Mr. Damien Peelo:

When a court order is made, parents often think it is the letter of the law. In other words, if the order provides for visitation on two weekends and once during the week they are not willing to agree to anything else. There is very little room for negotiation especially if the parents are not getting on and they do not put the child at the centre. We have found that there is a lack of information available to parents in terms of what they can do and the sanctions for which they can apply. The other problem area is that of shared parenting. It is a whole different philosophy and way of working. It is not about the adults. It is about the child and about how do they work collectively in the interests of the child. We have found that parents who go down the shared parenting route are much more able to negotiate when there are breaches or when they have issues around access and so on. They are much more willing to be flexible in terms of arrangements with each other. We carried out research last October that examined the barriers to shared parenting. The main issue is that people get stuck in the letter of the court ruling. They think they cannot go beyond it and that they cannot renegotiate it even though it might not work for the child at different ages. In other words, what is agreed in respect of a child at aged three might be different to what is needed at age six and again when the child is aged nine and so there is constant change in the lives of the parents.