Hello and welcome back to the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. I'm your host, Danielle Black, Post Separation Parenting Coach and Creator of the Post Separation Parenting Blueprint. If you tuned into the previous episode, you'll remember that we talked about how to prepare for your family report assessment and the fact that I've created a digital guide to help with preparation for a family report assessment. For people who have purchased access to the blueprint, you'll find that guide in module 20, Legal Considerations as a bonus resource. And it's also available as a standalone purchase in the shop that you can find on my website, Daniel Blackcoaching.com.au. Today we're talking about what happens after the report is done. Because sometimes, despite your best efforts, despite staying calm, clear, honest, the report that lands in your inbox can feel like a real punch to the gut. It can minimize abuse, it can reframe coercive control as quote, conflict, and it can praise the very behavior that has traumatized you and your children. Or it just plain gets it wrong. So what can you do when the family report isn't in your favor? When perhaps the recommendations seem unsafe, unbalanced, or completely disconnected from reality. That's what we're unpacking today. Because while the family report can have enormous influence in the family law process, it's not the final word. And understanding that can be the first step in taking your power back. So let's start with an important reality check. And I really want you to let this land. A family report can become part of the evidence in your family law case, but it is not the verdict. It's one piece of the puzzle that the court considers when deciding what's in the best interest of your children. Yes, it can carry significant weight. This is largely because report writers are seen as independent experts. However, judges are not required to accept their recommendations, and many don't. Judges can and often do make findings that are different from what's recommended in the report. Sometimes those differences are minor, other times they're significant, particularly where the court recognises that the report writer has missed or misunderstood the presence of coercive control or family violence. So if your report isn't in your favour, please try not to panic and don't give up. This is not game over. What it does mean is that you'll need to get clear, strategic, and grounded. Because the next steps matter. Let's talk about why this happens in the first place, because understanding the why can help you to decide what to do next. Here's the truth. There is a competence crisis amongst family report writers in Australia. In 2021, the Attorney General's department asked family law professionals how to improve report writer competency. And the feedback was damning. Professionals urgently need more training in family violence, trauma-informed practice, and identifying and assessing coercive control. For clarity, there is no national training framework for report writers. The gaps in report writer competence still have not been fixed. And that means that many report writers continue to mislabel abuse as conflict or to treat safety concerns as barriers to shared care rather than as red flags for risk. Let's put that into perspective. New Australian research from the University of Queensland, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that children exposed to intimidation and control in childhood, what we now call coercive control, had more than double the odds of developing PTSD. That's a 2.3 fold increase in trauma risk. More than double. And yet the very professionals tasked with assessing children's best interests are often the same ones failing to recognise the behaviors that the research links directly to trauma. So when you read a family report that frames your ex-partner's pattern of intimidation and control as, quote, communication difficulties or quote, both parents contributing to conflict, that's not neutral balanced language. It's negligent. And none of this is happening in a vacuum. For almost 20 years, Australian family law operated under a presumption of equal shared parental responsibility, a concept that was deeply misunderstood and regularly conflated with equal or significant parenting time. That presumption was only removed from the Family Law Act in 2024. But unfortunately, the cultural hangover remains. So even though the law has changed, many professionals, including many report writers, are still operating from an outdated ideology that children's best interests are automatically served by maximum time with both parents. This mindset makes it extremely difficult for protective parents to have their safety concerns taken seriously. Because with that worldview, your caution, your boundaries, and your refusal to expose your child to further harm can all be misinterpreted as quote gatekeeping or quote alienation or lack of insight or quote failure to support the relationship or may be pathologized in some way, for example, making reference to your experiences of anxiety. Yes, it's maddening. The very qualities that make you protective, your insight, your thoughtfulness, your awareness, your trauma-informed lens can be twisted into deficits, can be pathologized by someone who simply does not understand coercive control when it's staring them in the face. So let's get practical. What can you do when you receive a family report that's not in your favor? Here's what I tell my one-on-one coaching clients. You first need to slow down before you respond. You're going to feel all the things shock, rage, disbelief, grief, all of that's normal. But you need to regulate your nervous system before you start making strategic decisions. In fact, you can't begin to make strategic or informed decisions if you're dysregulated. You actually lose the ability to access your prefrontal cortex to the extent that's required to think logically, reasonably, strategically. And as some of you may have already learned, when you're in the court system, being dysregulated can be interpreted as you being unstable. And we're certainly not giving in to that narrative. So take twenty four to forty eight hours, breathe, talk to a safe person, journal, walk. And then when you're feeling calmer and more grounded, start analysing the report line by line. If you can afford legal advice, make sure you've got it. And I'm not talking about the generic advice that just tells you that quote the court gives significant weight to the recommendations of the report writer. End quote. Really, it boggles the mind that so many people are still paying hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars to hear that shit. Please, let's start telling us something that we don't know. Rather, what I'm talking about is advice from someone who actually understands family violence and coercive control. Because there is a huge difference between a family lawyer and a family violence-informed lawyer. If cost is an issue, you may like to contact the Women's Legal Service in your state. Even one conversation with the right lawyer can make a world of difference. If you're supported by legal aid and you're feeling pressured to accept unsafe recommendations, remember you can ask for your file to be reviewed, you can seek a second opinion. You do not have to consent to arrangements that you feel are unsafe. When you do read the report, don't just focus on the recommendations. Look closely at how each parent statements have been represented. How were your words summarized? How were key safety concerns potentially reframed as communication issues or generalized as being conflict? Were there examples of control or intimidation minimized or omitted altogether? Sometimes the issue isn't about what the report writer says, but rather it's what they left out. And this is where working with a coach prior to meeting with a report