The Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on A Collaborative and Child‐Focused Approach to Alternative Dispute Resolution

The Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families (RCSDF) is a teaching model for providing interdisciplinary services to separating and divorcing families. The model was developed by the Honoring Families Initiative at the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver. Services are provided by graduate and law students at the University of Denver, working side‐by‐side with a supervising licensed attorney, psychologist, and social worker. The experiential and interdisciplinary model of teaching and providing direct client services is the first of its kind in the United States. RCSDF students and staff seek to empower parents to make positive decisions about their family's future in a supportive and educational environment.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• The current system of preparing graduate and law students for careers in family law is in need of improvement. This article provides information for educators and the family law community about the impact of interdisciplinary and experiential learning for students.
• Parents going through the transition of separation or divorce experience psychological and financial stressors that can create serious behavioral and adjustment issues for their children. The RCSDF works in a holistic manner with parents and children to minimize the levels of stress and anxiety during the transition.

     

Unbundled Services to Enhance Peacemaking for Divorcing Families

Unbundling, also known as limited‐scope representation, has been adopted by judges, the organized legal profession, and divorcing parties. Unbundling is a legal access approach to better and more affordably serve unrepresented divorce litigants as well as to assist overburdened and underfunded courts. This article will focus on another critical benefit of unbundling: the ability of divorcing professionals to provide information and support to divorcing families to help reduce family conflicts. This article shall discuss four unbundled peacemaking roles that lawyers can play: (1) Collaborative Lawyer; (2) Lawyer Coach for Self‐Represented Litigants; (3) Lawyer for Mediation Participants; and (4) Preventive Legal Health Care Provider.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Overview of limited‐scope lawyering roles
• Impact of unbundled representation on peacemaking
• Best practices of noncourt lawyering

     

Family Peacemaking with an Interdisciplinary Team: A Therapist's Perspective

Interdisciplinary teams provide an unparalleled opportunity for peacemaking in families within the consensual dispute resolution continuum. This interdisciplinary environment was born out of the integration of Collaborative Law, in which lawyers limit the scope of their services to settlement by way of a signed agreement, and Collaborative Divorce, a team approach to divorce services that includes a lawyer for each party along with a Collaborative Divorce Coach for each party, a neutral financial specialist, and a neutral child specialist. Taken together, Interdisciplinary Collaborative Practice supports the resolution of legal issues out of court as well as addressing any emotional, relational, or behavioral problems that create obstacles to the successful resolution of the separation process.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Collaborative Practice creates legal representation in a consensual environment limiting services to settlement negotiations by way of a written agreement.
• The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals includes 5,000 members in twenty‐five countries.
• Legal representation in a consensual environment together with interdisciplinary teams create endless possibilities for dispute resolution processes.
• Collaborative Lawyers, Collaborative Divorce Coaches, child specialists, and financial specialists can create custom‐fit interdisciplinary teams that work together out of court to support families through marital transition.
• Interdisciplinary teams are family centric, bridging appropriate disciplines and resources to the needs of the family to address the vast majority of divorce‐related problems.
• Divorcing families are moving targets, learning and evolving through the process.
• Therapeutic teams support families with more complex relational, emotional, and mental health problems to find resolutions out of court.
• Divorce is a mainstream event in Western culture; we need supportive processes to encourage the best possible outcomes for all family members, especially the children.

     

Parenting Plans for Special Needs Children: Applying a Risk‐Assessment Model

Family courts are seeing an increasing number of separating or divorced families who have a special needs child. These cases present complex challenges for family law professionals charged with crafting parenting plans based on best interests standards. For many of these children, the typical developmentally based custodial arrangements may not be suitable, given the child's specific symptoms and treatment needs. We present a model for understanding how the general and specific needs of these children, as well as the demands on parents, can be assessed and understood in the context of divorce. This includes an analysis of risk and protective factors that inform timeshare and custodial recommendations and determinations. The risk assessment model is then applied to three of the most commonly occurring childhood neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders likely to be encountered in family court, namely, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, depressive disorders, and autistic spectrum disorders.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• There has been a dramatic rise in the population of children with neurodevelopmental, psychiatric, and medical syndromes whose parents are disputing custody in the family courts.
• Family law professionals of all disciplines should develop a fundamental knowledge base about the most commonly seen special needs children in family court, such as those with neurodevelopmental conditions like autistic spectrum disorder, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and severe depressive disorders (especially with teenagers), which may involve suicidal or self‐harming behaviors.
• Commonly recommended parenting plans may be inappropriate for many special needs children, as some function significantly below their chronological age and pose extreme behavioral challenges.
• A systematic analysis of risk and protective factors should inform timeshare arrangements and determinations with this varied population, including the safety of the child and severity of the disorder, parental commitment and availability to pursue medical, educational, and therapeutic services, the parental attunement and insightful about the problem, and the differential parenting skills of each parent.

