Uncertainty in child custody cases after parental separation: context and decision-making process

Abstract

Abstract Context factors (e.g., a family’s developmental crisis) can affect the child custody decision-making process and the child’s best interests after parental separation. But what are these context factors, and how can they vary across different cultures and legal systems? This paper reports a cross-cultural qualitative study funded by the Brazilian Ministry of Education and was carried out under a Naturalistic Decision-making approach. This study addresses context factors that impact the decision-making of experienced legal actors working in child custody cases. Interviews were conducted with 73 legal actors (judges, prosecutors, lawyers, psychologists and social workers) in Brazil and England. The data gathered were analysed employing a reflexive thematic analysis that generated seven themes addressing how uncertainty is structured by context factors in child custody cases after parental separation. The themes generated encompassed three domains (‘family’, ‘family court’ and ‘legal-psychosocial’) that draw attention to the sources of uncertainty in child custody cases, especially to the role of contextual players (family and children) in the child custody decision-making process.