Shared Care Research

The following documents provide the details and content of research which supports why shared care should be the default arrangement for children following parental separation. The research papers and findings may assist you in presenting to the court why a shared care arrangement will be better for your children that sole residence being awarded to one or other of the parents.

Click on the image of the report to download or the title link.

 

'Research Supporting the Importance of Shared Care'published in April 2010 by The Custody Minefield

A compilation of national and international studies which unequivocably confirms that children fare better emotionally, academically and psychologically when supported by a shared care arrangement.

 

'Child Adjustment in Joint-Custody Versus Sole-Custody Arrangements: A Meta-Analytic Review': Robert Bauserman. Journal of Family Psychology 2002, Vol. 16, No. 1, 91-102.

Psychologist Robert Bauserman, Ph.D., of AIDS Administration/Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in Baltimore, Maryland conducted a meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined 1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children. The studies compared child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings and 251 intact families. Joint custody was defined as either physical custody - where a child spends equal or substantial amounts of time with both parents or shared legal custody - where a child lives with primarily one parent but both parents are involved in all aspects of the child's life.

Children in joint custody arrangements had less behavior and emotional problems, had higher self-esteem, better family relations and school performance than children in sole custody arrangements. And these children were as well-adjusted as intact family children on the same measures, said Bauserman, "probably because joint custody provides the child with an opportunity to have ongoing contact with both parents."

 

'The Impact of Parental Involvement on Children's Education' published by the Department for Education and Skills, 2002.

This leaflet draws on evidence from research to highlight the importance of involvement of parents in their children’s education.Overall, research has shown conclusively that parental involvement does make a difference to pupils’ engagement and their achievement and the evidence indicates that parental involvement benefits students, parents teachers and schools.This leaflet provides an insight into some of that evidence:Fathers play an extremely important role in their children’s lives and a plethora of research indicates that father involvement is significantly related to positive child outcomes. A father’s interest in a child’s schooling is strongly linked to educational outcomes for the child. Fathers who devote time to their sons are giving them a greater chance to grow up as confident adults. Boys who feel that their fathers devote time, especially to talk to them about their worries, school work and social lives, almost all emerge as motivated and optimistic men. Father involvement in children’s education at age 7 predicts higher educational attainment by age 20, in both boys and girls. For boys, early father involvement protects against delinquency in later life. The involvement of fathers exerts an influence on children’s positive attitudes to school.

 

Full Report

Executive Summary

'Child Custody, Access and Parental Responsibility: The Search for a Just and Equitable Standard.' Edward Kruk M.S.W. Ph.D, the University of British Columbia, December 2008.

Kruk, a professor of social work in Canada, examines the approaches taken in the UK, USA, Sweden and Australia. He proposes a four-pillar approach to resolving child residence disputes:

1. Harm Reduction: A rebuttable legal presumption of joint physical custody after divorce

2. Treatment: Parenting plans, mediation and intervention / support in high conflict cases

3. Prevention: Shared parenting education and judicial determination in cases of established abuse, along with enforcement of shared parental responsibility orders

4. Enforcement: Judicially-determined arrangements in cases where family violence is a factor

The paper provides an empirical foundation for, and a step-by-step process, for implementation of an equal parenting bill.

The full report is 101 pages, with over 100 pages of references. The 9 page executive summary is also available. The report highlights that:

  • Sole maternal custody often leads to parental alienation and father absence, and father absence is associated with negative child outcomes.
  • Children of divorce want equal time with their parents and consider shared parenting to be in their best interests.
  • A meta-analysis of the major North American studies comparing sole and joint physical custody arrangements has shown that children in joint custody arrangements fare significantly better on all adjustment measures than children who live in sole custody arrangements (Bauserman, 2002)
  • Inter-parental conflict decreases over time in shared custody arrangements, and increases in sole custody arrangements.
 

'Research on the Importance of Both Parents in Children's Lives' - A useful summary by the charity Families Need Fathers, published in September 2007.

 Journal Articles by Flouri and Buchanan

Dr Eirini Flouri is Research Fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford, Deputy Director of the Oxford Centre for Research into Parenting and Children, and Lecturer in Statistics at St Hilda's College.

Dr Ann Buchanan is Reader in Social Work and a Fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford.

'The role of Father Involvement and Mother Involvement in Adolescent's Psychological Wellbeing' by Dr Eirini Flouri and Dr Ann Buchanan published in the British Journal of Social Work in 2003.

This study of 2,722 British adolescents aged 14–18 years explored whether paternal involvement can protect against low levels of well-being even when maternal involvement and risk and protective factors are controlled for. Results showed that although both father and mother involvement contributed significantly and independently to offspring happiness, father involvement had a stronger effect. Furthermore, the association between father involvement and happiness was not stronger for sons than for daughters. There was no evidence suggesting that family disruption weakens the association between father involvement and happiness, or that father involvement is more strongly related to offspring happiness when mother involvement is low rather than high.

'Early father's and mother's involvement and child's later educational outcomes' by Dr Eirini Flouri and Dr Ann Buchanan (Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford), published in 2004 in the British Journal of Educational Psychology.

The study concluded that 'early father involvement can be another protective factor in counteracting risk conditions that might lead to later low attainment levels.'