     

Designing Heart‐Based Systems to Encourage Forgiveness and Reconciliation in Divorcing Families

Conflicts in intimate relationships are often accidental, occasional, and unique; yet they are also systemic, repetitive, and alike. For this reason, they are amenable to systemic analysis and resolution by altering them at their chronic sources and applying the preventative methodology of conflict resolution systems design. The central difficulties with using traditional forms of conflict resolution systems design in marriages, couples, and families are that they do not effectively address the emotional meaning or significance of the conflict within the relationship; are not grounded in the heart; and do not address the intimate, relational aspects of intimate, affective conflicts. Marriages and families are deeply sensitive, highly complex emotional relationships that require systems design methodologies that are profoundly informed by the heart. This article proposes a heart‐based systems design approach that includes forgiveness and reconciliation for use in marriages and families, including those that end in divorce.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Conflicts in intimate relationships are accidental, occasional, and unique; yet they are also systemic, repetitive, and alike.
• Marriages and families are deeply sensitive, highly complex emotional relationships that require systems design methodologies that are profoundly informed by the heart.
• It is possible to create a heart-based systems design approach to marital, family and divorce conflicts that includes forgiveness and reconciliation.

     

A Rigorous Quasi‐Experimental Design to Evaluate the Causal Effect of a Mandatory Divorce Education Program

All couples with minor children who filed for divorce within a specific 6‐week period (N = 191 couples) in one jurisdiction were ordered to attend a divorce education program. The control group included about 20 couples randomly selected from each of six 6‐week intervals before and six 6‐week intervals after the treatment interval (N = 243 couples). Archival records were searched for variables such as legal and residential custody award, visitation percentage, and relitigation. The impact of the program was assessed by evaluating, for each variable, whether the data for program interval departed from the straight (regression) line drawn through all the control group intervals. Only the visitation time award significantly differed: 27.75% for treatment couples and 22.46% for control couples. Analyses show that the father's attendance at the program primarily accounts for the difference.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• There are considerable methodological weaknesses in most of the existing evaluations of divorcing parent education programs.
• Stronger, more scientifically rigorous—and thus persuasive—designs are possible in court settings, such as the regression discontinuity quasi‐experimental design we feature here.
• Archival records, such as various court filings, are a rich and relatively untapped source of data.
• Being mandated to attend a single 2‐hour divorcing parent education class caused an increase in the visitation time award in divorce decrees.
• There is a disconnect between being mandated by a judge to attend a program and actual attendance.

     

Cognitive‐Behavioral Methods in High‐Conflict Divorce: Systematic Desensitization Adapted to Parent–Child Reunification Interventions

Children who are triangulated into their parents' conflicts can become polarized, aligning with one parent and rejecting the other. In response, courts often order families to engage mental health professionals to provide reunification interventions. This article adapts empirically established systematic desensitization and flooding procedures most commonly used to treat phobic children as possible components of a larger family systems invention designed to help the polarized child develop a healthy relationship with both parents. Strengths and weaknesses of these procedures are discussed and illustrated with case material.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• Family law and psychology agree that children should have the opportunity to enjoy a healthy relationship with both parents
• Adult conflict can polarize a child's relationships, including rejection of one parent
• Existing clinical and forensic “reunification” strategies often prove inadequate
• Reliable and valid cognitive behavioral methods can be adopted to facilitate this process
• A cognitive‐behavioral “exposure‐based” reunification protocol is discussed

     

