Health, Wellbeing and Local Government Committee

HWLG(3)-10-09 Paper 6

Committee Inquiry into CAFFCASS Cymru – Written evidence from Relate North Wales Ltd

Alex M Jaundrill

Manager

Relate North Wales Ltd

Relate North Wales is contracted with Cafcass Cymru to deliver supported and supervised child contact services in North Wales, and it is this area of work that will inform my comments.

Due to funding Relate North Wales receives from Cafcass Cymru contact services have become more available and accessible from 2003 when our involvement with this work began.  At that time there were three supported centres which has now increased to six locations across North Wales with a seventh planned for autumn 2009.  

Cafcass Cymru contracted with Relate North Wales to provide supervised contact service provision from 2004 – a peripatetic service model was adopted to ensure best accessibility to clients, in particular children.  There is a lack of availability in that the funding level limits our involvement with families and does not allow the service to offer long-term contact for those families who are not able to move to a lower level of support.  All referrals are received via Cafcass Cymru.

The Relate-managed supervised child contact service (sccs) provides written reports to Cafcass which are used to inform their decision making process to reach recommendations to the court for future contact arrangements for children.  Involvement of the sccs enables more supervised sessions to be conducted, giving more information to Cafcass officers.  Feedback from Cafcass officers is very positive and they are interactive with the service with regard to both referrals and resulting reports.

Cafcass officers conduct assessment prior to referral to the sccs and in the main this assessment process results in appropriate referrals; however the sccs retains the right to accept or not accept referrals.

Relate North Wales’s management has regular six-monthly meetings with Cafcass area directors to review child contact services.  These together with an annual meeting to review and renew contracting arrangements ensure effective monitoring of services provided and resources expended.

I would be prepared to give oral evidence if invited to do so.

Alex Jaundrill

22.04.2009