A SURVEY OF UNIFIED FAMILY COURTS

The American Bar Association Coordinating Council on Unified Family Courts, with the assistance of Hofstra University's Center for Childre. Family and the Courts, recently conducted a survey of various courts and jurisdictions that either implemented or experimented with a unified family court structure. The purpose of the project was to get a sense of the state of unified family courts with the goal of building more support for the unified family court concept based on demonstrated effectiveness. The findings of the survey have been summarized in this article. The survey, survey data, and list of survey respondents can be found in the article's appendices.     

FAMILY BRIDGES: USING INSIGHTS FROM SOCIAL SCIENCE TO RECONNECT PARENTS AND ALIENATED CHILDREN*

This article describes an innovative educational and experiential program, Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent‐Child Relationships^TM, that draws on social science research to help severely and unreasonably alienated children and adolescents adjust to court orders that place them with a parent they claim to hate or fear. The article examines the benefits and drawbacks of available options for helping alienated children and controversies and ethical issues regarding coercion of children by parents and courts. The program's goals, principles, structure, procedures, syllabus, limitations, and preliminary outcomes are presented. At the workshop's conclusion, 22 of 23 children, all of whom had failed experiences with counseling prior to enrollment, restored a positive relationship with the rejected parent. At follow‐up, 18 of the 22 children maintained their gains; those who relapsed had premature contact with the alienating parent.     

CHOOSE TO HUG,NOT HIT*

This article discusses reasonable chastisement of children as a defense by parents to assault charges. It suggests that its continued retention contravenes the rights of children and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It compares developments in various countries, such as the Scandinavian countries and New Zealand, where the defense has been abolished, as compared with the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, where it has been retained. It suggests that its continued retention encourages bullying and violence in schools and in later adult life.