The Role of Western Religious Values in Peacemaking for Divorcing Families

Peace (wholeness and integrity) is to be sought as the highest goal in the divorce process, affecting not only the divorcing couple but their family and community as well. The value of “community” found in the three major Western religious traditions suggests that more than just the immediate family should be involved in crafting divorce settlements and that the involvement of clergy may aid in the divorce process, especially in providing rich religious metaphors and exempla to promote peaceful negotiations. Other religious values such as “humanity in the divine image,” “love,” and “the fullness of time” can be useful in working with the divorcing couple to allow their stories to be told, provide time to sort out their complex emotions, and help reduce the impulse to see the other solely as an enemy to be eliminated in battle. “Sin and atonement” can serve an important role in restorative justice, while “the delayed arrival of the divine kingdom” provides a reasonable way to assess what determines success, both for the divorcing couple and for divorce professionals.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Religious values found in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam can be consciously utilized to help divorcing couples separate more peacefully.
• Providing opportunities for each spouse to be fully heard and seen is a crucial component in helping to bring more peace into the divorce process.

     

Does Level of Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse Predict the Content of Family Mediation Agreements?

This study investigated whether reported levels of intimate partner violence (IPV) and/or abuse (IPV/A) victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues. Whether or not parties reached agreement was analyzed for 105 cases at a law school mediation clinic. Agreement content was coded for the 71 cases that reached agreement. Levels of IPV and IPV/A were determined separately for males and females, using a standardized measure. Regression models were utilized to examine reports of IPV or IPV/A as predictors. Results indicated that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns; levels of partner violence/abuse predicted numerous issues in mediation agreements, including arrangements regarding legal custody, parenting time, holidays, child exchanges, interparental communication, safety restrictions, counseling referrals, child support, financial arrangements, and other miscellaneous topics (e.g., relocation). However, some findings were consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A; for example, increasing levels of male‐perpetrated IPV/A predicted increased likelihood of making an agreement to share legal custody. Further research is needed to resolve the longstanding debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• This study adds to the debate of whether divorce mediation is an effective and safe process for parties demonstrating IPV/A.
• It examines whether reported levels of IPV and IPV/A victimization are related to reaching agreement and to the content of mediation agreements of parties seeking to resolve family‐ and child‐related issues.
• Results provide some evidence that mediation may help families with a reported history of IPV and IPV/A address a variety of concerns.
• However, some findings are consistent with concerns raised about the use of mediation with parties reporting IPV and IPV/A.
• Findings have implications for the practice of family mediation with parties reporting a history of IPV or IPV/A.

     

It is Just Good Business: The Case for Supporting Reform in Divorce Court

This article examines the ways in which divorce and child custody proceedings can impact employee productivity and suggests that it behooves businesses to become involved in supporting efforts to improve the process—both as a matter of community service and because it can impact their bottom line. This article further outlines some improvements that are being implemented or considered in various jurisdictions.

Key Points for the Family Court Community
• Divorce does not just impact the parties and their children. It also impacts the work productivity of the individuals involved.
• The population of individuals seeking court involvement in child custody issues has changed, and new processes must be developed to address their needs.
• There are new ideas about how to restructure the divorce process in ways that could benefit both the individuals and their employers.

     

Redesigning the Family Law System to Promote Healthy Families

Family law professionals should be proactive in seeking and implementing constructive reforms. We identify some successful cutting‐edge reforms: (1) family resource centers, where all kinds of needs can be met; (2) informal family law trials, which streamline clogged calendars and provide an empowering and efficient forum; (3) licensed legal technicians, who increase public access to legal services; and (4) unbundled family law services. Second, we outline a protocol for implementation of reform developed by the Oregon Task Force on Family Law which is effective and replicable. Thoughtful reform of dispute resolution processes will serve family health and promote peace.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Evolving family constellations, private ordering through pre‐ and postmarital agreements, an increase in self‐represented litigants, and shrinking judicial resources are changing family law dramatically.
• Thoughtful, practical process reforms are needed in order to accommodate these changes.
• Practitioners should be proactive about seeking out and implementing such reforms.
• Some reforms already finding success include family relationship resource centers, informal domestic relations trials, licensed legal technicians, and unbundled legal services.
• We outline a protocol with a proven track record of success for implementing cutting‐edge family law reform.

