What is a Family Report?
If there is a dispute as to what parenting arrangements are appropriate for children, it is likely that your lawyer, or the Court, will recommend that a Family Report be prepared. A Family Report is designed to assist the Court in “sifting through” each party’s case in order to determine what parenting arrangements are likely to be in a child’s best interests, taking into consideration the families’ specific circumstances and the needs of the children.
The report writer is impartial. They are not anyone’s side and they are appointed to give the Court a succinct account of each parties’ positions about the history of the parenting arrangements and their proposals for the future. The process adopted will usually be:
1. The lawyers (on instructions from their clients) or the Court agree that a Family Report is warranted;
2. Dates are arranged for the report writer to meet with the parties (and the children and other significant people) for interviews – you should discuss who should attend with your lawyer;
3. The report writer will send a letter to the parties outlining the arrangements for the interviews on the day – you should read this letter carefully because it will set out what arrangements need to be made for the children, whilst the parent or parents are being interviewed;
4. If the Family Report is to be privately funded, you will be asked to place your half share of the report costs into your lawyers’ trust account. If the report is funded by the Court (this happens in limited circumstances), you will not need to pay;
5. Each party’s lawyer will send copies of any filed Court documents to the report writer – neither party should make any contact with the report writer without the other party being, at the very least, copied into any documents or correspondence. Ideally, the parties should provide the report writer with “joint correspondence” – before you have contact with any Court experts, such as a report writer, you should take legal advice;
6. The parties, children and any other people to be interviewed will attend the Family Report interviews on the scheduled date;
7. Sometimes the report writer will need to do some further follow up with you over the phone whilst he/she is preparing the report;
8. Approximately four to six weeks after the interviews the report will be released. If your matter is already in Court, an affidavit of the report writer will be prepared with the report attached. It will then be filed with the Court.
Whilst each report writer approaches the interviews in their own way, in a general sense you can expect the report writer to ask you questions about:
1. The history of your family and upbringing;
2. Any risk factors in relation to drugs, alcohol, family violence or abuse;
3. The history of your relationship with the other parent;
4. What care arrangements were in place during the relationship and what arrangements there are now for the children;
5. Any concerns with the current care arrangements; and
6. Your proposal and your thoughts on the other parent’s proposal.
The report itself will detail your instructions or comments in relation to the matters above. Bear in mind that what you say to the report writer is not confidential and will be reported. Often, the report will outline:
1. What each party has said;
2. What the children have said;
3. What third parties have said;
4. The report writer’s summary of the documents received by them, including sealed Court documents and subpoena documents;
5. A discussion about the report writer’s views, taking into consideration points 1,2,3 and 4 above; and
6. The report writer’s recommendations for what care arrangements ought be put into place.
Your responsibility at interviews is to remain child focussed and provide an honest account of where things are at, what has happened and what you would like to see happen and why you consider that best for the children.
It is important to know that the report writer has to take into consideration the individual circumstances of your case and so the recommendations made by the report writer could be:
1. Limited to recommending what happens for a very short period of time (for example if the matter involves young children or where time needs to be supervised because there are short term risk factors at play);
2. That arrangements stay the same until further information is at hand;
3. Recommendations for the next one to three years;
4. Long term recommendations;
5. Declining to take a position until the report writer can be certain that there are no specific risks to the children ongoing; or
6. Not limited to the time each parent spends with a child but also that each parent do further things (such as attend courses, complete drug or alcohol tests, come back for further interviews etc.).
If you have had a report prepared and you are not happy with the recommendations, you should raise this with a lawyer and not the report writer. Your lawyer will provide you with your options about how to deal with the recommendations.
You should be aware that you will be in breach of Section 121 of the Family Law Act if you publish a copy or a part of the report to any third party.
Have more questions about the family report process? Feel free to get in contact at orlena.moloney@bgm.legal