writer, such as myself or someone from my team, can be incredibly valuable because part of our job is to help you prepare and avoid the blind spots. Once you've identified things clearly, you and your lawyer can decide whether to seek clarification from the report writer, address it through affidavit evidence, or prepare targeted cross-examination questions that expose the gaps. Now let's talk about something that rarely gets discussed the discretion that judges actually have. Judges are not bound to follow a family report. They are required to consider it, but they also have to consider every other piece of evidence before them the affidavits, the testimony from cross examination at final trial, your demeanor in court, subpoenaed documents, the totality of the evidence. So even if your report feels disastrous, it doesn't determine the outcome. There have been plenty of cases where judges have openly criticized report writers for lacking understanding of family violence dynamics, for minimizing risk, or for failing to apply trauma-informed practice. Those moments are powerful, but they only happen when protective parents don't give up. So if your report is problematic, remind yourself you still have a voice. You can still advocate for your children. You still have a right to be heard, and the court still has a duty to protect your children from harm. After a difficult report, the focus then shifts from preparing to rebuilding strategy. This can include grounding yourself using nervous system tools, deep breathing, grounding mantras, the Carmen Grounded Audio Collection. This is a series of guided meditations and affirmations. It's available in the shop on my website, Danielblackcoaching.com.au, and it's also included in the blueprint as part of module 16 as a bonus resource. Essentially, grounding yourself is about doing whatever you can to help you return to calm and steadiness. The next step is to identify what's factual and what's interpretive. So separate what the report writer observed from what they concluded. Observations can be challenged, conclusions can be dismantled. Next is to create a brief summary of the report's major errors, omissions, or contradictions. Now these need to be factual notes, not emotional statements. For example, you might make note of the fact that the report writer didn't address evidence of a breached intervention order. You might note that harassment was reframed as co-parenting communication difficulties. You might note that there was no adequate assessment of the children's distress to the current parenting time. I want to now name something here that often gets glossed over or ignored completely. And that is that we don't just have a competence crisis with the Australian family law system. We also have a class crisis. When report writers get it wrong, parents who have financial means can afford to challenge it. They may be able to commission other private expert reports. They are more easily able to fund a final trial, including paying for senior counsel to dismantle the evidence in court. But for legal aid clients, often mothers, often family violence survivors, the options are brutally limited. If they challenge the report, they can risk losing their funding. If they accept the report, they risk their children's safety. That's not justice, that's coercion. And we have to call it what it is. A two-tiered system where economic privilege determines whether your children are protected from harm. So if you're listening to this and you're in that impossible position, I want you to hear me. You are not failing. You are doing what you can to survive inside a system that frankly was not designed to keep you or your children safe. When so much feels outside of your control, there are some things that you can control. You can control your clarity, the way that you communicate your children's needs and experiences. You can control your calm and your composure, grounding yourself before interaction with others. You can control your documentation, keeping factual dated records of patterns, behaviors, and the impact on your children. And you can control your focus, where you're putting your energy, staying anchored on the things that protect you and your children, not on trying to seek justice or accountability for your ex. This is what I teach inside the post-separation parenting blueprint. It's where child development and research and evidence on post-separation parenting arrangements meet strategy, where we can turn overwhelm into structure and structure into calm confidence. Before we wrap up today's episode, I want to bring you back to something really simple. Your inner capacity. When you're able to regulate your nervous system, you protect your credibility. When you speak with clarity, you protect your message. When you're able to stay grounded, even in stressful situations, you're providing safety for your children. All of those things, calm, clarity, steadiness are what ultimately helps to shift outcomes, even in broken systems. For those who have access to the Preparing for Your Family Report guide, either via the post-separation parenting blueprint or as the standalone guide available on my website, there are grounding techniques and affirmation scripts. Those things can also be applied here after the fact, after you've received a report that hasn't gone your way. You can use those grounding techniques and affirmation scripts before meetings with your lawyer. You can use them when you reread the report. You can use them when the intrusive thoughts and the doom spiraling hits you. You can still be the steady parent that your children need, no matter what the report says. Here's the truth that I want to leave with you today. A family report is not a measure of your worth as a parent. It's a snapshot in time created by one professional. A professional who may be under time pressure, who may have limited understanding, and who may not have the basic competency to assess the issues in your case. The report can inform the court, but it does not define you. What defines you is how you keep showing up, with steadiness, with courage, with clarity, and with unwavering commitment to your children's safety and well-being. The system is still catching up, but you already know what your kids need most. Safety, stability, and a parent who is tuned in and sees their needs clearly. And that parent is you. If today's episode resonated with you, or if you've just received a family report that's left you shaken, please know that you don't have to navigate this alone. You can download the Preparing for Your Family Report digital guide in my online shop or access it as part of the post-separation parenting blueprint where it appears in Module 20 Legal Considerations. Inside the Blueprint, you'll also find frameworks to help you stay grounded through every stage of this process. And if you'd like tailored one-on-one support to help you stay the course, including preparing for meeting with a report writer or preparing for cross-examination at a final trial, you can book a private coaching session with me or a member of my team at Danielleblackcoaching.com.au. An important note for this episode is that nothing that I've mentioned today constitutes legal advice, nor is it a substitute for legal advice. I do strongly encourage that you do what you can to seek legal support from a qualified family law professional. Remember, you can't control the competence of a family report writer, but you can control how you respond. And when you respond with calm, with clarity, with groundedness, you become the one thing that this broken system cannot distort. Thank you again for joining me on this episode of the Post Separation Abuse Podcast. Thank you for being here, for protecting your children, for holding the line. Until next time, do what you can to stay calm, stay grounded, and focused on your precious kids. I'll talk to you soon.