Family Law and your children
If you are thinking about divorce or separation, one of your biggest worries is likely to be your children: their futures and what will happen to them.
Problems that may need solving can relate to:
- child maintenance,
- where your children will live
- how they will continue to have a meaningful relationship with both parents.
Child maintenance is regular, reliable financial support paid towards a child’s everyday living costs. This can be conducted privately or through the Child Maintenance Service.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is the government’s statutory child maintenance service. The CMS can calculate and collect child maintenance for you, and can act as a trusted third party if you do not want any contact with the other parent of your child.
The CMS can:
- Find the other parent
- Collect and enforce payments
- Protect both parents privacy
They include information on alternative dispute resolution methods including FDRs, family mediation, family arbitration, collaborative law and shuttle mediation.