Drawing on a three-year Irish research study, this paper focuses on the decision-making process in child contact, specifically the assessment and management of risk of continuing abuse to young people previously exposed to domestic abuse. A mixed methodological approach involved the completion of survey questionnaires by 219 mothers and the participation in focus groups and individual interviews by 16 children and young people, nine mothers, six fathers and 30 professionals. Non-participant observation of the Family Law Court was also conducted. This paper highlights particular concerns regarding the neglect, emotional, physical and sexual abuse of children, which was found to continue through the facility of post-separation contact. Critical reflection on the decision-making process regarding contact with domestically abusive fathers highlights the absence of a child-centred assessment process that prioritises ascertaining the child's views and wishes. Underpinning this decision-making process was a presumption that contact was automatically in the child's best interest. Highlighting the increased risk of harm to children from the ongoing and often unmonitored presence of abusive men in their lives, this paper challenges that assumption, arguing that decisions that are made in children's “best interests”, but in the absence of their voice, can be detrimental to their welfare.

This paper reports selectively on findings from a mixed-methods study to consider the paradoxical post-separation position many women find themselves occupying when child contact necessitates the continued and mainly unmonitored presence of abusive men in their lives and the lives of their children (Holt, 2011). Having engendered blame and being held responsible for the exposure of their children to domestic abuse, mothers may find themselves resisting post-separation child contact and again engendering blame for daring to interfere with the father–child relationship—the same relationship they were charged with protecting their children from. Echoing Thiara and Humphreys’s (2015) call for social worker practitioners to recognise that domestic abuse can continue even in the abuser’s absence, this paper reflects on an issue of particular relevance to social work practitioners—that the continued presence of domestically abusive men, post separation, may compromise the child’s recovery from the experience of domestic abuse due to continuing abuse and undermining of the maternal role and mother–child relationship.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child explicitly calls for children to be granted the right to participate in legal proceedings that affect them. Despite this legal obligation and an evolving consensus that recognises children as social and competent actors, this rhetoric has struggled to achieve translation into meaningful practice reality, particularly when decisions are being made about contact arrangements for children where there has been a prior history of domestic violence. Drawing on the narratives of children who participated in three separate research projects in Ireland between 2009 and 2015, this paper will consider the manner in which they were involved in the decision-making process and the extent to which their views were ascertained and their voices heard. This paper concludes by raising the key question of how the child’s best interests can be served if the child’s views are not sought, heard or considered.

In the absence of mandatory planning and support to assist all young people who leave care in Ireland, after-care provision is a “neglected” area of service provision and has been criticised for being inconsistent and ad hoc. The benefits of keyworker support for young people making the transition out of care is more clearly articulated within the literature and across policy statements and is firmly embedded as a model of good practice in working with young people in residential care. The study reported here sets out to conduct an in-depth exploration of the concept of keyworking. This is achieved by engaging young care-leavers, residential care providers and after-care support workers in qualitative interviews. By asking young people and care providers about their experiences of keyworking, it attempts to drill down into both the benefits and possible downsides of this practice model. The findings and discussion presented here are based on the pilot stage of this study, and although the findings can only be regarded as tentative in nature some important issues have emerged from the pilot stage as reported here.