BACKGROUND PAPER
VOICE AND SUPPORT:
PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN
EXPERIENCING PARENTAL
SEPARATION AND DIVORCE
2004-FCY-2E
Voice and Support:
Programs for Children Experiencing
Parental Separation and Divorce
Prepared by:
Pauline O’Connor
Independent Policy Researcher
Presented to:
Family, Children and Youth Section
Department of Justice Canada
The views expressed in this report are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the Department of Justice Canada.
Aussi disponible en français
This report may be reproduced, in part or in whole, and by any means, without charge or further
permission from the Department of Justice, provided that due diligence is exercised in ensuring
the accuracy of the materials reproduced; that the Department of Justice is identified as the
source department; and that the reproduction is not represented as an official version of the
original report.
© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada,
represented by the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, 2004
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...........................................................................................................iii
1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1
2. CHILDREN’S RESPONSES AND ADJUSTMENT TO
PARENTAL SEPARATION AND DIVORCE ................................................................. 3
2.1 Initial Responses of Children at Different Ages ......................................................... 3
2.2 Children’s Responses to Further Transition and Change............................................ 4
2.3 Children’s Long-term Adjustment .............................................................................. 4
2.4 Long-term Adjustment Difficulties Stemming From the Children Themselves......... 9
2.5 Parents’ Capacity to Help Children Adjust ............................................................... 12
2.6 What Children Say They Need.................................................................................. 14
3. PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN EXPERIENCING
SEPARATION AND DIVORCE ..................................................................................... 17
3.1 Program Goals and Content ...................................................................................... 17
3.2 Program Structure and Delivery................................................................................ 18
3.3 Program Availability ................................................................................................. 21
3.4 Types of Programs and Evaluations of Effectiveness ............................................... 22
4. VOICE OF THE CHILD .................................................................................................. 33
4.1 The Right to Voice .................................................................................................... 33
4.2 The Children’s Voice and Their Best Interests ......................................................... 33
4.3 When and How to Include Children’s Voices........................................................... 35
4.4 Children’s Capacity for Expressing Their Needs and Wishes .................................. 37
5. VOICE OF THE CHILD IN CUSTODY AND ACCESS PROCEEDINGS................... 39
5.1 Legal Proceedings for Custody and Access Disputes ............................................... 39
5.2 Children’s Voices in Mediation and Counselling ..................................................... 40
5.3 Children’s Voices in Other Proceedings ................................................................... 48
5.4 Children’s Coordinators ............................................................................................ 55
6. CONCLUSION................................................................................................................. 57
BIBLIOGRAPHY......................................................................................................................... 59
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APPENDIX A
CANADIAN PROGRAMS FOR THE CHILDREN OF
SEPARATING AND DIVORCING PARENTS.......................................................................... 71
APPENDIX B
CANADIAN CHILDREN’S INCLUSION IN CUSTODY AND
ACCESS PROCEEDINGS........................................................................................................... 93
APPENDIX C
AMERICAN PROGRAMS TO SUPPORT CHILDREN EXPERIENCING
THEIR PARENTS’ SEPARATION OR DIVORCE ................................................................. 109
APPENDIX D
LIST OF INFORMANTS........................................................................................................... 121
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The attention of Canadian policy makers is increasingly drawn to the needs and wishes of
children during the separation and divorce of their parents. The Special Joint Committee on
Child Custody and Access has recommended that children have the opportunity to “be heard
when parenting decisions affecting them are being made.” In addition, the continuing high
numbers of Canadian children experiencing parental separation and divorce have increased
interest in programs to help them adjust to the separation process and the resulting changes in
their lives, and to help them voice their needs and wishes in these situations.
This report discusses “adjustment” and “voice” programs separately, and shows how they are
linked. It examines three main questions:
• What research exists on children’s needs during divorce and separation; the benefits to be
gained by helping them adjust to both the separation process and subsequent family
arrangements; and, on the benefits to be gained by giving them a voice in the decisions made
about these post-separation family arrangements?
• What current programs, services or legal proceedings exist in Canadian and other jurisdictions
to support children in either of these ways, including court-based and community-based
programs?
• To what extent do existing services meet current needs, and what additional programs,
services or legal proceedings would significantly help Canadian children experiencing their
parents’ separation or divorce?
Children’s Adjustment to Separation and Divorce
The period during family breakdown has been shown to be the most acutely stressful for parents
and children. Summaries of recent research conclude, however, that the duration of children’s
acute stress is short. After their initial distress and difficulties, most children who experience
parental separation and divorce will develop into adults without identifiable psychological or
social scars or other adverse consequences. The research typically compares children’s
adjustment with respect to such measures as anti-social behaviour, school achievement, and
anxiety, depression and self-esteem. Long-term adjustment is measured largely by social and
economic outcomes, including educational achievement, work force attachment and divorce
rates. Since most studies are cross-sectional, short-term effects tend to be conflated with long-
term effects. Few longitudinal studies exist, and these typically have small samples.
Maladjustment is often measured in clinical terms. Longitudinal qualitative research on a small
sample identified lingering lesser effects on children into adulthood.
Despite the positive prognosis for most children, researchers agree that separation and divorce
increase the risk of poor long-term adjustment for children. Parental and circumstantial factors
such as high parental conflict, family abuse and violence, economic hardship and the parents’
failure to adjust or to support the child, put children most at risk of poor adjustment. And the
children’s responses or characteristics do not significantly affect their prospects.
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However, one prominent researcher has identified six “tasks” of adjustment following separation
that all children must accomplish in order to adapt successfully. Research shows that parents,
struggling to adjust themselves, often cannot help, and may hinder, their children from achieving
these tasks during the period of separation. Many of the programs developed over the last
decade or so to help children adjust are designed to help them through these six tasks.
Programs to Help Children Adjust to Separation and Divorce
Court-connected and community-based programs for children are often linked with information,
support or mediation programs for parents. These programs tend to be short-term (four to ten
sessions) and age-based. There are five main types.
• Educational and information-based programs aimed at helping children understand the legal
process, their parents’ behaviour and, most often, their own feelings and the implications of
separation for their lives. Children and their parents generally respond well to these
programs, but their impact on adjustment is unclear.
• Programs providing therapeutic emotional support aimed at helping children acknowledge
and begin to work through their feelings. Children and parents generally respond well to
these programs. Extensive research on one school-based program has shown some positive
results.
• Programs providing peer emotional support aimed at providing a safe place for children to
express and share feelings with other children and sympathetic adults. Participants respond
well, but the tangible impact of these programs on adjustment is unclear.
• Programs that teach coping skills to children caught in the middle of parental conflict.
Research shows that many children experience such feelings that can put them at risk.
Extensive evaluation of the most prominent of these programs indicates that they can help
reduce children’s stress.
• Therapy-based or clinical interventions usually targeted to children in acute distress or in
high-conflict separating families. These programs try to help children work through
difficulties typically resulting from their parents’ intense conflict and hostility, and their
resulting inability to recognize their children’s needs. Evaluations of these programs, usually
linked to parent programs, focusses largely on parental success in reaching agreements.
There is strong support for these programs among service providers, parents and many experts,
despite the modest evidence of their direct effects on children. Some experts argue that it may be
more effective to focus on the children’s responses to separation and divorce, given the difficulty
of influencing parents’ attitudes and behaviours. Moreover, even small changes in the child’s
responses may facilitate and encourage the parents’ adjustment.
There are several of these programs across Canada, mostly in major cities and the larger
provinces. Providers report a need for more of all five types of programs. They generally
endorse involving parents in some way in the children’s programs, although not necessarily
through complementary or linked parent programs.
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Including Children’s Voices in Custody and Access Proceedings
Commentators propose rights-based and interests-based reasons for including children’s voices
in custody and access proceedings. The rights-based reason, articulated by the 1989 United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is that children are entitled to have a say in
decisions that affect their lives. Interests-based reasons assert that allowing children to have a
voice serves their best interests, both by its benefits to the children themselves and by its effect
on custody and access decisions.
Although several jurisdictions explicitly require judges to weigh children’s own wishes in
custody and access judgements, most custody and access decisions are made outside the
courtroom by parents, who presumably understand their children’s best interests and will act
according to them. However, many commentators and researchers doubt that parents or the
courts always know the children’s best interests. Parents may be out of touch because of their
own adjustment struggles, and judges tend to assume that parents’ and children’s interests
coincide and may have difficulty identifying the children’s best interests separately.
The scant existing research on children’s desire to be included suggests that they want to be kept
informed about the process, and want their needs and interests heard. Adolescents, in particular,
are much more likely to want to be present when major decisions affecting them are made, and to
want to express explicit preferences about these decisions. Some research suggests that
including children’s voices enhances their sense of control over their fate, and thus their
resilience.
Canadian federal and provincial legislation permits children to participate in custody and access
proceedings, but does not specifically provide for it except in Quebec, where children must be
given an opportunity to be heard if their age and power of discernment allow it. This report
examines whether, and how, children’s voices could be included at several points in custody and
access proceedings.
Mediation and Counselling
Commentators and researchers are divided over whether, and how, children should be included
in their parents’ mediation and counselling concerning custody and access disputes. Proponents
argue that including children gives them a sense of control over their fate, a place to express and
deal with feelings they may not be expressing to their parents, and lets them know what is
happening. In addition, they often argue that children have a right to be heard. Opponents say
that including children makes them feel responsible for making the decisions, and exposes them
to parental anger, retribution, manipulation and greater inter-parental conflict.
