‘Quality’ contact post-separation/divorce: A review of the literature

• The importance for children’s development of good quality continuing bonds with both parents;
• Parent-child relationships are integral to outcomes for children;
• The legal system has a limited capacity to influence the quality of the contact experience and post-separation parent-child relationship;
• Quality contact requires more than the absence of problems;
• There is not one solitary magic ingredient that makes contact work or not work.

Concern with the impact on children of discontinued parent-child relationships following parental separation or divorce has resulted in a depth of empirical knowledge in the maintenance of those relationships through the medium of ‘contact’. While research consistently demonstrates that post-separation/divorce parenting arrangements work best when they are informally arranged between two parents who are committed to making those plans work in the interests of their children, the emotive nature of the separation/divorce experience for many families may demand formal and legal regulation. Research with families involved in post-separation/divorce contact fails to identify a solitary magic ingredient that makes contact work or not work; rather a wide range of factors which operate interactively, interdependently and dynamically, with the attitudes, actions and interactions of the key family players shaping contact and determining its quality. This paper provides a critical review of the international literature on post-separation/divorce contact, identifying and reflecting on the key ingredients or factors central to the successful occurrence of ‘quality contact’. Drawing on the literature reviewed, a framework consisting of four separate yet interrelated layers is presented in order to both identify and explore these dynamic factors that quality contact is dependent upon.