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NORTHERN IRELAND NEEDS MORE FAMILY CONTACT CENTRES - JUDGE GILLEN
One of Northern Ireland’s leading judges tonight called for more family contact centres to help families broken by disputes and domestic violence.
Speaking at the official opening of the Central Belfast Contact Centre based in St Stephen’s Church of Ireland Halls, Millfield , Judge Gillen of the Family Division said: “ There are too few contact centres in Northern Ireland. I regard them as an indispensable adjunct to the family justice system in the context of management of contact disputes. Our first priority must therefore be to establish a number of basic contact centres throughout Northern Ireland.”
Child Contact Centres were established in England and Wales in 1985 as neutral meeting places where children from a separated family can enjoy contact with one or both parents and sometimes other family members in a comfortable and safe environment where there is no viable alternative. In Northern Ireland the main centres are Knock and Cookstown which have been running for over three years and now more recently Cloona in Poleglass and central Belfast.
Said Judge Gillen: “ Sadly, as society moves with the grain of our times, the proportion of children experiencing parental separation because of the divorce or irreconcilable differences between adults is increasing. It is a distressingly inevitable consequence of this that contact between child and the non-resident parent becomes a vexed and complex issue.
“Parental separation often creates for the child a bewildering world where parental disputes and mutual distrust can regularly flare into explosive confrontation, all played out in the presence of the child. For children the circumstances of post separation contact can often be yet one more stage in the relentless misery created by family break-up. The growth of contact centres is probably the most significant development to occur in the management of contact disputes in recent years.”
In 1991 the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) was formed and there are now just under 300 centres which subscribe to the NACCC Code of Practice.
Judge Gillen continued: “The key to contact centres is that they work at grass roots level and provide a vital practical service. They rely at the moment on the goodwill of volunteers and their resources are limited. By necessity the use of centres is limited to the primary aim of providing facilities for contact and the centres operate a policy of confidentiality”.
He concluded: “I hope that this centre will be a harbinger of developments in the future and that soon this will be one of many such contact centres right across Northern Ireland.”
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