More commentators endorse children’s inclusion when it is indirect, for example, when children
meet separately with the mediator, or meet with their parents in a group of children and parents,
or when counsellors meet with parents at the conclusion of a program to help children’s
adjustment. A few commentators argue that the benefits of putting children directly into
mediation at its most difficult moments (e.g. when breaking an impasse) outweigh the
psychological costs to them. Many commentators caution that in whatever way younger children
are involved, their wishes should always be balanced against other considerations, because their
wishes may not be authentic.
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Interviews with provincial court officials indicate that court-based practitioners rarely include
children in mediation, especially younger children, and that many believe doing so harms them.
The literature suggests most mediators are reluctant to include children and some think it puts
them in a conflict of interest. Some preliminary evidence suggests that including children
indirectly in mediation may not generally harm them and may serve their interests.
Custody Assessments
Children’s needs and interests are inserted into custody and access proceedings most consistently
through family or custody assessments. Courts (and sometimes parents) typically use the
assessments, prepared outside the courtroom, to make decisions without the necessity of having
the child present.
There is no agreement about whether custody assessments are an effective vehicle for hearing
children’s voices. Proponents say assessments allow the children’s voice to be heard without
exposing them to harm from parents or from courtroom participation. Opponents argue that
assessments, usually conducted by a social worker, and less often by a psychologist or
psychiatrist, leave too much room for experts’ biases, experiences, training and values in shaping
the conclusions. Opponents also caution against placing too much weight on younger children’s
wishes because they may not be authentic. Finally, they argue that repeated expert interviewing
may traumatize children in those protracted disputes in which assessments tend to be
commissioned.
Interviews with provincial court officials indicate that a small proportion of Canadian families
with disputes before the courts receive assessments. Assessments usually take the traditional
form, i.e. children are interviewed with one or both parents if age permits, or observed with
parents in the home if they are very young. However, use of focussed assessments appears to be
growing. Focussed assessments limit assessment to one or two specific issues, rather than
broader issues of, for example, residence and access. They were pioneered in Ontario with high-
conflict families, and usually include interviews with the child alone, parent/child interviews,
and interviews with parents and child. They appear to be useful in revising specific aspects of
custody and access agreements made when the children were younger and have outgrown. They
give older children, especially, a more direct way to express their wishes. British Columbia also
uses short reports to solicit older children’s wishes in disputes in which a full assessment is not
justified.
Integrated Assessment and Legal Representation
Some jurisdictions have developed programs that integrate family assessment with separate legal
representation for children in high-conflict families entrenched in litigation. Examples include
social work and teams of lawyers in Ontario’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer and the model of
separate children’s representatives endorsed by the Family Court of Australia. Integration of the
two functions may allow children’s voices in assessments to influence legal negotiations prior to
final hearing, with the result that more agreements are reached without a final hearing, and the
agreements that are reached better reflect and serve the children’s best interests.
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Children’s Coordinators
Some jurisdictions are showing increased interest in developing specific mechanisms to ensure
that children’s voices are heard safely (indirectly) and consistently in custody and access
hearings. One possibility is the appointment of “child’s interest coordinators” to oversee and
manage complex cases. The effectiveness of such specific mechanisms has not been tested.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Children have traditionally been invisible spectators to the public proceedings of their parents’
separation and divorce, and have been left to weather its emotional turmoil largely unaided. The
legal processes of custody and access decision-making have been considered the exclusive
responsibility and have largely excluded children, even though children’s best interests are now
expected to govern custody and access decision-making.
However, the attention of Canadian policy-makers is being increasingly drawn to children’s
needs and wishes during parental separation and divorce. The continued high numbers of
Canadian children now experiencing the separation and divorce of their parents, and at younger
ages, have prompted greater interest in programs and services to support children through the
process and later. The 1989 signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
stimulated a growing concern for, and commitment to, allowing children more say in judicial and
administrative proceedings and decisions that affect their lives, including custody and access
decisions. As a result, the Special Joint Committee on Child Custody and Access recommended
that children have the opportunity to “be heard when parenting decisions affecting them are
being made” and to “express their views about the separation or divorce to skilled professionals
whose duty it would be to make those views known to any judge, assessor, or mediator making
or facilitating a shared parenting determination” (Special Joint Committee 1998).
Although providing supports for children experiencing their parents’ separation or divorce and
including their voices in custody and access proceedings are independent issues, the research
presented in this paper shows they are linked. Programs to support children may also indirectly
allow their voices greater hearing in custody and access proceedings, and proceedings that
include children’s voices in some capacity may enhance their well-being and adjustment.
Moreover, the children’s role in the public process of custody and access proceedings, and the
private process of family adjustment, can take many forms. The main task for policy makers is
to identify programs that support children, and that incorporate their voices into public
proceedings, in ways that enhance their adjustment and serve their best interests.
This report examines three main questions:
• What research exists on children’s needs during divorce and separation; the benefits to be
gained by helping them adjust to both to the separation process and subsequent family
arrangements, and, on the benefits to be gained by giving them a voice in the decisions made
about these post-separation family arrangements?
• What current programs, services or legal proceedings exist in Canadian and other jurisdictions
to support children in either of these ways, including court and community programs?
• To what extent do existing services meet current need, and what additional programs, services
or legal proceedings would significantly help Canadian children experiencing the separation
and divorce of their parents?
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Section 2 of this report looks at research on the impact of divorce and separation on children, and
on children’s responses to separation and divorce, and outlines children’s needs that can be
addressed by programs specifically for children. Section 3 and Appendices A and C describe the
main programs delivered by courts and community agencies in Canada and (largely) the United
States, as well as evaluations of their effectiveness.
Section 4 outlines the reasons for including the children’s voices in custody and access
proceedings, and the general issues involved in deciding when and how their feelings and wishes
ought to be included so that their best interests are served. Section 5 and Appendix B outline the
research and expert debates on how and when to include children in custody and access
proceedings, such as during mediation and family assessments. The section also describes the
extent to which Canadian children are currently included in these proceedings.
The project gathered information by means of a survey of the existing social science and family
law literature, a Web site survey of programs for children (mostly North American), and
informant interviews with more than 30 community program service providers, court officials,
provincial government representatives and published experts in the field. Nearly all the key
informant interviews were conducted by telephone. A few were conducted by e-mail.
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2. CHILDREN’S RESPONSES AND ADJUSTMENT TO PARENTAL
SEPARATION AND DIVORCE
The research literature on the effects of separation and divorce on children’s adjustment, and on
children’s responses to these events, indicates that the needs of children living through family
breakdown vary with age and circumstance. The research also indicates that many parents are
not able to meet these needs, especially during the period immediately after separation.
Family breakdown is typically very stressful for parents as well as children. Researchers agree
that this period produces acute emotional and psychological disturbance for most parents and
children (Lamb et al. 1997). Most children are acutely distressed during the first year or so after
separation (Lamb et al. 1997). Some researchers have found acute symptoms and stress among
children still at peak levels two years after their parents’ separation (citations in Lamb et al.
1997), and one study found children and parents less distressed two months after separation than
they were a year later (Hetherington et al. 1992, cited in Grych and Fincham 1992).
Still, a recent summary of more than 200 research reports (mostly from the United Kingdom)
concluded that children’s stress is usually short-term and usually fades over time (Rodgers and
Pryor 1998). Similarly, a group of American experts recently concluded that, after their initial
distress and difficulties, most children who experience parental separation and divorce will
develop into adults without identifiable psychological or social scars or other adverse
consequences (e.g., Lamb et al. 1997; Kelly 2000; Kelly 1993; Amato 1994).
2.1 INITIAL RESPONSES OF CHILDREN AT DIFFERENT AGES
The research suggests that children’s responses to their parents’ divorce and separation vary
widely. Indeed, some children may become happier and less distressed when their parents
separate (Amato 1994). Nonetheless, studies have identified general pathways of children’s
reactions in the first two years after parental separation and divorce, based on gender and stage
of development (age) (see citations in Hodges 1991; Amato 1994). Almost no research exists on
infants’ or college-aged children’s responses. For children between these ages, the responses can
be summarized as follows.
• Preschoolers (2 to 5 years). These children are too young to grasp the meaning of divorce,
and so are likely to become confused and fearful of losing their other parent too. They tend to
blame themselves for their parents’ divorce. Many regress developmentally, becoming
aggressive and throwing tantrums, especially boys.
• Younger elementary school-aged children (5 to 8 years old). These children can understand
the meaning of divorce enough to become depressed (Kelly 1988, cited in Di Bias 1996;
Hodges 1991), grief-stricken and sad over the loss of family. Many continue to wish for
parental reconciliation. They may also feel profound conflict of loyalties (Peterson and Zill
1986, and Brady et al. 1986, cited in Fischer 1997). They are egocentric enough to see
divorce as a personal rejection, but may be mature enough to place the blame elsewhere,
usually on a parent. Studies show that children at this age may suffer in school and in their
social relationships (Demo and Adcock 1988, and Bloom and Dawson 1991, cited in Di Bias
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1996). Half of their teachers in one study reported behaviour changes (see citation in Hodges
1991).
• Older elementary school-age children (9 to 12 years old). These children may also be
depressed, sad and grief-stricken, but are also more likely to blame and be angry with one or
both parents. Children at this age can also see the world from the parents’ point of view,
however, and may start to parent a struggling parent or younger siblings.
