The new Pathfinder Family Court Procedure

By Melissa Gire, Associate Solicitor, Family & Matrimonial

If you and your ex-partner are unable to agree on arrangements for your children, you may need to turn to the family courts for assistance.

However, the traditional court process can be lengthy, emotionally taxing and uncertain—particularly for the children.

To address this, a new method called the Pathfinder Family Court Procedure is being piloted in certain regions. This approach aims to minimise delays, identify any safeguarding concerns early and prioritise the best interests of the children throughout the court process.

The new approach to private law children’s cases under the Pathfinder model has been piloted over the past two years in North Wales and Dorset and went live in Birmingham and Cardiff in April/May last year. The President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, has described the model as ‘more radical and far more successful’ than anticipated. If it proves successful, then more courts should start using the same approach in the near future.

The Pathfinder pilot aims to:

• Reduce waiting time with better coordination between the court and support services, such as family court advisors and child welfare professionals. This appears to be successful as the average time to resolve private law applications has dropped from 29 to 18 weeks, ensuring better outcomes for families.
• Put children’s welfare first, from the very start, with the introduction of a child-centred approach to ensure that children’s voices are heard throughout the court process.
• Spot problems, such as safeguarding concerns and domestic abuse, early on and to handle these cases with greater sensitivity and expertise. Special measures, such as better support for victims and enhanced risk assessments, have been implemented in participating courts.
• Encourage cooperation through negotiation or mediation, wherever possible, with the goal of reducing adversarial court battles.  

The findings of the Pathfinder Pilot has laid the groundwork for meaningful improvements in private law children proceedings.  otential next steps include expanding the pilot to more courts across the UK and strengthening measures to protect victims of domestic abuse by ensuring consistent application of support services and risk assessments.  

When the pilot hopefully expands to the Kent area (where CooperBurnett LLP is based), it is likely that local domestic abuse charities such as DAVSS (Domestic Abuse Volunteer Support Services) will be involved in providing better support for victims of abuse in participating courts.  

Pathfinder is intended to transform the way family courts resolve disputes by putting children first, speeding up decisions and reducing the need for as many hearings. Hopefully we will see the expansion of the pilot nationally throughout 2025/26 and that the positive results of the pilot schemes hold true when this takes place.

The current system in our experience is slow and, as such, often damaging for the children and very stressful for the parents, who find themselves at court, so a new process appears long overdue.

If you require advice about child arrangements, please do not hesitate to contact our Family & Matrimonial team - Melissa Gire on email: meg@cooperburnett.com or Gemma Gillespie on email: gjg@cooperburnett.com or tel: 01892 515022

This blog is not intended as legal advice that can be relied upon and CooperBurnett LLP does not accept any responsibility for the accuracy of its contents.