What Can I Do If My Ex Stops Me Seeing My Child?

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) is an organisation that provides advice and support to separated parents.

As part of the support offered, you can download a template, 'Parenting Plan' from their website.

A parenting plan is a written agreement between both parties to govern the co-parenting of your child.

The plan helps to provide stability for the child and creates a clear focus on the child's needs.

The existence of a parenting plan may help both parties adhere to its contents and allow both parents to suggest relevant or necessary inclusions.

If contact agreements fall through, the Family courts usually expect parties to have attempted to follow a parenting plan first, so it is always worth trying this option.  

A child arrangement order (CAO) is an order that regulates the arrangements for a child that relate to any of the following: 

• With whom the child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact
• When the child is to live, spend time or otherwise have contact with any person

The CAO will regulate the contact arrangements and determine, for example, who the child will live with or whether the child lives primarily with one parent but will see the other parent for X amount of time per week.

The other parent will be named in the order, and the parent with whom the child lives must allow the child to visit, stay, or have contact with the other named parent under the CAO.

Contact means the time that a child spends with an adult. There are several ways that contact may take place:

• Direct contact, e.g. a few hours on certain days (especially for babies/younger children)
• Overnight staying contact
• Supervised contact, e.g. by a 3rd party or at a contact centre, as mentioned above
• Indirect contact, e.g. video calls, letters, or emails

In deciding whether to make an order, the court's paramount consideration is the child's welfare.

Unless the contrary is shown, the court must presume that each parent's involvement (of some direct or indirect kind but not any particular division of the child's time) in the child's life will further the child's welfare. 

The CAO will continue until the child is 16 or, in exceptional circumstances, until 18.

Regardless of whether you spend time with your child, you will still have an obligation to support them.

The payment is a contribution to the expenses the resident parent incurs to look after the child while the child is in their care, such as food, clothing, activities, etc.

Child maintenance is assessed based on a percentage of the non-resident parent's gross annual income, depending on the number of children they must support and whether the child has any overnight stays.

You can calculate how much child maintenance you may be expected to pay using the online child maintenance calculator.

If you cannot agree on the amount of child maintenance to pay between yourselves, either party can apply to the Child Maintenance Service to calculate the exact maintenance to be paid.