The National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) plays a critical role in ensuring that children have safe contact with the parent/carer they do not live with. Loss of parental contact, or being drawn into parental conflict, can be very damaging. There is well-documented evidence of the negative effects on children’s academic success, behaviour, psychological well-being and life chances. NACCC does the essential work of accrediting and supporting four hundred child contact centres. These ‘safe havens’ provide a place that children can keep in contact with parents who, for various reasons, cannot be reconciled.
Unless the government urgently agrees to further funding NACCC will struggle to continue.
NACCC’s Chief Executive Elizabeth Coe is actively working with a number of Parliamentary Groups and panels to promote the work of child contact centres and NACCC. One of these groups, the Family Court Unions Parliamentary Group agreed to give its support for NACCC’s lobbying to obtain future funding and has launched a campaign on behalf of NACCC and the importance of child contact centres.
In these times of tight austerity measures and challenges it is important that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the government are aware of the high volume and good quality work that is achieved by child contact centres and NACCC using the small but significant funding provided.
