A new publication by Nick Child provides a very useful guide to Parental Alienation. 

As he points out at the start: "There is no room for humour in the tribal warfare of high conflict family separations. No one would choose it if they could avoid it. Nor is it fun for workers who ride the wild waters of family separation to help the families. Life jackets are essential."

"This overview is an invitation to learn about a neglected but important field. The first half is an introduction with case examples. The second half summarises essential general points and issues, a life jacket to keep you afloat. I start with the benefits of describing a spectrum over defining a syndrome, and end with how changing court practice might make the biggest difference."

Alongside this paper, a new web site "The Alienation Experience" contains a wide range of material from a recent London conference, including presentations by Hamish Cameron, Anna Gupta, Kevin Amey, Myrna Gower, Chip Chimera and Roy Mackay.

These make a very valuable contribution towards the wider understanding of this topic and should help in making professionals in family law, family support and social work more aware of what parental alienation is and what can be done about it.  

FNF Scotland arranged for previous events on this topic, such as talks by Kirk Weir and Karen Woodall, and we hope to arrange further Scottish activity in 2015 - watch this space.

  Nick Child, a family therapist from Edinburgh has established a new web site linking international thinking and research on  the broad subject of Children Resisting Post-Separation Contact with a Parent (CRC), part of which is the pattern called Parental Alienation (PA).

Nick's interest arose from his family therapy work and discovery and rapid learning about this field.

The terms PA and PA Syndrome are so loaded with presumptions that it is less off-putting to include it within a wider range of patterns of "Children Resisting Post-Separation Contact With a Parent" (CRC for short).

In the introduction to the site he suggests that it needs to be supplemented by organisations and networks of people in Scotland moving everything forward in more practical ways.