     

Faster and as Satisfying: An Evaluation of Alaska's Early Resolution Triage Program

The Alaska Court Early Resolution Program (ERP) addresses many issues – self‐representation in divorce and custody cases, triaging to determine the appropriate resolution approach, the importance of early intervention and the desire to use a simplified process and a problem‐solving approach. This article reports on an evaluation of the Anchorage ERP. It found different outcomes for ERP cases that settled than comparable cases that proceeded on the regular trial process track with respect to the following outcomes:

• time to disposition,
• number of staff processing steps and associated completion time, and
• number of motions to modify filed within two years of the disposition.

     

Families in Circle Process: Restorative Justice in Family Law

This article explores the use of “circle process”—a form of restorative justice—in family law and places this effort within a larger movement within the law toward law as a healing profession, or the “comprehensive law movement.” It explores the features and underpinnings of circle process and its relationship to original forms of dispute resolution such as those used in African‐style mediation and indigenous people's dispute resolution in North America. Values expressed by these forms of dispute resolution are argued to be particularly relevant in family law. Finally, it focuses on an innovative and exciting court‐sponsored program begun in Chicago in 2008, using circle process with families in conflict, in the Cook County Parentage and Child Support Court. This program's results suggest potential benefits and cautions of using circle process in family law.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Restorative justice, in particular, circle process, can be used to resolve family law cases.
• Circle process widens the group of participants in alternative dispute resolution of family law matters.
• Circle process brings more voices to the table, namely, extended family, friends, and supporters, thus enhancing the group's decisionmaking.
• Judges will want to be sure the families in question are appropriate for circle process before referring them to this method of resolving disputes.
• Circle processes can result in improved communication and relations among families in conflict.
• Circle process reflects the values of “original dispute resolution,” which often in turn reflects ubuntu, the idea that all humankind is interconnected.
• Circle process is part of a greater movement towards law as a healing profession/the comprehensive law movement, which includes therapeutic jurisprudence.

     

What the #@!* are they Fighting About?!?: Reflections on Fairness,Identity, Social Capital,and Peacemaking in Family Conflicts

Peacemaking is particularly challenging in family conflicts. Deeply held feelings about identity, fair treatment, moral issues, and protecting social capital often cause people in conflict to make self‐defeating decisions. There are, however, techniques that enable mediators, Collaborative Practice professionals, and other peacemakers to overcome the settlement barriers created by these strongly held views. These techniques include those pioneered by psychotherapists using the Internal Family Systems model, which enables parties to see that their strongly held views comprise only part of the constellation of feelings that they have about the conflict.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Parents who feel that their role as father or mother is in danger often find it difficult to focus on the children's best interests.
• The “rule of reciprocity” causes people who feel wronged to exact even harsher punishment on those who harmed them.
• The concept of “social capital” explains why people care so passionately about whether they are treated fairly and about their reputation for fairness.
• The Internal Family Systems model helps peacemakers to understand how to work with the parties’ ambivalence about settlement versus courtroom vindication.

     

Evaluation of Topics in Utah's ONE‐HOUR Divorce Education Program

Divorce education programs are mandatory in most states. Despite the ongoing debate in the field regarding the appropriate duration of these programs, the goal of the current study was to identify the following five content areas in divorce education that may be most relevant for predicting favorable outcomes: (1) impact of divorce on children, (2) impact of divorce on family relationships, (3) financial responsibilities of divorcing parents for children, (4) benefits of positive coparenting, and (5) impact of domestic violence on children and family relationships. Using divorcing parents' self‐reported data (N = 3,275) from a one‐hour online divorce education program in Utah, we examined participants' post‐divorce intentions to treat each other respectfully, especially in front of the child(ren), and engage in positive coparental practices. The results showed that the program was effective in obtaining these objectives. We discuss these findings in depth and offer suggestions for future programs.     

