have the words to fully describe what it was like to read that. I had gone into proceedings with evidence of a relationship wanting to grow. I came out facing the prospect of it being reduced to almost nothing. We were eventually able to persuade things not to go quite that far. But the fact that this was the starting position — the recommendation of a professional whose word the court was expected to treat seriously — stayed with me.

The thirty minutes

During the proceedings, I had cause to cross-examine the Cafcass officer. I asked her how long she had spent with each of my children in reaching her assessment of their wishes and feelings, and the basis for her recommendations.

Thirty minutes. With each child.

I want to sit with that for a moment, because I think it's easy to read past it.

Thirty minutes with a ten year old and thirty minutes with an eight year old — children whose parents had been in contested legal proceedings for years, whose living arrangements had been dramatically altered, whose relationship with one parent had been progressively restricted. Thirty minutes each to assess their wishes and feelings. Thirty minutes to form the basis of a professional recommendation that, had it been accepted in full, would have reduced their father's contact to two letters a year.

I raised the question in cross-examination as calmly as I could. I asked whether thirty minutes was sufficient to make the kind of assessment she had made. She maintained that it was. The court received her report with the weight that Cafcass reports typically carry.

The influence question

One of the central issues in the case was whether my children's expressed views were genuinely their own or had been shaped by the environment they were living in. I put it to the Cafcass officer that it was difficult to imagine how children of that age could not be influenced by the parent they lived with — not as an allegation of deliberate coaching, but as a simple observation about how children develop and absorb the attitudes of the adults around them. An eight year old and a ten year old do not form their views in isolation.

The officer was not willing to engage with that point. She maintained her position with confidence. Thirty minutes had been enough.

What this tells us about the system

I have criticism of the individual officer involved in my case. Her manner toward me was hostile from the outset, her recommendation was extreme, and she maintained a level of confidence in that recommendation that I found impossible to reconcile with the basis on which it had been formed.

But this is bigger than one officer. Cafcass is being asked to do serious, consequential work — work that affects whether fathers see their children, how often, in what form — with resources that are not adequate for the task. Officers are overloaded. Thirty minutes with a child may not be unusual. According to the government's own data on family court backlogs, cases are taking longer and professional resource is thinner than ever. And yet the reports those assessments produce carry significant authority in court.

Thirty minutes. To make a call that could have reduced a father's contact with his sons to two letters a year.

This is something I think the general public should know about. There is a body, set up with the genuine and important purpose of protecting children's welfare, that is so under-resourced that it is making recommendations — recommendations that fundamentally alter the relationship between a parent and their children — on the basis of half an hour with a child. And presenting those recommendations in court with professional confidence.

Children and their parents — including fathers who have done nothing wrong — pay the price. This connects directly to one of SoulForge Community's core goals: to evaluate and challenge policies in the family law system where structural failings cause injustice. You can read more about that at soulforge.org.uk/goals.

What you can do

Stay professional, stay calm, stay warm in all Cafcass interactions — however difficult that may be. Make detailed contemporaneous notes after every interaction. Write down what was asked, what you said, how the conversation felt. Reports don't always reflect conversations as they happened, and your own record matters.

Be aware that warmth in the room doesn't predict fairness in the report. If a report contains specific factual inaccuracies, challenge them through the proper procedure — a written response identifying specific errors of fact, submitted to the court. Not an emotional rejection of the whole report. Just precise, evidenced corrections.

For more guidance on preparing your case and working with professionals, see soulforge.org.uk/resources-prepare-case and soulforge.org.uk/resources-solicitors-professionals.

• If this has resonated, find more at soulforge.org.uk — resources, honest guidance, and a community of men who understand.

John B - a member of SoulForge Community. He shares his experience here. Some details have been changed to protect his identity.