Unfortunately, during a relationship break up, it is common for one parent to deny the other parent access to see the other child.  This affects not only the non resident parent, but it also affects the child who may already be struggling to accept the changes that are occuring within their family structure.  If you find yourself being denied access then read on.  This post looks at why a parent may deny access and what to do in this situation.

Why Am I Being Denied Contact?

There is no one reason as to why you may be being denied contact with your child.  your ex partner may have a number of reasons which they may or may not tell you including:

• They may be using access as a bargaining chip to try to get more child support payments or to get something else that they want.
• Your ex partner may have a new partner and they may want to try to erase you from their life so that they can creaste a “new” family unit with the new partner.
• Your ex may be trying to hide a new relationship from you and denying access may be their way of preventing the child or children from telling you about the new relationship.
• It could simply be for revenge for the breakup of the relationship because your ex may hold you accountable for it.

You may find that after the relationship ended, you were able to maintain some contact with your child or children but after some time, you may find that your ex partner is suddenly deciding to refuse to make arrangements for access.  This is quite common and is possibly due to one of the mentioned reasons.

What Can I Do About It?

It is important to act as soon as possible so that any issues can be resolved as quickly as possible.  You should communicate with your ex partner about your concerns and what you expect to happen.  There are different ways of doing this and some are more effective than others.

We recommend that you write your ex partner a letter and send it recorded delivery.  Make sure that you keep a copy of the letter for your own records. This will enable you to have a receipt of delivery so that you can show that you have made an appropriate effort to ask for contact. When things are already bound to be difficult between the two of you, we definitely don’t recommend a face to face confrontation and whilst text and email communication would be an appropriate alternative to contacting your ex if you don’t know their address, a letter is always going to be the best way to communicate when you are considering court as a possibility.

Make sure that the letter that you send is free of emotive language and doesn’t place any blame on the other parent.  You simply need to explain that you want to see your child or children and give an idea of how much contact you think is appropriate.  Remember to think about how the contact may affect your children, for example if you ask for several days contact midweek but you live a hundred miles away from the other parent, this may affect your children’s ability to attend school.  Be reasonable in your request.  Once you have established a routine contact, there’s no reason why you couldn’t then try to make the contact you have more subsrtantial if it appropriate or feasible to do so.

You may find that you don’t get a reply or that the reply that you do get is not suitable, for example you ex may reply saying that they are going to continue preventing access.  On the other hand, you may find that your ex decides that they are willing to cooperate and you may find that this opens an avenue to better communication either between the two of you or via mediation.

Going To Court

If you decide that you need to sort matters through the court, you must first attend a MIAM.  This is a mediation meeting that will introduce you to the mediation process and the mediator will give you an opportunity to invite your ex to mediation.  If you and the mediator agree that your ex won’t attend mediation, you don’t have to ask them to, but it is crucial that you attend the MIAM first because otherwise you will not be able to proceed with your case through the court.

Once you have had the relevant page signed in your court form to say that you have attended a MIAM, you can then go to court.  We recommend that when you make your application to the court that you mention that you would like the court to make an order for interim contact.  This may or may not be granted, but if it is, it will mean that you will get some contact whilst the court is dealing with your case.

Interim Contact

This is a tmeporary order for contact and will allow you to continue to spend time with your children whilst the court is hearing your case.  It may not be as much contact as you would like but it will mean that your children don’t miss out on spending time with you as the court procedure can take many months to sort out.  If you are granted an interim contact order, it is important that you accept it and make sure that you stick to the order.  It may not be as much time as you are hoping for, but remember that it is temporary.

The contact may be in a contact centre, or it may be unsupervised.  If the contact is in a contact centre, you may find that someone sits in the room with you whilst you spend time with your children. This is nothing to worry about but the worker who sits in with you will be making notes on their observations during the session.  Making sure that you fully comply with the interim ourder will ensure that you have the best chance of getting the contact that you’re seeking when the court makes the final order.

Once You Have An Order

Many people make the comment that there’s no point in having an order for contact when they KNOW that the other parent will break it.  If this does happen, then it is important that you keep a record of any breaches of the order.  If you can provide evidence to the court that your ex partner is repeatedly and substantially breaking the order that has been made, then you can apply for an enforcement order.  Sometimes, these orders can be effective in ensuring that you and your children can have the contact that has been ordered by the court.