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What is known about the impact of parental separation on children and young people? And what can we do to help children fare best, post separation? Social Work consultant and Trauma Informed Consultancy Services trainer, Natalie Wyatt, shares what child care professionals need to know.
For those of us working in social care and related fields, we will be used to working with children experiencing the ‘sharp end’ of adverse childhood experiences – for example physical or sexual abuse. Often this work is supported with a raft of training, guidance and supervision.
Parental separation, however, is one form of ‘adversity’ that is given very little professional time or attention – despite there being upwards of 3.5 million children living in separated families up and down the country (Department for Work & Pensions 2024).
When I started out as a social worker some 16 years ago, court work concerning children who were experiencing parental separation was given lower priority and status than other types of court work, and was often allocated to newly qualified workers to ‘ease’ them in. However the children at the heart of these court cases rarely viewed their situation as easy, their anguish was plain to see.
The thing that was harming these children however, did not seem to be parental separation in and of itself (we know that children can and do thrive post-separation), rather it was the way that the separation was being played out between the adults and the degree to which anger and conflict were a feature. Literature at this time talked about ’entrenched conflict’ and ‘implacable hostility’; terms which although widely used, centred the adult behaviour rather than the impact on the child. Today, it is preferable and more child-centred to talk about ‘harmful conflict’.
There is now a reliable body of evidence that shows children experiencing harmful conflict in the context of divorce and separation often feel intense sadness and grief. They can feel anger and a sense of guilt. For those children experiencing particularly chronic and severe conflict we know that it can have a profoundly negative impact on a range of outcomes including physical, behavioural, cognitive, social and emotional outcomes (Early Intervention Foundation 2023).
The body of evidence for what works in terms of interventions and programmes to reduce harmful conflict and to improve child outcomes is less well established – but practice wisdom and my experience of working at the Child and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) tells me that restorative practice and systemic approaches can go some way in improving the co-parenting relationship, and in turn the impact of conflict on the child.
Children themselves emphasise the importance of being involved, communicated with, and having their wishes taken into account in the decisions that are made about them during the post-separation period. Symonds, J. et al (2022) also shows that children experiencing parental separation benefit from close relationships with friends and family, particularly with those who share similar lived experiences as they can understand the emotional and practical difficulties brought about by divorce and separation.
Join us for our Live Classroom on 23 January 2025 where we will explore these themes and more with social work consultant and Trauma Informed Consultancy Services associate, Natalie Wyatt.
Natalie Wyatt is a social worker with 16 years’ post-qualifying experience across a number of national, local government and third sector organisations. She is a skilled trainer, consultant and senior leader.
Natalie is passionate about poverty-aware practice, domestic abuse and court-based social work. She brings with her lived experience of social work services in her own childhood.
She is a training practitioner from Trauma Informed Consultancy Services, which offers an extensive range of training sessions related to all aspects of how we can apply a trauma informed framework to settings, services and systems. Trauma Informed Consultancy Services works with education settings, children’s services, criminal justice and adult services.
