This book is about supporting children and young people through critical life-changing events associated with serious conflicts between their parents leading to parental separation and divorce. It is worth remembering that every year about 200,000 children will have experienced their parents’ separation and divorce. Almost a third of all British children will have experienced this by the time they reach the school leaving age of 16. So we are considering the needs of a very large number of children indeed.

I was prompted to write this book because I became increasingly dismayed by a number of cost-cutting measures introduced during David Cameron's governments (2010–16) in response to the economic crisis of 2007–08 and its aftermath. These damaged such limited services that previously existed to support children and their families in these circumstances. Of particular concern were major cuts to civil legal aid, which inadvertently reduced the fragile network of family mediation services. Also, cuts to the budgets of already overstretched child and adolescent mental health services have produced serious delays and further restricted eligibility of those children who develop long-term mental disorders and behavioural problems in reaction to the difficulties between their parents. Moreover, recent cuts in educational budgets led to reductions in some school counselling support services.

Even so, Theresa May, the Prime Minister, in a speech to the Charity Commission on 9 January 2017, pledged to help schools and companies in England deal with ‘the hidden injustice’ of mental illness. In this speech she announced several measures which chime with the subjects covered in this book: namely, that every school will be offered ‘mental health first aid training’; attempts to strengthen links between schools and NHS specialist staff, including a review of child and adolescent services across the country to be led by the Care Quality Commission. This produced its phase one report from its ongoing review of children and young people's mental health services in October 2017 when this book was going to press (see further Chapter Thirteen) with greater focus on community care.