The Pathfinder Pilot has been launched in a number of family courts across the country including North Wales, Dorset, Birmingham and West Yorkshire.  As of 11th November 2025, the pilot has been kickstarted in the Staffordshire area and therefore a key question is how will this impact private family law proceedings moving forward?

The main aim of the pilot was to try and improve the court experience for families and to re-focus minds that the children’s voice should be at the centre of all private family proceedings.  The pilot will apply to all private law applications but not public law cases.

Many private family law cases involve some element of domestic abuse and therefore the incentive of the pilot was to try and reform private family law practice and shift to a focus of a more problem-solving and investigative approach which in turn will support victims of domestic abuse. This will mean a more structured approach to risk assessments around domestic abuse in the family courts. Other objectives include:-

  1. To promote the best interests of the child and offer safe recommendations to the court
  2. For professionals to work in a trauma-focussed way
  3. To assess the impact of the child of their lived experiences of domestic abuse and to look for strengths within the family and community to promote a child’s safety
  4. Reduce delay and the amount of court hearings

One key change from the current model of proceedings is that a CAFCASS officer will be tasked to prepare a “child impact report” within a certain timescale to be set by the local court (usually 8 weeks within receiving the application). This will replace the section 7 report and the purpose is for the court to have a detailed assessment of the child’s needs, the child’s wishes and feelings, areas of parental conflict, safeguarding checks and the impact of domestic abuse or other risks to the child available for the first hearing. The officer is required to conduct detailed  interviews with the child and family members where appropriate. The following factors will need to be taken into consideration at an early stage:-

  • Identify immediate risks to child and potential victim
  • Make any necessary safeguarding referrals if required to the local authority
  • Is the victim supported by domestic abuse services?
  • Consider whether any previous CAFCASS involvement
  • Are there are any previous or ongoing police investigations/ convictions which are relevant?
  • Assessor should consider cultural needs, disabilities, any vulnerabilities which may mean that special measures are required.

This will mean that families get the right sort of support from the onset including any referrals to support services such as ICFA, parenting programmes , mental health services or domestic abuse support.

There will also be a focus on the necessity of listing a fact find hearing at the earliest opportunity and the Court will need to intrinsically consider whether this is necessary to enable final decisions to be made. Judges will try and minimise the amount of hearings requires to reduce delay and stress for the family. It is hoped that the process will be less adversarial for families.

Those areas where the pilot has been up and running have reported positive feedback with statistics from the Ministry of Justice evidencing that the time taken to conclude a case had reduce from a 29 week average to 18 weeks in North Wales.

For further information, please contact our Care team on freephone 0800 011 6666 or via email at legal@timms-law.com.