Suchergebnisse

This article examines three think tanks sponsored by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, which convened representatives of different disciplines, often with differing perspectives, to address policy and practice dilemmas in family law and dispute resolution. This essay was initially commissioned by the Nuffield Foundation, London, UK, as an Insight Article for its Family Justice Observatory, which aims to improve the use of data and research evidence in the family justice system in England and Wales. The think tank process is described and analyzed, identifying factors that created challenges and those that led to success.

Reforming family courts and court services remains a continuing and pervasive challenge, as described in the White Paper developed by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System's Honoring Families Initiative. This commentary explores challenges to reforming court services and concludes that significant funding is needed to achieve long‐term, effective, and overarching change. The commentary also examines the proposition of community–court partnerships and suggests that (1) each community must tailor its program based on its needs and resources and (2) specific operational elements of a court services program, rather than its location, lead to effective service delivery.
Key Points for the Family Court Community
Sufficient funding of family court services is critical to effective service delivery.
Although insufficient funding may not eliminate services, it may change the fundamental nature of the dispute resolution process.
Services should be tailored based on the needs and resources of the community.

Mandatory mediation has, since its inception in the 1980s, been at the heart of family court service agencies. However, changing times, more complex family problems, and a lack of court resources have created significant service delivery challenges. This article examines the emergence of variations of triage processes in family court service agencies as a response and contends that it is time to consider replacing the tiered service delivery model.

Within the last decade, the term "access to justice" has grown in popularity among legal commentators, scholars, family justice reformers, government policy makers, and the media. But with all of this new attention, there remains no common understanding or definition of access to justice and its potential implications for children and families in domestic relation courts. The purpose of this cross‐sectional online survey was to explore the meaning of access to justice according to legal, mental health, and dispute resolution professionals in various countries. The sample included 442 respondents (e.g., judges, lawyers, custody evaluators, mediators, family court services, court administrators, parent educators, etc.) from seven countries. Of the total respondents, 398 participants completed the survey (response rate of ninety percent). The majority of participants defined access to justice as the ability of disputants to seek and obtain a remedy through formal (e.g., the courts) or informal (e.g., mediation) institutions and services for resolving disputes. Noteworthy differences were reported, however, between the views of legal and mental health professionals, where the latter most likely viewed access to justice as a legal issue, while the former focused on alternative approaches outside of the legal system to resolve family disputes. Implications for family court reforms are discussed.

The contemporary practice of family law demands that lawyers know far more than the law. Results of a recent survey of professionals and law students suggest that today's family lawyer needs knowledge and skills that are often missing from law school curricula. Survey respondents emphasized the importance of strong interpersonal skills like listening, negotiation, and working with clients in emotional crisis, as well as keen understanding of financial issues in family law, the impact of separation and divorce on children, and the ethical dimensions of family law practice. Law students held contrasting views to law faculty and to practicing attorneys on a number of measures, ranking adversarial courtroom skills as more important and placing less emphasis on skills, knowledge, and attributes related to ethics.

Family Dispute Resolution brings together some of the field's leading practitioners, researchers, teachers, and policymakers to share their expertise and experience. This overview of family dispute resolution processes and practices is designed to help professionals who assist separating and divorcing parents make decisions about the future of their families. It is essential reading for legal and mental health professionals in the field and law and graduate students who intend to work with separating and divorcing families.

The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts and Relate, UK, co‐convened a 24‐hour consultation at St George's House, Windsor, UK, on modern family justice issues across Europe. This article identifies a preliminary set of guiding principles for family justice programs developed by consultation participants.

This article reviews the development and current status of the parent education movement in the family courts. Parent education programs are now being implemented in courts throughout the United States and have a high level of public acceptance; however, a stronger research methodology to evaluate the effects and continued work to align the goals with the content and teaching strategies of these programs are needed. A new conceptual framework is proposed for parent education, which views divorce as a public health problem for children as well as a legal issue. The three‐level framework uses concepts from public health to align the goals, content, and format of parent education programs and to enable rigorous evaluations of the outcomes achieved by these programs.

Educational programs for separated and divorcing parents are widely disseminated, popular, and diverse in their structure, goals, and teaching strategies.
To enhance the value of parent education programs, a more cohesive approach to program development and rigorous evaluation is needed to work toward dissemination of evidence‐based programs.
A model is proposed to integrate concepts from public health into court‐affiliated parent education programs.