• Adolescents (12 to 16 years old) are less dependent on the family, and therefore divorce
would seem to be less significant to them. Still, self-esteem drops for many teenagers (but
more so for children) during parental divorce. It may lead adolescents to question their own
future ability to maintain a long-term relationship with a partner, and many feel considerable
anger towards one or both parents. Also, divorce may trigger delayed or accelerated entry
into adolescence. At the extreme, adolescents may become suicidal or delinquent (McKinnon
and Wallerstein 1986, cited in Di Bias 1996).
2.2 CHILDREN’S RESPONSES TO FURTHER TRANSITION AND CHANGE
Studies also show that parents’ remarriage and the birth of more children to the remarried parent
can be very distressful for children of the first marriage (and have lasting impact on their long-
term adjustment). Parents’ remarriage when children are adolescents, in particular, tends to
result in more sustained problems in family relationships and the adolescents’ adjustment
(e.g. Hetherington 1991, cited in Bray and Hetherington 1993). Some researchers have found
that young children who appear to have adapted well to their new family situations may have re-
emerging problems at adolescence (Bray and Berger 1992, cited in Bray and Hetherington 1993).
The step-families themselves tend to be less cohesive, more distant in their relationships, more
flexible in response to change, and lacking in clear role expectations (see citations in Bray and
Hetherington 1993). They are also more susceptible to stress (Anderson and White 1986, cited
in Bray and Hetherington 1993).
Even when no critical events re-ignite their distress, some children experience ongoing
difficulties after family breakdown that result in poor adjustment and a difficult adulthood. The
factors found to produce poor outcomes tend to be present either before, during or after
separation, or to arise in the context of children’s post-separation lives. These are discussed in
the next section.
2.3 CHILDREN’S LONG-TERM ADJUSTMENT
A substantial body of research exists on the impact of divorce and separation on children’s
adjustment. This research is typically cross-sectional, and aims to identify comparative levels of
adjustment for children of parental separation and divorce, and the factors associated with poor
outcomes. Standard measures of adjustment for children during childhood include anti-social
behaviour, decline in school achievement, and states of anxiety, depression and self-esteem.
Measures of long-term adjustment are largely social and economic, including educational
achievement, work force attachment and divorce rates. Since much of the cross-sectional
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research uses the basic categories of divorced/not divorced, short-term effects are often conflated
with long-term effects.
Early studies showed that children of divorce were more likely to exhibit aggressive, impulsive
and anti-social behaviour, to have more social difficulties, to be less compliant to authority, and
to show more problem behaviours at school (e.g. Camera and Resnick 1988; Emery 1988;
Hetherington et al. 1982; Kurdek and Berg 1983; Warshak and Santrock 1983; Zill 1983; cited in
Kelly 1993). They have also been shown to have lower academic achievement, more negative
self-concepts and more problematic relationships with both mothers and fathers (Amato and
Keith 1991, cited in Amato 1994). As adults, they have been shown to have lower psychological
well-being, less education, less marital satisfaction, more behavioural problems, more risk of
divorce and poorer physical health (Amato 1994). One recent longitudinal British study found
the odds ratio for being above the clinical level on mental health problems was 1.70 at age 23
and 1.85 at age 33 (Rodgers et al. 1997, cited in Wolchik et al. 2000).
Recent surveys of the literature show that, overall, there is a greater probability of poor outcomes
for children from separated families, and that these can be observed many years after separation,
even into adulthood (Rodgers and Pryor 1998; Kelly 2000; Amato 1994). However, more recent
studies, and studies with more sophisticated methodology, report fewer differences between
these two groups than did earlier studies, and that the size of the differences is small (Kelly 2000;
Amato 1994). For measures such as self-esteem, most studies indicate no difference between
children and adolescents of divorced families and children whose parents are still together, after
temporary declines at separation (Kelly 1993). Most divorced children fall within the average
range of adjustment on standardized measures (Amato 1994). Even some of the effects
persisting into adulthood eventually seem to dissipate. The mental health risks of British
children of divorce escalated into adolescence and young adulthood, but by age 33 most persons
who experienced parental divorce as children were not distinguishable from children from never-
divorced families (Chase-Lansdale et al. 1995, cited in Rodgers and Pryor 1998).
This said, researchers believe that aspects of the divorce experience clearly increase risk for
many children, particularly for those who face greater risks when their parents separate and
divorce (Emery 1999; Hetherington 1999; McLanahan 1999; cited in Kelly 2000).
In addition, qualitative studies have identified persistent, emotional issues for children of
parental divorce and separation that follow them into adulthood. For example, one prominent
Californian study found that 40 percent of the children were still depressed five years after the
divorce (Wallerstein and Kelly 1980, cited in Di Bias 1996). Ten years after the separation, the
children still felt sad, regretful or “different,” and were concerned about the risks involved in
future marriage themselves (Wallerstein and Kelly 1980, cited in Pedro-Carroll and Cowen
1985). In adulthood, only 60 percent of them were married, compared to 80 percent from intact
families, and 38 percent had children, compared to 61 percent of children from intact families
(Wallerstein et al. 2000, cited in Anon 2000). Another recent study found that college students
whose parents divorced before they were adolescents reported more painful childhood
experiences than children from intact families, but they did not differ in measures of depression
or anxiety (Laumann-Billings and Emery in press, cited in Kelly 2000).
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2.3.1 Adjustment by Gender, Age and other Characteristics
The most recent research would appear to contradict the conventional view that divorce has more
negative impacts on boys than on girls. One meta-analysis of studies that distinguished the
impacts of divorce on girls and boys found more negative impact on boys than on girls, but only
with respect to certain measures: social relationships, loneliness and cooperativeness. In other
areas, such as academic attachment, boys suffer no more detrimental consequences than girls do
(Amato and Keith 1991, cited in Amato 1994). However, a large nationwide study in the United
States recently found no gender differences linked to divorce (Vandewater and Lansford 1998,
cited in Kelly 2000; Rodgers and Pryor 1998). Another study found that adjustment and
achievement in boys and girls after their parents’ divorce varied by age, time since the divorce,
type of parenting, and the type and extent of parental conflict (Hetherington 1999, cited in Kelly
2000).
Younger children’s responses to their parents’ separation seem more acute, and early studies
showed that divorce had the most adverse impact on young children (e.g. Allison and
Furstenberg 1989, cited in Grych and Fincham, 1992). However, many studies confound
children’s age at the time of divorce with the length of time passed since divorce, and age of
assessment (Grych and Fincham 1992). The recent survey of largely British studies concluded
that the child’s age at the time of parental separation is not important in itself (Rodgers and Pryor
1998). One North American study found that young adults in low-conflict divorced-parent
families were less well-adjusted than youngsters in high-conflict families whose parents divorced
(Amato et al. 1995, cited in Kelly 2000). The California study found that after 10 years, the
children who were younger at the time of separation had adjusted better than children who were
older at that time (Wallerstein and Blakeslee 1989, cited in Amato 1994).
Multiple divorces also can expose children to repeated episodes of conflict, diminished parenting
and financial hardship. For some children the stress of divorce therefore accumulates through
childhood as it repeats (Amato 1994; Rodgers and Pryor 1998). The risk of adverse outcomes
for children in stepfamilies compared to children in lone-parent families appears higher for older
children, especially in lower school achievement, problems with sexual activity and forming
relationships (Rodgers and Pryor 1998).
Individual children’s resilience also affects the likelihood of their positive long-term adjustment.
Children in high-conflict families, or with a poorly adjusted primary parent, may still fare well
because of inner resources. There is no way to predict how two individual children in similar
circumstances will fare (Fischer 1997). Some experts have proposed more adaptable
temperament, higher intelligence, and better coping skills as indicators of more resilience
(Johnston 1994). One study found that children’s temperaments did not affect their behavioural
adaptiveness after parental divorce when they had social supports, but did affect their capacity to
withstand the divorce without social supports (Hetherington 1989, cited in Grych and Fincham
1992). Resilience is thought to have its roots in the child’s early attachment to a parent or parent
figure (e.g. Rutter 1979, cited in Kelly and Lamb 2000). Nevertheless, intervention can enhance
resilience.
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2.3.2 Research Limits
There is relatively little research on how divorce and separation affects non-white, non-middle
class children. Most existing English-language studies are about American children. Some
research in the U.S. shows that African-American children are put less at risk by having a single
parent and by post-separation poverty than are white American children and African-American
children in intact families (see citations and discussion in Amato 1994).
Recent research is cautious about attributing the poor outcomes experienced by some children of
divorce to the separation and divorce. It is also cautious about identifying the individual factors
operating before, during or after the divorce which determine poor outcomes (Rodgers and Pryor
1998). Several factors do emerge as important, although their interrelationship is unclear.
Moreover, researchers are also studying how positive factors can buffer children against negative
factors (e.g. Wolchik et al. 2000).
Based on existing largely cross-sectional studies, children’s acute distress at the time of parental
separation, and their later responses to their resulting residential arrangements, are not important
factors in children’s long-term adjustment. However, there has been little exploration of the
effects of children’s acute distress at parental separation (the critical event for them) on their
long-term adjustment (Grych and Fincham 1992). The authors of the comprehensive British
study called for more research on how short-term distress may affect long-term outcomes
(Rodgers and Pryor 1998).
