This one-day international symposium will foreground the experiences of children living with psychologically abusive parenting and, in particular, hear directly from now-adult children who were protected from a harmful parent through removal and transfer of residence by the family courts. The symposium will also explore the underlying dynamics that lead to children’s rejection of a relationship with parent in the context of divorce or family separation, and the developmental harm of childhood relational trauma.

Through papers and presentations from professionals working in the frontline of child protection, as well as researchers and other professionals, the symposium will look at best practice in this highly complex field.

The key themes for the symposium will be, relational trauma and disorganised attachment in children of divorce and separation; listening to the voices of harmed children; understanding the phenomenological experiences of children whose residence has been changed by the family courts; managing complex psychological dynamics in a family law setting; the critical role of social work in protecting children from psychological harm, and; the impact of family violence on children in family separation.

This international symposium will bring together practitioners, academics and other specialists, from around the world, and will hear the testimonies of two children who were protected from a harmful parent by the family courts in England and Wales, with the therapeutic support of the Family Separation Clinic.

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