Dr Katarina Trimmings and Dr Onyoja Momoh organised and delivered training at the UK POAM Training workshops on 15 and 17 December 2020. The workshop was based on the POAM Best Practice Guide on the protection of abducting mothers in return proceedings involving allegations of domestic violence. This was the first opportunity to consider the newly published Guide on protective measures in the UK context and provided invaluable insight into the work and findings of the POAM research project thus far.

The Best Practice Guide is aimed at ensuring that relevant professionals are trained in dealing with issues around the protection of abducting mothers in child abductions committed against the background of domestic violence. In presenting the research findings, Dr Trimmings and Dr Momoh organised the workshop into two sessions.

The first session addressed “Child abduction and domestic violence: legal framework, background and preliminary considerations”, exploring the legal framework, important background considerations, protective measures in the context of return proceedings: preliminary matters, and the approach to the assessment of the grave risk of harm. Session two focused on “Measures for the protection of abducting mothers”, examining protective measures available to victims of domestic violence in the UK, the utility of the 1996 Hague Convention (Article 11 (Jurisdiction) and Article 23 (Recognition and Enforcement) and UK Case law. The workshop concluded with a case study task and small group sessions to enable discussions and the exchange of ideas amongst the participants. Across both training days, participants expressed gratitude for an informative and enlightening event. The training documents can be found here.

As ever, updates on the work of POAM is on the website, including the recent publication of the Best Practice Guide and Executive Summary.