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Hi Guys,
I am in a bit of position and wanted views/opinions and thoughts.
Just to summarise ... I see my son every week at an contact centre.... which I pay lots of £££ for. I go back to court next week... There is no safeguarding issue and cafcass are happy with me to exercise my PR and also contact centre have wrote lovely reports to show I am a good father.
My ex in her position statement has wrote that she wants to move it from weekly visits to now appears to be fortnightly visits with inclusions of overnight stay every second week.
What I have wrote is that I would like to see my son twice a week... Once in the week for 3 hours and then on the weekend for some time too... which gradually includes increase of hours leading to overnight stay.
I was wondering what the courts will likely suggest and view. I am pretty concerned because I feel that my bound with my son is increasing as we see each other weekly and being just under 2 years old... I feel he would find it more valuable spending weekly contact appose to fortnightly.
I just want to know what you guys think and what you guys think the court will say and what can I do and say?
Thanks.
😉
Anyone?
Hi there
Although there are no set schedules for contact, a lot of judges work on the premise of the alternate weekends and a day in the week schedule.....not set in stone, but to answer your query, I think your suggested schedule is reasonable. You are seeing him weekly and it would be a step back to reduce that to fortnightly. It wouldn't be in his best interests to change the routine that he has become used to and as the bonding process is well under way, it would in fact be detrimental for him at this stage....this would be my arguement for the weekly contact to remain and be built upon.
Best of luck
As an alternative, you could agree to alternating weekend with Friday and Saturday night stays, and then a couple of days during the weeks (Tuesday and Thursday on the week after a staying weekend, and Monday and Wednesday on the week leading up to the staying weekend, perhaps) - this will also give the mother some weekend time.
...you could provide a couple of schedules to show that you have given it much though and are trying to be thoughtful to the mothers needs also.
Make a point of stating that your son is used to the routine of seeing you weekly at the contact centre and you would like that to build on that and continue with that whilst the schedules you propose are developing. Suggest that a full alternate weekend from Friday to Sunday and a weklly visit is the goal. For instance -
Unsupervised contact to start immediately and the two hours to be increased to a full day, to run for 1 month.
If that goes well and your son is happy, for the contact to be increased either by
1). Commencing overnight stays and returning him the following day at 12 noon or 5pm, or
2). Returning him home and picking him up the following morning to spend the following day with you.
Suggest a further month doing this and then increasing contact either by
1). Keeping him for a second night and returning him the following day at either 12 or 5pm, or
2). Not returning him and introducing an overnight so that he is with you 2 full days and 1 overnight.
As you can see the two schedules are slightly different and schedule 2 will take slightly longer to reach the 2 overnights and 2 full days. When the schedule reaches this point then suggest that the alternate weekends commence from Friday to Sunday and at that point the weekly visit to be included.
You could also propose alternate christmas and birthdays, a full week in the summer increasing to 50/50 shared school holidays once your son starts school, or whatever fits with your own work schedule.
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