What is the NATC?

The NATC has been at the heart of family law reform since 1995. It is unfunded and independent. Its remit is to reduce the damage to familial attachments for the ‘children of separation’ imposed by existing court processes.

In 1996 the NATC’s direct predecessor INPOWw (Information on Probation Officers in Welfare Work) identified a fundamental ‘gap in the system’ within the Family Court Welfare Service: there was no guidance either for its officers or parents on the issue in dispute.

The EI proposal, to instal the missing guidance, followed. Unless and until that recourse is adopted - and EI has the relevant approvals - the family law system cannot work: the lack of guidance will continue.

From 1996 on, INPOWw was a main player in the Family Court Welfare Service’s 2001 demise. But its best efforts did not prevent Whitehall from perpetuating the FCWS problem: on 1 April 2001, over intense opposition, Whitehall launched the FCWS’s replacement Cafcass on an identically-defective basis. The same dysfunctional service had merely been rebadged.

As New Approaches to Contact, the NATC assembled the judicially-led conferences of 2002 and 2003. The architecture of reform - specifically devised to bypass Cafcass - was presented to the widespread commendation of senior family law professionals: ‘this is the way forward’ etc. A fully-developed proposal (‘Early Interventions’) secured Ministerial approval. Its implementation was routed by Whitehall into Cafcass, who killed it.

EI remains the way forward: if we want separating parents to receive informed guidance and a framework on what to do for the best about their children, there is no alternative - because, that is what EI does.  

The NATC’s prospectus for a two-parent system of family justice - which just about everyone (children, mothers, fathers, grandparents and the judiciary) agrees we want and need - has now had approvals from the highest echelons of the family law professions for nearly 20 years.

The NATC’s Director of Communications is Oliver Cyriax, a retired solicitor with a long-standing specialisation in Section 8 reform issues.