Research and analysis

Long-term separated parents: developing support to encourage child maintenance arrangements

This report explores barriers to child maintenance arrangements for long-term separated parents and related support interventions.

Documents

Long-term separated parents: developing support to encourage child maintenance arrangements

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Summary: Long-term separated parents: developing support to encourage child maintenance arrangements

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If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email accessible.formats@dwp.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

This report looks at:

  • factors which influence parent’s child maintenance behaviour and which inhibit them from making arrangements
  • the type of support needed to make an arrangement, particularly those made between parents
  • parent’s reactions to 6 propositions for support interventions designed to encourage them to put in place arrangements

The research was commissioned because there was limited evidence on barriers and support interventions related to child maintenance arrangements for long-term separated parents. This is relevant as we expect an increase in this group contacting Child Maintenance (CM) Options due to the closure of Child Support Agency (CSA) cases.

We will use the findings from this research to promote parents’ awareness and engagement with CM Options. The findings will also inform the design of support interventions to encourage parents to make child maintenance arrangements.

Authors: Caroline Roper and Amrita Sood (GfK NOP).

Updates to this page

Published 27 August 2015

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