Best Interests Of The Child Principle In The Context Of Parent Separation Or Divorce : As Conceptualised By The Community

Best interests of the child (BIC) is a construct that is central to legal decisions in several areas including parenting matters in the Family Courts, guardianship, child-protection, and adoption. Despite the centrality of the construct, BIC has not been operationalised (Thomson & Molloy, 2001) and there is little agreement about what is considered best for children within social service and legal communities (Banach, 1998). Given that one of the aims of law is to reflect public sentiment (Green, 1996), the current study explored the general public’s conceptualisation of BIC. More specifically, I sought to determine what community members think the term “best interests” means and what factors they believe need to be considered when determining BIC? A qualitative approach was used and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Participants (n= 19) defined BIC as parents effectively meeting the developmental needs of children to produce healthy young adults, both physiologically and psychologically. A complex hierarchical model was generated from participant responses that outlined the primary developmental needs of children and sets of conditions and parenting practices that elicit these. Despite the indeterminate nature and vagueness of the BIC standard, the findings from the current study suggest that current legislative practices do reflect public sentiment. Results of this research represented an important step towards a more comprehensive understanding of the BIC concept and endorse existing practices of forensic evaluators. Moreover, embedding gathered information in the context of child development and parenting literature appears essential to the utility of forensic psychological assessments. Finally, the model generated highlights the complexity of BIC and the need for practitioners to be aware of interactions that exist between child development and contexts of the home, community, culture and society.

Grantor dc:publisher

Edith Cowan University, Research Online, Perth, Western Australia

Year dc:date

2014

Author dc:creator

• Dias, Nadia

• Children of divorced parents
• Children of separated parents
• Custody of children
• Joint custody of children
• Australia
• Best Interests of the Child
• BIC
• Children and separation
• Community perspective
• Public sentiment
• Parent and child law Australia
• Family Law
• Law
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://ro.ecu.edu.au/theses/1463

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:ro.ecu.edu.au:theses-2465