Supporting children when parents separate. An online resource from the Centre for Social Policy A filmed interview of Professor Mervyn Murch by Dr Christopher Clulow Available via and

This is a truly fascinating interview which runs long at eighty-three minutes and yet is much more of a trailer to the feature film which is Professor Murch's latest book Supporting Children when Parents Separate: Embedding a Crisis Intervention Approach within Family Justice, Education and Mental Health Policy published by Policy Press. The interview usefully covers seven different aspects of the family justice system, all from the perspective of the child. It invites you to witness a conversation between two professionals who are each esteemed in their own fields and who clearly have huge mutual respect. There is clear affection between the two which leads to the conversation being relaxed, informative, and not a performance for an audience.

The interview is unique from a number of perspectives; historical, theoretical, and interdisciplinary. Consequently, the interview is also the culmination of wisdom and experience and we hear that the book is aimed at exactly that, a summation of important learning gained over a lifetime. The historical perspective includes a mix of autobiographical information and professional experience which is itself fascinating. Professor Murch, CBE, and currently Emeritus Professor at Cardiff Law School, for example, had no education until the age of seven years, attended nine different schools between the ages of seven and twelve, and at one point was classified as educationally subnormal (ESN), a term now frowned upon of course. Similarly, he described incidents of sheer luck and good fortune alongside the experience of being a prison inmate for a month as part of a process of gaining experience under the cover of having committed theft. This mix of events undoubtedly fed into the development of the ideas and systems with which he was subsequently involved and provide an important context for realising that professional services and views arise out of personal experience in combination with whatever training is undertaken. The interview