This book is concerned with the regulation of family relationships,in particular the issue of openness and contact in the many different family situations in which it may arise. The shift towards a presumption of contact, and its articulation within diverse fields of family law and practice raises a whole series of questions which this book seeks to explore. For example: Why has the contact presumption emerged? What is meant by contact, and with whom. What is the value and purpose of it? What makes it work or not work? What is the role of law and other forms of external intervention in promoting, regulating or facilitating contact and to what extent should 'familial' relationships be subject to state regulation? More broadly, what can we infer about current conceptualisations of family, parenting (and the relative importance of social and biological parenthood) and childhood from policy and practice towards contact?These and other questions were explored in a series of seminars organised by the Cambridge Socio-Legal Group in 2002. The book is the product of these seminars.Andrew Bainham, Belinda Brooks-Gordon, Ann Buchanan, Shelley Day Sclater, Judy Dunn, John Eekelaar, Bob Geldof, Jonathan Herring, Claire Hughes, Joan Hunt, Adrian James, Julie Jessop, Felicity Kaganas, Bridget Lindley, Mavis Maclean, Joanna Miles, Katrin Mueller-Johnson, Elsbeth Neil, Jan Pryor, Martin Richards, Bob Simpson, Donna Smith, Liz Trinder

1.Introduction - Liz TrinderSection 1: Children and their Families2.Contact and Children's Perspectives on Parental Relationships - Judy Dunn3.Making and Breaking Relationships: Children and their Families - Claire Hughes4.Children's Contact with Relatives - Jan PryorSection 2: The Law and its Limits5. Contact as a Right and Obligation - Andrew Bainham6.Connecting Contact: Contact in a Private Law Context - Jonathan Herring7.Supporting Cross-Household Parenting: Ideas about 'the family',Policy Formation and Service Development across Jurisdictions - Mavis Maclean and Katrin Mueller-Johnson8.Squaring the Circle - the Social, Legal and Welfare Organisation of Contact - Adrian JamesSection 3: Mothers, Fathers and Children9. Contact: Mothers, Welfare and Rights - Shelley Day Sclater and Felicity Kaganas10. The Real Love that Dare Not Speak its Name - Bob Geldof11.Father after Divorce - Bob Simpson, Julie Jessop and Peter McCarthySection 4: The Hand of the State12.Contact for Children Subject to State Intervention - Jo Miles and Bridget Lindley13.Contact and the Adoption Reform - John Eekelaar14.Adoption and Contact: A Research Review - Elspeth NeilSection 5: Challenging Contact15.Assisted Reproduction and Parental Relationships - Martin Richards16.Contact in Containment - Belinda Brooks-Gordon17.Making Contact Work in International Cases: Promoting Contact Whilst Preventing International Parental Child Abduction - Donna Smith18.Disputed Contact Cases in the Courts - Ann Buchanan and Joan Hunt19.Working and Not Working Contact after Divorce - Liz Trinder