2.3.3 Custodial Parent’s Adjustment
Current thinking supports the widespread view that the custodial parent’s adjustment is a key
factor in children’s long-term well-being. Children with poorly adjusted custodial parents are at
much higher risk of faring poorly (citations in Kelly 2000). Children are more likely to fare well
when the custodial parent is in good mental health, has good social supports and has good child-
rearing skill, i.e. is affectionate, supervises the child adequately, exercises some control, explains
rules, avoids harsh discipline and disciplines consistently (e.g. Wallerstein 1986-87; see citations
in Amato 1994, Hetherington 1999, Buchanan et al. 1996, cited in Kelly 2000).
Another recent study has shown that children in lone-parent families whose mothers discipline
consistently and accept their child—the two key features of authoritative parenting—have fewer
internalizing (e.g. depression) and externalizing (e.g. truancy) problems than children whose
mothers do not (Wolchik et al. 2000). The custodial parent’s consistent and accepting parenting
therefore seems to buffer children against adverse effects from other sources of stress, such as
economic hardship. Children who perceive low acceptance and less consistency from parents
become more vulnerable to stress, and the children perceiving low acceptance and consistency
who experience many stressors are the most vulnerable of all (Wolchik et al. 2000).
2.3.4 Access to the Non-Residential Parent
Existing research offers no consensus on the importance of children’s ongoing relationship with
their non-residential parent, typically the father (see citations in O’Connor 2001; Kelly 2000).
Most large-scale studies using a national database have found no relationship between frequency
of access parent’s visits and child adjustment (Kelly 2000). However, several studies report
positive outcomes for children in cooperative, low-conflict families in which fathers are involved
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with their children (citations in O’Connor 2001, and in Kelly 2000). Children are more likely to
fare poorly with fathers’ ongoing access in certain high-conflict families, especially boys in these
families (O’Connor 2001). One meta-analysis of 57 studies also found that more recent studies
of father-child contact provide stronger evidence of the father’s impact on children’s adjustment
than do earlier studies (Amato and Gilbreth 1999, cited in Kelly 2000). The overview of largely
British studies concluded that continuing contact with the non-residential parent may benefit
children’s adjustment, but there is no simple relationship with frequency of contact (Rodgers and
Pryor 1998).
The ongoing involvement of non-residential parents with their children does seem to be clearly
linked to their academic achievement. Children’s academic functioning declines less when
fathers are involved with the child’s school and schoolwork after separation (McLanahan 1999,
cited in Kelly 2000). Children of divorce are also less likely to earn a university degree, in part
because parental aspirations for educational achievement increase for adolescents in never-
divorced families, but decrease for adolescents in divorced households (McLanahan 1999, cited
in Kelly 2000). The California study also found that the divorced fathers were often unwilling to
fund their children’s post-secondary education, especially if they had remarried and had other
children (Wallerstein and Lewis 1998).
2.3.5 Post-Separation Conflict
A growing body of literature affirms that post-separation conflict among parents increases
children’s risk of poor outcomes. Children whose parents remain hostile and aggressive, locked
in ongoing high conflict are more likely to have behavioural problems, emotional difficulties and
social difficulties (Johnston 1994). They are also more likely to lack self-esteem (Kelly 1993).
The risk of poor outcomes increases when spousal violence is involved, and rises even higher
when the children are abused (Johnston 1994). Even so, studies have found that overall
adjustment scores for most children of chronically-litigating, high-conflict post-divorce families
also fall in the normal range (Johnston et al. 1989, cited in Kelly 1993).
Longitudinal studies have found that some difficulties observed in some children of divorce
existed prior to divorce (e.g. Elliott and Richards 1991, cited in Kelly 1993), suggesting that the
factors producing these difficulties may pre-date the divorce or separation. The recent analysis
of British studies concluded that family conflict before, during and after separation can be
stressful for children. There is no agreement about whether children’s maladjustment resulting
from parental conflict is largely a result of conflict during the marriage or after its break-up
(Rodgers and Pryor 1998).
2.3.6 Economic Hardship
Divorce and separation often produce a substantial decline in the children’s standard of living,
increasing economic instability and stress in the custodial home. These changes intensify the
stress of separation’s disruptiveness for children and affect their long-term adjustment (Kelly
1993; citations in Amato 1994). Studies have shown that custodial mothers’ incomes drop by an
average of 30 percent in the United States after divorce (Lamb et al. 1997). In Canada, incomes
of women who separated from their spouses in the mid-1990s dropped an average of 23 percent
during the first year (adjusted for the number of people they had living with them), and by the
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end of the first year, single mothers’ average incomes were 31 percent less than their pre-
separation income (Galarneau and Sturrock 1997).
One U.S. study found that income differences after separation accounted for about half the
association between living in a single-parent family and completing high school among white
families (McLanahan 1985, cited in Amato 1994). More recently, it has been estimated that the
economic problems of divorced households account for as much as half of the adjustment
problems seen in divorced children (McLanahan 1999, cited in Kelly 2000). Another study
found that divorced children’s poorer showings on 27 out of 34 outcomes, dropped to 13 when
income differences were taken into account (Guidubaldi et al. 1983, cited in Amato 1994).
Custodial mothers also experience high rates of job instability and changes in residence in the
first three years after the separation (McLanahan and Booth 1989, cited in Bray and
Hetherington 1993). Many mothers move to poorer neighbourhoods, with fewer services and
supports. Children are pulled away from their friends, other social supports and familiar
surroundings. (Access parents may also move to different neighbourhoods, with similar, if less
harmful, results for the children.)
2.4 LONG-TERM ADJUSTMENT DIFFICULTIES STEMMING FROM THE
CHILDREN THEMSELVES
The results of the cross-sectional research suggest that long-term adjustment of children of
divorce is best fostered by programs that help their parents’ adjust, address social and economic
stressors, reduce inter-parental conflict and recurrent litigation over custody and access, and
foster cooperative post-separation parenting arrangements with strong ties between children and
both their parents.
However, as indicated earlier, the links between children’s acute distress during parental
separation and their long-term adjustment have yet to be fully explored. For example, the more
acute a child’s distress, the more difficult it may be for the mother to recover her own
equilibrium and maintain positive relationships with her child (Wolchik et al. 2000).
Other research also indicates several ways in which children’s own responses to the separation
and later circumstances can affect their adjustment. This research provides a rationale for
specific programs for children during parental separation, and in later years.
2.4.1 Six “Tasks” of Adjustment
Prominent researchers agree that children who do not rebound from their initial distress and
difficulties at the time of their parents’ separation, or during subsequent critical events, can be
expected to face difficulties later on, often in adulthood (Lamb et al. 1997). Qualitative
researcher Judith Wallerstein has developed a list of six “tasks” that children must accomplish
during the separation period and after, in order to stay on their developmental paths and mature
into well-adjusted adults (Wallerstein 1983). Children need to complete the following tasks
regardless of the number and kind of external stressors in their post-separation family
arrangements:
• acknowledge the reality of the separation;
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• disengage from parental conflict and distress, and resume customary pursuits;
• resolve their loss;
• resolve anger and self-blame;
• accept the permanence of the divorce or separation; and
• achieve realistic hope regarding relationships.
In Wallerstein’s view, high priority should be given to ensuring that parents’ and children’s acute
distress responses to separation and divorce do not consolidate and become chronic (Wallerstein
1991), making them harder to root out later.
The tasks fall in a sequence with varying time spans for each. The first two tasks, for example,
should be mastered immediately to maintain the child’s academic and developmental progress
(Wallerstein 1983). These tasks have become the basis of many of the programs currently
providing support to children experiencing parental separation and divorce (see e.g. Fischer
1997).
Clearly, children need cooperation from family and environment to accomplish some of these
tasks. For example, parents who continually engage their children in their intense conflicts, or in
family violence or bullying, will make it virtually impossible for the children to resume their
cognitive, emotional and behavioural development at school and elsewhere. Similarly, parents
who blame their children for the separation, or for their own failure to recover emotionally from
the rupture, will make it extremely difficult for their children to stop blaming themselves.
Interventions may be needed to help children get back on their development pathway in spite of
their parents’ negative influence.
Parents and outsiders may also be positive forces in helping children accomplish these tasks. For
example, parents and outsiders can successfully reassure small children that they are not
responsible for the separation and that they are still loved (Hodges 1991). Interventions may
therefore be able to help children accomplish all these tasks, especially during the period of
parental separation.
2.4.2 Increasing Coping Capacity
Research also suggests that children in difficult post-separation circumstances may be able to
offset the effects of some stressors by increasing their coping skills and their resilience to
adversity. Much of this research has focussed on children in high-conflict families. Early
studies on high-conflict post-separation parenting indicated that all children in such families
were at risk of poor long-term adjustment. Other research, however, narrows the negative
impacts to high-conflict families in which the conflict prevents parents from cooperating in their
post-separation parenting (Camera and Resnick 1989, cited in Kelly 1993; Amato and Rezac
1994). Some parents are able to find ways to cooperate in their post-separating parenting in spite
of their intense conflicts. Parents who cannot do this tend to make their children pawns in their
own conflict. Studies show that children are at risk when the ongoing high conflict results in the
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child feeling caught in the middle (Buchanan et al. 1991; Johnston et al. 1989, cited in Kelly
1993).
These studies measured “feeling caught” according to how often one parent asked the child to
carry messages to the other parent, asked intrusive questions about the other parent, or made the
child feel that he or she had to hide information or feelings about the other parent. One study
showed that adolescents in high-conflict families were more likely to feel caught than
adolescents in low-conflict families, but that 40 percent of the high-conflict families were still
below the median on “feeling caught” (Kelly 1993). The research implies that helping children
learn ways to stay out of their parents’ conflict insulates them against it and allows them to get
on with their own development.
