If you prepare one document for family court, make it a chronology. Judges read it first, CafcassCafcass is the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. It is independent of the court and of both parents, and its job is to advise the court about what is best for a child. officers rely on it, and under the Child Focused Model, where the first hearing often makes decisions, it lets the court see the shape of your case quickly.
What a chronology is
A dated list of the events that matter, in date order, one event per line, with no argument or feeling attached. Its job is to answer "what happened, and when" so that everyone in the room is working from the same timeline.
What to include
- Key life events: the child's date of birth, when you and the other parent separated, moves of home or school
- Court events: applications made, orders, hearings, Cafcass contact
- When contact started, stopped, or changed
- Incidents that you say matter, with the date and a neutral description
- Involvement of the police, social services, school or GP, with dates
- Communications where the content matters, with the date and a reference to where the message can be found
What to leave out
Opinion, adjectives, and motive. "She deliberately kept him from me" becomes "Contact did not take place on 14 May; the other parent said by text that the child was unwell." Minor arguments that do not affect the child. Anything you cannot date, at least to the month. Repetition: if handovers were missed on eight occasions, one line per occasion, each dated, is right; a paragraph about how often it happens is not.
Format
Three columns: date, event, source. The source column points to where the evidence is: "order dated 3 March 2025", "text message, page 12 of bundle", "school letter, page 20". Number every line. Keep to one or two pages where you can; if the history is long, keep the detail for the most recent period and summarise the older years in a few lines.
A short worked example
- 12 March 2019: Alexander born. Source: birth certificate.
- 8 September 2023: parents separate; Alexander remains living with mother, spends alternate weekends with father by agreement. Source: agreed.
- 14 November 2024: child arrangements order made at West London Family Court. Source: order, bundle page 4.
- 3 May 2025: weekend contact did not take place. The other parent said by text that Alexander was unwell. Source: text message, bundle page 12.
- 12 May 2025: father collected Alexander from school; Alexander stayed overnight as ordered. Source: agreed.
Notice that line 4 records what was said without saying whether it was true. If the truth of it matters, that is for a statement or for the hearing, not the chronology.
Keep it updated
A chronology is a living document. Add to it as things happen and you will always have the latest version ready for the next hearing or for Cafcass.
How familycourt.app and McKenzie can help
Document Studio's chronology template does the formatting for you: dated lines, a source column, automatic ordering. When you add a message, letter or order to your case, McKenzie helps you turn it into a neutral dated entry and links it to the source, and you confirm each line before it is saved. The chronology then feeds your statements and your bundle index, so nothing is typed twice.