Happy New Year! I hope the memory-making that children in your care did at Christmas made all the super-Santa-hard-work seem worthwhile, and that you have launched into 2026 with some optimism?
Christmas can be the best of times or the worst of times for children in care, depending on the triggers that are tangled in the mesh of early memories around the festive season. I wonder if your children had family time with birth parents and/or siblings during the Christmas period – and how that went?
The Unpredictable Nature of Family Time
In our experience, any family time was nearly always impossible to predict or adequately prepare for. At Christmas, some parents went to great lengths to buy generous presents for their children, to let them see just how much they loved them. Others had promised wonderful gifts – but they simply weren’t able to afford them and either didn’t turn up for the Christmas contact or came empty-handed, with the promise that the gift would follow – and it never did. And the excited hype of the occasion would often lead to very dysregulated behaviour – and not just from the children.
Nevertheless, occasions of family time, for some children, help them to rewrite an attachment relationship that has been distorted in early childhood. So, for instance, ‘Kayden’, aged six, talked about “mummy before” and “mummy now”, because his mum had left her abusive partner and was now engaging with Children’s Services and focusing on him, in the hope that he would be returned to her care. For others, deeply traumatised by neglect or maltreatment at home, they continue to dread family time at any season, and we see a return to behaviours and language that had characterised their early days with their foster families.
A Significant Policy Shift for 2026
So, with these children in mind, it was a cause for celebration to read in the news towards the end of last year that the government has committed to repealing the ‘presumption’ clause in the Children Act (1989). This means that family courts will no longer make orders based on the presumption that having contact with both parents is in the best interests of the child – a mindset that has hampered the recovery and well-being of so many children.
Why the Change Matters for Foster Carers
Foster carers have long struggled to make sense of why the courts would think that it was helpful for a child who may still be suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to be brought face-to-face with the person responsible for their abuse or neglect – or who was a passive observer. One foster carer told me recently how helpless and distressed she felt taking a four-month-old baby to see her birth parents twice a week.
Change Driven by Domestic Violence Campaigners
Interestingly – but understandably – the pressure to change the legal framework for family time didn’t come from those organisations and individuals engaged in fostering but from domestic violence campaigners. It is they who have highlighted the dangers of the family courts’ ‘pro-contact culture’ which appears to prioritise the rights of abusive fathers over the physical and emotional safety of their children.
Putting Children’s Welfare First
The new guidelines for family time will hopefully ensure that parents who wittingly or unwittingly undermine their welfare cannot use the system to continue to inflict harm on their children – the child’s welfare has to be the priority.
A promising start to 2026!
P.S. If you or your carers would like some comprehensive training around family time – do get in touch with Flourish at talk@flourish.co.uk