Some researchers have also argued that specific children’s programs are worthwhile even though
their adjustment is largely determined by external factors, because children’s responses may be
more amenable to change than these circumstances (Grych and Fincham 1992).
2.4.3 Understanding the Separation and Divorce, Including the Legal Processes
There is little research on children’s own perspectives on their experience of divorce and
separation. What research exists indicates that children are often misinformed about divorce as
an event and a process (Pruett 1999). Moreover, what they do know is often inappropriate,
frightening and confusing (Pruett 1999), and is likely to exacerbate their distress.
There is considerable evidence that many parents do not talk with their children about the
significance of the separation and the attendant legal processes (e.g. Mitchell 1985, Walczak and
Burns 1984, cited in Garwood 1990; Lyon et al. 1998; Wallerstein and Lewis 1998). Children
interviewed during a recent evaluation of Scotland’s Parent Information Programme for
divorcing and separating parents, for example, reported that most of their parents had not
discussed the issues surrounding the divorce with them in any great detail (Mayes et al. 2001).
Only one third had talked to their children about their own feelings, and a similar proportion said
they had discussed their child’s feelings in relation to the separation (Mayes et al. 2001. Yet, one
half of the 84 Scottish parents who refused to involve their children in family conciliation at the
Lothian Family Conciliation Service near Edinburgh between 1986 and 1988 (slightly more than
half the parents in the two-year study) considered it unnecessary, saying they could speak with
their children themselves (Garwood 1990).
One recent in-depth study of 22 Connecticut children found, however, that children nonetheless
patch together images of the divorce process from listening to their parents, their own experience
of the court process, and televised court processes (Pruett 1999). But confusion about what the
divorce meant was the rule rather than the exception. Blame, loss and fears of separation and
abandonment were frequent themes, especially among children in high-conflict families. The
children’s own perception of parental incompetence became jumbled with their understanding of
the legal process of separation, so that the parents’ physical separation and the attendant court
processes were equated with loss of the relationships with their parents.
Children also felt violated and betrayed by lawyers and court officials who “took their parents’
money,” or “made orders that made their parents fight,” while “pretending” to help the family.
They had too much information about the court process that was not helpful and too little that
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was (Pruett 1999). The authors concluded that parents and legal professionals should be helped
to understand what children need to know and how to provide that information to them.
The recent British study also concluded that clear explanations about “what” is happening and
“why” can help maintain communication and contact between children and parents during the
stressful time of divorce. Keeping children informed can also reassure young children that they
are not being abandoned and that a parent can still be a parent even if he or she leaves the home
to live elsewhere (Rodgers and Pryor 1998). The first two of Wallerstein’s six tasks also imply
that children must be told the significance of their parents’ separation as it is taking place. Other
experts argue that even pre-schoolers have strong needs for information about their parents’
separation (Hodges 1991).
Teenagers and young adults who are asked to comment on their experiences during their parents’
separation and divorce complain strongly about having been left in the dark (Lyon et al. 1998;
Wallerstein and Lewis 1998). Not knowing what was happening left these children resentful and
angry long after their anxiety and fears caused by the separation had dissipated.
There are no clear links between children’s emotional understanding of parental separation
(which one would hope their cognitive understanding would facilitate) and their adjustment.
Evaluation in the 1980s of a children’s program found no connections between the child
participants’ emotional understanding of divorce (that they were not to blame, that reconciliation
was unlikely, but that they would not be abandoned) and their emotional and behavioural
adjustment (Roseby and Deutsch 1985, cited in Grych and Fincham 1992). Children in the
program did improve their understanding, but this made no difference to their adjustment
compared to that of children in a control group. On the other hand, the other children’s mere
participation in a placebo control group may have affected their adjustment (Grych and Fincham
1992).
2.5 PARENTS’ CAPACITY TO HELP CHILDREN ADJUST
Parents would seem to be the obvious ones to help children accomplish their “six tasks” and
rebound from their acute distress at their parents’ separation. Research does show that
supportive parenting during this time buffers children against acute stress (Brown 1995; Bray
and Hetherington 1993; Tschann et al. 1990, cited in Bonney 1993), just as well-adjusted parents
foster children’s longer term adjustment.
However, research also shows that parents generally are least able to help their children during
this time. Many researchers believe that parents’ capacity to nurture and protect their children
diminishes markedly in the year or two following separation and divorce (e.g. Wallerstein and
Kelly 1980, cited in Wallerstein 1986-87, 1991; Lamb et al. 1997; Amato 1994). Parents are
overwhelmed themselves, and so have less time, emotional energy, and attention for their
children when their children need it most.
Custodial mothers complain of economic distress, task overload, child-rearing distress and social
isolation in the immediate aftermath of divorce (Hetherington et al. 1982, cited in Bray and
Hetherington 1993). Both mothers and fathers, regardless of custodial arrangements, are more
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likely to have physical and psychological problems just after the separation or divorce
(Hetherington and Hagan, 1986, cited in Bray and Hetherington 1993).
As a result, parents may become less warm and supportive toward their children, less sensitive to
their needs, and more erratic in exercising parental authority. Research has shown that parents
spend less time with their children, become more erratic or lax in supervising their children, and
get angry with them much more often during the first year or two after the separation or divorce
(Hetherington et al. 1982, cited in Wallerstein 1991). One researcher believes that some parents
may unconsciously (or even consciously) want to abandon the child as part of erasing memories
of the unhappy event. Other parents may become more attached to their children, but in a
dependent way, so that the child starts to feel responsible for their well-being (Wallerstein
1986-87). In her longitudinal study of 130 divorced or separated families in California,
Wallerstein identified three related family functions that she concluded combine to protect the
child in normal circumstances: (1) a reasonably harmonious relationship between the parents
involving mutual support; (2) a reasonably sensitive and disciplined parent-child relationship,
and (3) a reasonably psychologically intact, moral parent. Her study also found that all these
functions were under assault during divorce and separation (e.g. Wallerstein 1986-87, 1991).
One result of their diminished parenting capacity is that parents get out of touch with their
children’s needs and feelings (Mitchell 1985, cited in Garwood 1990; Wallerstein and Kelly
1980, cited in Wallerstein 1991). They not only support their children less, they are also less
likely to see that they need support. Wallerstein gives an example from her research of parents
in mediation who were focussed on issues of what diet the children should have during visits.
Meanwhile, one of the children was increasingly unable to distinguish his fantasies from reality
and the other, when asked to draw her family, drew only a scrawny black rat, a warning signal of
acute distress (Wallerstein 1991).
The research shows that one reason parents fall out of touch with the children is lack of parent-
child communication during the period of separation and divorce. Moreover, this lack of
communication often includes an absence of explanation about the separation or divorce, as
indicated above (Mitchell 1985, Walczak and Burns 1984, cited in Garwood 1990).
Parents are often equally unaware during this period of the harmful effects their own behaviour
may be having on their children. Research shows that parents typically underestimate or ignore
the effects of their conflicts with the other spouse on their children. They also fail to realize they
are putting their children in the middle of their conflict by demanding sole loyalty or by using the
child to spy on or undermine the other parent (Arbuthnot and Gordon 1996; Arbuthnot et al.
1997).
Far from being able to help their children during the period of initial separation, many parents
add to their children’s stress. The research suggests that one effective way to help children
during this time is to help parents recover from their own distress as quickly as possible, by
reducing some of the stresses they face. Also, parenting programmes aim to focus parents on
their children’s needs and best interests during this period so they are better able to respond to
them.
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Nevertheless, given many parents’ diminished capacities during this time, external supports are
needed to help children understand what is happening to them, how to come to terms with the
situation, and how to get through their distress. The primary needs seem to be threefold: (1) to
reduce children’s acute stress to help them sustain positive relationships with their parents and
reduce the possibility that this stress will prevent them from accomplishing their six tasks, and
(2) to help them accomplish the first two or three of their six tasks, and (3) to teach them ways to
insulate themselves from external sources of stress, such as post-separation parental conflict. For
some children, external supports such as children’s groups may also meet a fourth need of
providing them with a social or emotional support network.
The research shows that, just as most children recover from the acute distress of parental
separation, most parents also recover and resume whatever caring and protective parenting they
had provided before separation (and these recoveries are related) (Lamb et al. 1997). For most
children, therefore, external supports may be needed most at the time of initial separation. For
children in difficult post-separation circumstances, or children experiencing repeated separation
and divorce, needs may continue well beyond this point.
2.6 WHAT CHILDREN SAY THEY NEED
Just as little research exists on children’s own perspectives on parental divorce and separation,
little also exists on what children think they need, especially during the time of initial separation.
Children consistently say that loss of regular contact with their non-residential parent is the worst
thing about their parents’ divorce (citations in Kelly 1993). Most children say they want contact
(or more contact) with their non-residential parent (Lamb et al. 1997).
During the period of initial separation, children seem to want to talk about the separation with
other children or sympathetic adults other than their parents. Three quarters of the children
surveyed in the Scottish study of child-inclusive mediation at the Lothian Family Conciliation
welcomed the idea of a children’s group when asked if they wanted one (Garwood 1990).
Moreover, children interviewed in the recent evaluation of the Scottish Parent Information
Programme reported wanting to talk about the separation with one or two “special people” other
than their parents. Researchers evaluating a home-based course for families experiencing
divorce also found that some children wanted to talk about the issues, but not with their parents
(Hughes 2001). Researchers interviewing young Connecticut children on their understanding of
their parents’ separation (Pruett 1999) also concluded that the children hungered for trustworthy
information regarding divorce, its procedures, and its characters. They were not getting this
information from their parents.
