Shared Parenting Scotland welcomed Scottish Government Minister for Victims and Community Safety, Siobhian Brown, to meet staff at our Edinburgh office this morning.
The Minister heard about the charity’s work to help parents focus on the positive benefits to their children of full involvement of both parents after separation.
National Manager, Ian Maxwell, said, “It was an excellent meeting. We were able to explain to the Minister the work we do in moving parents on from grievances with each other to make the interests of their children their priority. The adversarial family justice system doesn’t really help in the way it sets parents against each other to “win” time with their children. Court is also slow, unpredictable and expensive.”
Ian continues: “We explained the work we do in providing training for parents to reduce conflict and increase awareness of how they can take responsibility for resolving issues out of court. There are imaginative innovations in England that show what can be done to keep people out of court.”
Finally, we emphasised the crisis in legal aid availability for those who do need to go to court. There are legal aid deserts in Scotland where parents are being forced to represent themselves.”