The Parenting Coordinator as Peacemaker and Peacebuilder

Parenting coordinators serve as case managers in high‐conflict families with the goal of protecting the children from parental conflict. Parenting coordinators are peacemakers and peacebuilders who identify and help set up structures in the family to support peace between the parents. The family court should promote and develop equipoise in litigants and professionals. Because parents who continue in conflict postdecree often have difficulty empathizing with their co‐parents and with their children, they might benefit from meditation training to increase mindfulness, empathy, and compassion. Self‐compassion training could also increase well‐being and more effective co‐parenting and aid in building peace in the family.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Parenting coordination is a child‐focused intervention with high‐conflict parents that can help protect children from their parents' conflict.
• Parenting coordinators are peacemakers who resolve disputes between the parents and facilitate negotiation and communication between them and help them make decisions.
• Parenting coordinators are also peacebuilders who help identify and build structures and processes in the family system to strengthen interparental peace.
• Equipoise can be developed in litigants and professionals through mindfulness and compassion training.
• Family court judges can work with parenting coordinators in a team approach, in a manner similar to what occurs in problem‐solving courts, to benefit the families and the judicial system.

     

Helping Families by Maintaining a Strong Well‐Funded Family Court that Encourages Consensual Peacemaking: A Judicial Perspective

This article explores alternatives for the court process that promote a child‐centered approach to resolution of family law issues including a summary of procedures used in Los Angeles County to assist families. The article also explores alternatives to the traditional custody litigation model.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Evaluations and trials are not the only tools available in family law.
• Structured court ordered counseling can provide a meaningful intervention and reduce family conflict.
• Alternative forms of mediation can help families address the “need to be heard” and retain personal autonomy in decision making.
• The court system should help educate families about how to resolve conflict in a safe, effective, and meaningful way.

     

CYBER‐ABUSE—A NEW WORLDWIDE THREAT TO CHILDREN'S RIGHTS

Cyberspace is a new frontier for both international and domestic family law. On the one hand, it presents great opportunities for society and, on the other, great dangers particularly for children. This paper explores a number of issues from a domestic and international family law perspective. These issues include:

• ? What is cyberspace, how has it emerged, and where is it likely to go?
• ? What are the potential dangers for children that arise from children's engagement with cyberspace?
• ? What is the nature and extent of domestic and international family laws that protect children from the dangers of cyberspace?
• ? What are some of the present and emerging policy issues that impact on these matters?

Cyber‐abuse is a term that encompasses a wide range of aggressive online activities.     

Evaluation of the University of Denver's Center for Separating and Divorcing Families: The First Out‐of‐Court Divorce Option1

The Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families (RCSDF) is the first U.S. alternative dispute resolution model to provide legal dispute resolution, therapeutic, educational, and financial services to separating and divorcing families in a single location outside the courthouse. Data were collected on 82 families at entry and service completion: service utilization, process timeliness, family satisfaction, and outcomes. Parents were highly satisfied with the process and demonstrated significant improvements in personal well‐being, co‐parenting, parenting quality, and reported reductions in children's anxiety/depression. Community partners felt RCSDF was a positive innovation in their community. The RCSDF model represents a culture shift from an adversarial process to a cohesive alternative that supports the well‐being of all family members.     

Unintended and Unavoidable: The Failure to Protect Rule and Its Consequences for Undocumented Parents and Their Children

Parents without immigration status in the United States regularly face the threat of deportation and separation from their children. When an undocumented parent is brought to the attention of law enforcement through the child welfare system, they also face the potential of the loss of legal custodial rights to their children. The child welfare system and immigration enforcement mechanisms operate independent of one another with little regard for how actions in one can impact a parent's legal rights in the other, often permanently separating children from their parents. This article examines the particular issue of undocumented parents who are charged with the failure to protect their children from witnessing or otherwise experiencing abuse committed by a third party. It explores how such a charge, whether founded or unfounded, can result in loss of eligibility for immigration relief to which the undocumented parent would otherwise be entitled, as well as deportation of the parent and permanent separation of parent and child. These issues are situated within the larger context of the normative guideposts of both family and immigration law, namely, the best interests of the child and family unity. It identifies issues for further academic inquiry as well as tips for practitioners who may represent undocumented parents in either the family or immigration systems.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:
• Learn about the potential consequences under family law and immigration law when an undocumented parent's child is abused by a third party
• Gain strategies for planning with undocumented parents to avoid the loss of the custody of their children in the event of a sudden deportation
• Be able to identify and address particular concerns for clients who are undocumented victims of domestic violence