Nonetheless, many children in the Scottish program voiced serious reservations about talking to
others about their parents’ separation. Reasons such as “not being able to trust people” and
“feeling vulnerable” were given for not talking about their feelings. However, they appeared to
realize that talking about how they felt was extremely important in dealing with parental
separation (Mayes et al. 2001). Evaluation of the Centres jeunesse de Montréal’s Confidences
program found that less than five percent of the children in the program were unhappy to be
there (Vallant 1999). Their most frequent reasons for enjoying it were that it gave them a chance
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to talk about the separation (12 percent) and meet other children in the same situation
(11 percent). However, another 13 percent said they felt talking about the separation was boring.
As indicated above, one of the most frequent complaints of older children looking back on their
experience of parental separation and divorce is that they were kept in the dark by parents and
authorities (Lyon et al. 1998; citations to their earlier work, Wallerstein and Lewis 1998).
Adolescents and young adults participating in a series of seminars in Liverpool, England, about
including children’s voices in custody and access proceedings were emphatic that children must
be kept informed about the legal decisions being made on their behalf, the legal processes they
are indirectly embroiled in, and the larger implications of their parents’ divorce for their lives.
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3. PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN EXPERIENCING SEPARATION
AND DIVORCE
There are a variety of existing programs for children experiencing parental separation and
divorce, most of them intended to meet the needs identified by the research discussed in
section 1. But while there are programs for children in most Canadian provinces (see
Appendix A for a sample) they do not appear to be widely available and, according to providers,
do not currently meet the demand.
This section describes the kinds of supports provided by children’s programs, the kinds of
programs available, and the research on their effectiveness. Most of the North American
literature describes programs in the U.S. Most evaluations are also of American programs, so
these figure prominently in the discussion. Appendix C provides a sample of prominent
American programs, most of which have been evaluated. Appendix A provides a sample of
Canadian court and community programs, with evaluations if available.
3.1 PROGRAM GOALS AND CONTENT
Programs for children experiencing family breakdown generally offer one or more of the
following supports.
• Education and information about the legal terms and processes involved in separation and
divorce, and the practical and legal implications of divorce for children’s lives. This
information may be presented didactically to older children, but could be “shown” to children
by activities such as a tour of a courtroom and playing at being judges and lawyers.
• Education and information to show how children—like themselves—are affected by divorce,
how they usually respond (e.g. wishing for reconciliation), and what they can expect from
their parents and themselves. Since younger children process information mostly through
their feelings, this information is conveyed to them by role-playing and games as well as
discussion.
• Emotional support to soothe children and help them identify, explore, normalize and accept
the difficult feelings they are experiencing. Children are provided a safe place to express
feelings and to share their experience with other children going through the same problems,
usually also with a sympathetic adult. With younger children, these programs also take the
form of activities.
• Therapeutic emotional support to help children work through feelings about the divorce,
including fantasies of reconciliation, self-blame, depression, blaming parents, anger, anxiety,
withdrawal, acting out and feelings of competence and self-esteem (see Pedro-Carroll and
Cowen 1985; Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986; Appendix C). Programs providing therapeutic
support to younger children include mainly activities, and are led by trained therapists or
counsellors. The more distressed the children, or difficult their parents’ separation, the more
intensive must be the support.
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• Therapeutic support to help children develop skills to cope with their feelings and manage
their responses to divorce and post-separation parenting, including, for example, controlling
their anger, complying with rules, getting along with other children, solving personal
problems, and dealing with conflicting loyalties. Programs providing such therapeutic
support usually include activities for younger children, and are led by trained therapists or
counsellors. The more distressed the children, or difficult their parents’ separation, the more
intensive must be the support.
• Helping children develop practical coping skills to insulate themselves from parental conflict
and manipulation, especially skills to avoid being caught in the middle of the conflict.
3.2 PROGRAM STRUCTURE AND DELIVERY
Children’s programs may be for groups or individuals. Programs for individuals are typically
family and individual counselling programs providing intensive therapeutic support to children
in crisis or with severe problems. Canadian family service agencies providing group programs
for children experiencing parental separation and divorce usually also offer individual programs
to these children and their parents (e.g. the Families in Transition programs provided by the
Family Services Association of Metropolitan Toronto). In the court system, an integrated court
services pilot program currently operating in Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador,
combines individual short-term counselling for children, or children and parents, with mediation
and other services for families involved in custody and access disputes, including access denial
(Reynolds, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
Most group programs appear to offer education, information, emotional support, and coping
skills in some combination, although some group programs also provide intensive therapy.
Group programs typically serve four to ten children, usually in groups based on age, through a
course of weekly meetings. They cost less than individual supports, but researchers and
providers also endorse their therapeutic value. Research shows that discussing the divorce with
other children of divorce helps normalize the experience for children and gives them a
potentially supportive network (Kalter et al. 1988, Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1987, cited in
Grych and Fincham 1992; Vallant 1999). Also, many children are more comfortable discussing
difficult, sensitive issues in groups rather than with unfamiliar adults alone (Pedro-Carroll and
Cowen 1987, cited in Grych and Fincham 1992). Even for children experiencing more severe
difficulties, group sessions with families and children may enhance individual counselling by
helping therapists to see the whole picture of a family and children that an individual therapy
setting prevents (Gertner, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
Several Internet sites also offer facts and questions and answers for children. For example,
iConnect is an interactive Web site for youth 12 to 15 years old, run by University of Illinois
academics (http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/~iconnect). Banana Splits (New York, N.Y.) provides
emotional support for 5 to 11 year olds experiencing parental separation and divorce, through
group art therapy (http://www.divorcesource.com/NY/DS/rosenberg.html).
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3.2.1 Community and Court Group Programs
Most of the Canadian children’s programs identified in this research are community programs.
Many are offered by social service agencies with counselling capacity, or by mental health
institutions. Some are provided by lay volunteers: for example, the Rainbows program in
Canada and the United States which operates in schools, churches, social agencies and other
community venues.
Most programs in the United States are also community-based, and most are provided in schools
(Grych and Fincham 1992). School-based programs in the U.S. may serve children participating
in court-mandated programs for parents and children in separation and divorce proceedings, as
well as other families. Most American court-connected programs are also delivered by
community agencies (Geasler and Blaisure 1999). American school-based programs are often
run by school counsellors: for example, the Rollercoasters program (see Appendix C). Basing
programs for children in schools is thought to have expanded the number of children who can
participate, since school programs are usually free. A school is also familiar ground, and can
provide a child with a natural support network (Cowen et al. 1989, cited in Grych and Fincham
1992). One of the most rigorously evaluated American programs for children, the Children of
Divorce Intervention Program, operates in primary and middle schools, including 50 in the
Rochester, N.Y., area (see Appendix C).
A few Canadian provincial courts provide programs for children. In Manitoba, the court-based
Caught in the Middle helps children, whose parents are before the courts over separation and
divorce issues, to work through their feelings and concerns about the separation, and helps them
avoid being caught in their parents’ conflict (see Appendix A for details). St. John’s Family
Court in Newfoundland and Labrador provides a counsellor-led group program aimed at helping
children normalize their feelings and develop coping strategies. The similar Confidences
program offered by the Centres jeunesse de Montréal is intended for children with parents
participating in court-ordered mediation. A provincially funded Vancouver program, linked to
the Burnaby-New Westminster Family Justice Centre, provides a counsellor-led group aimed at
helping children express and understand their feelings about parental divorce or separation.
3.2.2 Linked and Stand-Alone Group Children’s Programs
Children’s programs may be stand-alone, but are often linked with parallel programs for parents.
Peer support groups providing emotional support are usually stand-alone (for example, Rainbows
in North America, or Relateen in the United Kingdom). However, many court-connected
American programs for children are tied to court-mandated parent education programs for
separating and divorcing parents. None of the Canadian provincial jurisdictions that currently
offer parent education programs provides a children’s component, though British Columbia and
Alberta are considering it. Community agencies in the U.S. and Canada also offer children’s
programs linked with parent education and support programs.
Parents’ and children’s programs can be linked in various ways. One common approach is for
children and parents to attend parallel sessions with complementary curricula (for example,
Focus on Children in Separation or FOCIS in Jackson Country, Missouri). Another is for
children and parents to attend parallel sessions most of the time, with parents’ and children’s
- 20 -
groups meeting periodically, or at the end (for example, the court-mandated, community-based
U.S. program Rollercoasters).
Individual children and their parents may also meet periodically, or at the end, with each other
and the program counsellor. The aim of the meetings is usually to consolidate and reinforce
what they have learned, and perhaps set follow-up goals for parents, based on what the child has
expressed (for example, Toronto’s Jewish Child and Family Services’ in Picking Up the Pieces
program). Even when no parallel parent program is offered, parents can be linked to the
children’s program through family sessions at various points during the program course
(e.g. Healthcare Corporation’s It’s Still O.K. in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador).
Therapeutically intensive programs for children are also often linked to intensive therapy
programs for parents. In the group mediation program in Alameda County, California, for
example, a children’s program providing therapeutic emotional support is linked with intensive
impasse mediation for high-conflict parents in chronic litigation. These children’s programs are
thus also linked directly to court proceedings for parents in custody and access disputes.
