English Law no longer uses the term ‘custody’ in relation to children. It prefers to talk about ‘residence’ which describes who a child lives with or ‘child arrangements’ which is a more broad description of how a child spends his/her time from week to week.
Joint custody or ‘shared residence’, as we now refer to it, is an arrangement that recognises that a child lives with both his/her parents after their separation, even if the division of time between their homes is not equal.