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 or title link to download.




'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.




'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 childhood outcomes.


      


'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.

 
                        


'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.




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