Some stand-alone Canadian programs for children also link directly to custody and access court
proceedings. Mediators participate whenever possible in the final family session of the Centres
jeunesse de Montréal’s Confidences program. Quebec is also considering a children’s
component as part of a revamped parent information session currently under discussion
(Tanguay, pers. comm., see Appendix D). Agency staff in the Vancouver peer support group
program liaise regularly with the Burnaby-New Westminster Family Justice Centre, which refers
most of the families using the program. Parents of children participating in Toronto’s Families
in Transition’s core program, who meet with the children and their case manager at the end of
the program to set goals and identify new needs, often proceed to mediation to develop or revise
parenting plans, incorporating the results of the children’s program (Freeman, pers. comm., see
Appendix D).
3.2.3 Restricted and Open-Entry Programs
Community programs providing education, information and support, like Rainbows or British
Columbia’s Circle of Friends (see Appendix A), are typically open to all children who are
experiencing, or have experienced, family breakdown (see Appendices A and C for details).
Therapy-based community programs may either be open or restricted to high-conflict or
litigating families. The Family Services Association of Metropolitan Toronto’s Families in
Transition program for children, for example, accepts all children who the counsellors feel will
benefit from a group setting, including high-conflict families that are still open to insight and
change (Freeman, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
Some programs exclude children in violent families, referring them to individual therapy,
because these children will not be able to communicate with their parents about their feelings.
The Family Centre of Winnipeg’s Giving Children Hope is restricted to high-conflict parents
who are also entrenched in court disputes.
Most provincial court-provided programs are targeted, or explicitly restricted, to children with
parents in custody and access proceedings (for example, Manitoba’s Caught in the Middle
- 21 -
program, Vancouver’s ARK Child Services Society’s peer support group, and the Centres
jeunesse de Montréal’s Confidences program).
Since children’s programs in the U.S. are often linked to mandatory parent education programs,
many American programs are restricted to children whose parents are currently before the courts
with separation or divorce issues. In California, children’s programs are often attached to
impasse mediation or other intensive mediation programs for litigating parents.
3.2.4 Program Duration
Most group programs are short-term, with education and information programs sometimes
spanning only one or two sessions, and emotional support programs sometimes lasting only three
or four sessions. Many providers feel that short-term emotional support interventions around the
time of separation or divorce are enough to help most children understand what is happening,
accept reality, and acknowledge and manage their own feelings about it (Nichols, pers. comm.,
see Appendix D). Most parents whose children complete Toronto’s Jewish Child and Family
Service’s One Family, Two Homes, for example, do not proceed to the more intensive Picking
Up the Pieces because they feel they and their children have got what they needed (Gertner, pers.
comm., see Appendix D). However, the Marriage Council of Philadelphia provides up to four
month-long sets of sessions for children, and, by allowing them to attend more than one group
series, can follow them for up to a year (see Appendix C for details). Maryland’s Children of
Separation and Divorce Center involves children and parents long-term by training them to
participate in parenting seminars and to serve as peer counsellors (Davis et al. 1997).
3.3 PROGRAM AVAILABILITY
American court-connected programs for children experiencing parental separation and divorce
increased rapidly during the 1990s. A national survey (Geasler and Blaisure 1999) found the
number of U.S. counties and cities offering such programs jumped from 10 percent in 1994 to
21 percent in 1998. The courts responding to the survey identified programs for children as the
single most important innovation they would like to make to their existing divorce education
program. The growth of children’s programs corresponds to a tripling of court-connected
parenting education programs in the United States between 1994 and 1998 (Geasler and Blaisure
1999).
Nearly all Canadian provinces now also offer parent education programs through the courts, or
purchase of this service from community providers, although many of these programs are very
recent (Bacon and McKenzie 2001). Broad-reaching, publicly-sponsored parent education
programs have grown the most since 1997, when a national survey located about 140 such
programs in the country (Bacon and McKenzie 2001). As already indicated though, no court-
sponsored program offers a complementary children’s program.
Given their links to parent education programs, many of the new American programs for
children provide education and information, although many also offer emotional support (for
example, Jackson County, Missouri’s Focus on Children in Separation). In 1998, most of the
American court-connected children’s programs were offered to elementary school children (99),
followed by children in middle school (85), high school (62) and pre-school (21). Community
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providers delivered most of the programs (up from 42 percent in 1994), and about two thirds
were mandatory for children of separating or divorcing parents (Geasler and Blaisure 1999).
Stand-alone community programs providing mainly education, information or peer support seem
to be expanding in Canada and the United States. The volunteer-run, peer-support program
Rainbows, for example, has licences to operate in all provinces except Saskatchewan (see
Appendices A and C). Still, availability seems spotty; Rainbows is currently available in most
schools in Durham, Ontario, just east of Toronto, for example, but has only two sites in Prince
Edward Island. Yukon is also considering the school system as a medium for providing
education programs for children (McLeod, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
Counsellor-run emotional support and more intensive therapeutic programs are also available in
major cities in many Canadian provinces, usually linked to other family services and provided by
community agencies, hospitals or mental health institutions.
1
It is not known whether they are
expanding. Providers report services are limited and under-resourced (pers. comm., community
service providers across Canada). Similarly, individual-based therapy and counselling is
available in all jurisdictions, but often only in major centres, and to a limited degree (see
Appendix A).
Court-connected therapeutic programs appear to have expanded in British Columbia recently, but
an intensive Ontario program for children with high-conflict parents in litigation—For Kids’
Sake—recently closed. The United Kingdom and Australia also have some court-connected and
community-based children’s programs, but their extent is unknown. Children’s programs are
often offered as part of a package of mediation and conciliation services in England, Wales and
Scotland. Programs linked with mediation and conciliation services are more likely to include
some therapeutic emotional support to draw out children’s feelings, improve communication
between children and parents, and help children begin to deal with their feelings and experiences.
Australia’s Family Court also offers children’s programs in some locations as part of its widely
available mediation services (Strategic Partners 1999).
Overall, most court officials and community service providers indicate a need for more
children’s programs of all kinds.
3.4 TYPES OF PROGRAMS AND EVALUATIONS OF EFFECTIVENESS
It is difficult to categorize existing programs, given their enormous diversity. They are discussed
here in five broad groupings, based on their goals, policy rationale, content, delivery and degree
of therapeutic or clinical services. Few rigorous evaluations exist even for the major programs,
although exit surveys of education and emotional support programs tend to show high client
satisfaction.
3.4.1 Education and Information Programs
Among the fastest growing kinds of children’s programs are those linked with, or corollary to,
parent education programs. These programs vary widely, typically including information and
1
This report focussed on community-based programs provided by family service agencies. The mental health
sector, however, also appears to be a major program provider, especially of programs providing therapy.
- 23 -
education as well as an emotional support component. These two are difficult to distinguish in
practice for very young children, because very young children respond primarily through their
feelings. However, many of the children’s programs linked with parent education, especially the
court-mandated programs, emphasize education and information about the legal and emotional
implications of divorce for children (for example, the Kids First programs in Hawaii, described
in Appendix C). Most also seem to include some training in practical techniques for dealing
with parents’ inappropriate behaviour or their own acting out). However, courses may be short,
perhaps one or two sessions, and may include as many as 35 to 40 children at a time, as in the
Kids First programs (Anaya, pers. comm., see Appendix D). Education about the legal
dimensions of divorce may be quite concrete. The first activity in a Kids First program is a tour
of a courtroom, where children are encouraged to sit in the judge’s seat and pound the gavel
(Anaya, pers. comm., see Appendix D) (Di Bias 1996).
Where children’s programs linked with parent education programs do include emotional support,
their content will likely complement the parent program’s goals of making parents’ more aware
of their children’s needs and feelings, and focussing parents’ actions on the child’s best interests,
rather than their own. Part of the purpose in helping children to feel and express their feelings
about the separation is to increase parent-child communication, especially about the divorce, and
so increase parents’ awareness and attentiveness. The practical coping strategies offered in these
courses are intended to help protect children when the parents fail to learn from their own
program.
For example, the Toronto Jewish Child and Family Service’s One Family, Two Homes is linked
with concurrent parent-education workshops. A major goal of this program is to improve parent-
child communication by helping the children express themselves, and helping the parents listen
and attend to what their children express. The program was started two years ago because of
long waiting lists for the more therapeutic Picking Up the Pieces program. Both programs aim
to provide safe places for children to express feelings and explore coping strategies; the key
distinction between them is that in One Family, Two Homes the issues are discussed generally,
whereas in Picking Up the Pieces counsellors work with each child individually, focussing on
what they are feeling and doing (Gertner, pers. comm., see Appendix D). (The more intensive
program also excludes pre-schoolers.)
As indicated above, education-oriented programs can be stand-alone (for example, the St. John’s,
Newfoundland and Labrador, court-based program is stand-alone and mixes education and
emotional support). Some families who graduate from the short One Family, Two Homes
program proceed to the more intensive program, but others say the first program gave them what
they needed (Gertner, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
3.4.1.1 Evaluations
Evaluations of education-oriented children’s programs are sketchy and few. No evaluations
were found that measured knowledge, attitudinal or concrete behavioural outcomes for children
participating in education-oriented programs. In their absence, evaluations of parent education
programs may offer some insight. Studies show non-didactic parent education programs—
didactic programs have no impact (Arbuthnot et al. 1997)—may be effective in giving parents
new knowledge that they retain, and in changing their attitudes (Arbuthnot and Gordon 1996;
McKenzie and Guberman 1997, cited in Kirby 1998). Parents reported changes in their
- 24 -
behaviours in several studies (e.g. Gray et al. 1997). However, one study also measured their
actual behaviours and found most of the problem behaviours had not changed (Arbuthnot and
Gordon 1996).
