FATHER'S DAY: CELEBRATION OR CONTRADICTION?

When Family Justice Systems Struggle to Distinguish Between Parenthood and Protection

By Samantha Avril-Andreassen, LLB (Hons), LLM, LPC, FRSA

Founder, SAFECHAIN™ | Governance Analyst | Systems Reform Specialist

Father's Day is intended to celebrate fatherhood.

At its best, it recognises men who protect, nurture, guide, support, and place the wellbeing of their children above their own interests.

Yet for many families across the world, Father's Day exposes a difficult and often uncomfortable contradiction.

What happens when the title of "father" no longer aligns with the lived experience of the child?

What happens when legal systems, welfare agencies, safeguarding bodies, and courts continue to operate from assumptions about parenthood that do not reflect the realities of coercive control, domestic abuse, psychological harm, economic abuse, or post-separation manipulation?

More importantly, why do so many families report that these systems struggle to identify the difference between parental involvement and parental harm?

These questions are not confined to any one jurisdiction.

They arise repeatedly across family courts, child welfare systems, safeguarding frameworks, and regulatory environments throughout the world.

The issue is not fatherhood itself.

The issue is whether systems possess the tools necessary to distinguish between biological parenthood and safe parenting.

THE GLOBAL PATTERN

Across numerous jurisdictions, family justice systems are built upon a foundational principle:

Children generally benefit from meaningful relationships with both parents.

In principle, this is sound.

Extensive research demonstrates the value of healthy parental involvement.

The difficulty emerges when systems become attached to the principle while failing to adequately assess the exceptions.

The challenge is not establishing whether a parent exists.

The challenge is establishing whether that parent is safe.

Many systems remain heavily dependent upon disclosure, witness evidence, professional reports, and procedural assessments.

Yet allegations involving coercive control, emotional abuse, psychological manipulation, economic abuse, and post-separation harm often present differently from traditional understandings of violence.

They may leave no visible injury.

They may involve patterns rather than incidents.

They may be cumulative rather than catastrophic.

And they frequently require specialist assessment frameworks that many systems still lack.

As a result, safeguarding concerns can become invisible within processes designed to identify only the most obvious forms of harm.

THE ASSESSMENT PROBLEM

At the centre of the issue lies a fundamental assessment challenge.

Most family justice systems were designed to assess events.

Modern safeguarding increasingly requires the assessment of patterns.

This distinction is critical.

A single incident may appear insignificant when viewed in isolation.

A pattern of behaviour occurring repeatedly over years may reveal something entirely different.

Yet many welfare and court processes continue to focus on discrete allegations rather than behavioural architecture.

Professionals are frequently asked to determine:

• Whether a child is at risk

• Whether allegations are substantiated

• Whether contact should continue

• Whether a parent's concerns are reasonable

However, they are often doing so within highly constrained timescales, with incomplete information, limited access to corroborative evidence, and varying levels of specialist training.

The result is inconsistency.

Families experiencing similar circumstances may receive dramatically different outcomes depending upon geography, resources, professional expertise, or procedural context.

This inconsistency undermines confidence in safeguarding systems and contributes to increasing public concern.

WHEN PROTECTION IS MISUNDERSTOOD

One of the most contentious issues internationally is the distinction between protective behaviour and obstructive behaviour.

A parent who raises concerns about harm may be acting protectively.

A parent who seeks to undermine a healthy parent-child relationship may be acting destructively.

The difficulty arises when systems lack reliable methods of distinguishing between the two.

Protective parents frequently report being viewed as hostile, resistant, or problematic.

Conversely, genuinely harmful behaviour can be overlooked when presented through charm, credibility, social status, professional standing, or procedural compliance.

This creates a dangerous dynamic.

The individual attempting to prevent harm may become the subject of scrutiny.

The individual causing harm may appear cooperative and reasonable.

Without robust assessment methodologies, systems risk evaluating presentation rather than conduct.

THE COERCIVE CONTROL GAP

Perhaps the most significant development in modern safeguarding has been the recognition of coercive control.

Many jurisdictions now acknowledge that abuse extends beyond physical violence.

It includes patterns of domination, intimidation, isolation, surveillance, financial control, emotional manipulation, and behavioural regulation.

The challenge is implementation.

Recognising coercive control in legislation is not the same as recognising it in practice.

Many institutions continue to operate within frameworks developed before coercive control was widely understood.

This creates an implementation gap between policy and reality.

Professionals may understand the concept in theory while lacking practical tools to identify it consistently.

As a result, victims often describe experiences that systems struggle to categorise, verify, or respond to effectively.

THE PARTICIPATION PROBLEM

Another contributing factor is participation.

Family justice systems frequently rely upon individuals articulating experiences clearly, consistently, and under pressure.

Yet trauma frequently affects memory, concentration, communication, and emotional regulation.

Individuals experiencing chronic stress, fear, PTSD, or coercive control may present in ways that are misunderstood.

They may appear disorganised.

They may struggle to provide information chronologically.

They may become emotional.

They may appear defensive.

These responses are often consequences of trauma rather than indicators of unreliability.

Where participation safeguards are inadequate, vulnerable individuals can be disadvantaged throughout proceedings.

The result is not simply procedural unfairness.

It is evidential distortion.

The system receives a less accurate picture of reality.

WHY THIS IS HAPPENING WORLDWIDE

The reasons are remarkably consistent across jurisdictions.

Resource Constraints

Safeguarding assessments are time-intensive.

Systems are under pressure to resolve matters quickly.

Fragmented Information

Relevant information often sits across multiple agencies that do not communicate effectively.

Legacy Structures

Many procedures were designed before modern understandings of coercive control, trauma, and economic abuse.

Training Gaps

Professional knowledge varies significantly.

Verification Deficits

Too much reliance remains upon unverified disclosure and self-reporting.

Process Over Outcomes

Systems can become focused on procedural completion rather than substantive safeguarding outcomes.

Collectively, these factors create environments in which preventable harm can remain undetected.

MOVING FORWARD

The solution is not to diminish fatherhood.

Nor is it to undermine parental involvement.

The solution is to improve assessment.

To strengthen verification.

To recognise patterns rather than isolated events.

To distinguish protection from obstruction.

To understand trauma.

To identify coercive control consistently.

To ensure meaningful participation.

And ultimately, to place child wellbeing above procedural assumptions.

Good fathers have nothing to fear from better safeguarding.

Indeed, robust assessment protects them too.

The objective is not to reduce parental relationships.

The objective is to ensure that relationships promoted by systems are genuinely safe, healthy, and beneficial.

That is the distinction many families are asking institutions to recognise.

And until systems become more effective at identifying that distinction, Father's Day will continue to represent not only celebration for some families, but contradiction for many others.

© 2026 Samantha Avril-Andreassen. All rights reserved.

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Founder, SAFECHAIN™ | Governance Analyst | Systems Reform Specialist | Safeguarding Framework Developer