An evaluation of the mandatory Families in Transition program in Louisville, Kentucky (see
Appendix C) measured short-term outcomes for graduates of their children’s and parents’
programs, using the Divorce Adjustment Inventory, and found that most graduates were
“adjusting satisfactorily” to the divorce (Brown et al. 1994). The program combines education
and emotional support. The evaluators also reported that fewer than 10 percent of families
completing the mandatory program re-litigated child-related issues afterwards. However,
without a control group for comparison, the program’s effect remains unclear, since most
families adjust satisfactorily to divorce over time anyway. Relatively few divorcing and
separating parents re-litigate in any case, for example, and the families attending the courses are
likely to be the most cooperative and concerned about their children’s well-being.
One problem for American children’s programs that are tied to mandatory parenting education
programs is low attendance (see, for example, Jackson County, Missouri’s Focus on Children in
Separation, in Appendix C).
3.4.2 Programs Providing Therapeutic Emotional Support
Another common type of program uses therapeutic techniques to help children learn the coping
skills required to work through emotional responses such as anxiety, blaming, anger, acting out
and depression—responses to divorce that not only cause most pain, but could arrest a child’s
development. Besides providing information and education, these programs give children a safe
place to express and share their feelings with others and with supportive adults. They are best
seen as part of a continuum with the education-based programs described above; indeed,
individual programs in the two categories may be indistinguishable on paper.
These programs may be offered by family service agencies, mental health institutions,
counselling centres or school counsellors, and may be located in schools or at these agencies.
Some may be linked with parent education programs, or parent programs that also use
therapeutic techniques. Many are stand-alone.
3.4.2.1 Programs in the United States
In the U.S., the Rollercoasters program is run largely by school counsellors, using a curriculum
loosely based on Wallerstein’s six “tasks” for children following separation and divorce
discussed in section 1 (Fischer 1997).
The Children of Divorce Intervention Program (CODIP) is also a school stand-alone program
that combines counselling techniques with emotional support, information and education, and
teaches practical coping skills (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985; Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986). This
program, conceived as a preventive mental health measure, is well known for its extensive
evaluations and positive reported outcomes (see below). Its curricula are widely used in such
school programs across the country. The program was initially for pre-schoolers, but different
versions have now been adapted for older children up to grade eight.
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CODIP was built on the earlier, promising Divorce Adjustment Program (DAP), designed for
psychologically healthy 7 to 13 year-old children experiencing parental separation or divorce and
for their parents (Stolberg and Garrison 1985, cited in Shaw and Ingoldsby 1999). DAP’s 12
Children’s Support Group sessions were divided evenly between the discussing of divorce-
related topics, and teaching coping skills to resolve problems, control anger, promote
communication and put children at ease. CODIP reduced the anger control component and
added a more general emotional support component (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985). DAP also
included parents in community-based single parent support groups and groups involving children
and parents.
Another U.S. program, Kid’s Turn, covers the same ground as CODIP and Rollercoasters, but
links its children’s program with a parallel parents’ program (both parents attending when
possible, but in separate sessions). Parents and children join in a potluck supper at the end of the
course.
3.4.2.2 Programs in Canada
Programs providing therapeutic emotional help and support to help children develop coping
skills were encountered often in Canada during research for this report. Examples include the
Family Services Association of Metropolitan Toronto’s Families in Transition core program, It’s
Still O.K. in St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Manitoba government’s Caught in
the Middle. The first two programs are open to all children, but directors say that children
entering these programs tend to be more distressed than the average (Sinclair, Freeman, pers.
comm., see Appendix D), especially in Toronto.
Most of the programs encountered engaged parents individually in the program at some stage,
reflecting providers’ widespread opinion that parents need to be involved for the programs to
have therapeutic effect, that is, to bring about the children’s well-being and emotional and
behavioural adjustment. Several programs had extensive intake processes of several hours (for
example, the Family Services Association of Metropolitan Toronto’s Families in Transition core
program). When parents’ and children’s programs are linked, families may have case managers
who follow up with parents, and leaders of both programs meet regularly to ensure that the right
issues are raised in the right way in the groups.
Providers agree their programs are more effective when both parents are involved. However,
where both parents are involved in a parental program of any kind, it is usual for them to attend
separately. Providers also emphasize the need to mix genders in the parent groups.
3.4.2.3 Evaluations
The evaluations of these programs are among the best available for children’s programs.
Children of Divorce Intervention Program
The Children of Divorce Intervention Program’s (CODIP) two pilot program evaluations are
among the few to show positive results (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985; Pedro-Carroll et al.
1986). Pre- and post-test studies found that children reported lower anxiety (and less anxiety
than children in a control group) and fewer negative self-attitudes and attitudes about the
divorce. There was no change in the children’s perception of their competence and self-esteem.
- 26 -
However, parents, teachers and program leaders reported that the children were less shy or
anxious at school, had fewer school problems, were more competent (that is, showed less
frustration, were more sociable, more compliant with rules and more appropriately assertive) and
were less self-blaming, as well as less anxious overall (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985).
A second pilot comparing children of separated or divorced families with children in intact
families found that the children in the program again overwhelmingly showed less anxiety.
Parents, teachers and facilitators again reported improvements on most fronts. With respect to
many school and other external measures, the children in the program had caught up with those
in the control group, whom they had been behind at the pre-test (Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986).
A recent follow-up of program participants two years later found that CODIP children were still
less anxious than other children of divorce in a control group (Pedro-Carroll and Sutton 1999).
Parents also reported increases in their children’s coping skills and abilities to effectively handle
divorce-related concerns. Children in the divorce control group had more behavioural problems
and visited the school nurse more often.
Rollercoasters
Evaluation of the Rollercoasters program found that 85 percent of the parents reported
improvements on at least one of five measures: children’s general level of communication, their
level of communication about the divorce, their willingness to express feelings, their acting-out
behaviour, and their self-esteem (Fischer 1997). Children who were reported to be more
communicative before the program were more likely to be reported as having become even more
communicative afterwards. Parents were more likely to report improvements with regard to
acting out, expression of feelings and self-esteem for children who were below average on these
measures before the program. However, teachers reported no changes in children’s negative
behaviours (using the Behaviour Problems Index). The evaluation did not include children’s
self-reports.
Divorce Adjustment Program
The Divorce Adjustment Program (DAP) evaluation also found significant improvements in self-
concept and adaptive social skills among the children in its program, during post-treatment and
five-month follow-ups (Stolberg and Garrison 1985, cited in Shaw and Ingoldsby 1999).
However, DAP found that results differed for its stand-alone children’s program, the combined
parent-child program, and its parents-alone program. Only children in the stand-alone program
improved, and only parents who participated in the parents-only program improved. Neither
parents nor children improved in the combined program (Stolberg and Garrison 1985, cited in
Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986). A study conducted in the 1980s by the founder of Toronto’s Families
in Transition program also tested various combinations of programs and found the most effect
for programs involving parent and child, with programs for parents alone more effective than
programs for children alone (Freeman, pers. comm., Appendix D).
A later DAP study explored effects of its program on more troubled children (one half had
clinically significant problems) and added workbook assignments to help the children transfer
the skills they were learning in the program to their actual lives (Stolberg and Mahler 1994, cited
in Shaw and Ingoldsby 1999). This study showed similar results for the children. But the
- 27 -
workbook component made no difference to the gains. Moreover, the only positive outcome still
in effect a year later was the improvement in children’s behaviour in the home (Stolberg and
Mahler 1994, cited in Shaw and Ingoldsby 1999).
Despite mildly promising results of some of the control group studies, other control group
studies of similar types of programs have found no positive impacts (Lee et al. 1994; see also
citations in Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985). Similarly disappointing effects were found for
seven studies of parent interventions that used control groups (Lee et al. 1994). Studies using no
control groups have shown similar mixed results (e.g. see citations in Crosbie-Burnett and
Newcomer 1990).
Confidences
Although it did not measure child outcomes, a recent evaluation of the Centres jeunesse de
Montréal’s Confidences program showed that 80 percent of the 112 child participants felt the
program had helped them. Thirty-six percent said talking about their parents’ separation had
helped them, and 15 percent reported that talking had helped them understand the separation
(Vallant 1999). Parents said that their children’s sense of security had been increased by seeing
other children in the same circumstances, and nearly as many thought the program helped their
children express themselves more easily about the separation. A quarter of the parents reported
that their child was calmer, and one fifth felt their children expressed themselves more readily
about the separation (see Appendix A).
3.4.3 Lay Programs Providing Peer Emotional Support
Another group of programs also provides children with a safe space in which to explore their
feelings at the time of parental divorce—especially their feelings of loss, fear and even
hopelessness—with other children under the guidance of trained volunteers. The programs range
from simple “rap sessions” to more structured activities. They may include teaching coping
skills to help children stay out of the middle, and education about the legal terms and processes
concerning separation and divorce, and their effects on children. In Brighton, England, for
example, Relateen program counsellors provide loosely structured discussion sessions for local
11 to 18 year olds whose parents have separated and divorced (http://www.brightonrelate.
org.uk).
In Canada and the United States, the Rainbows program offers 12 weekly sessions for groups of
similarly aged children plus two multi-group days. It is open to all children, including those
whose parents have been separated or divorced for many years, and serves children suffering loss
by death in the family as well. It is run by teachers, sympathetic adults and sometimes guidance
counsellors who undergo brief training. In Canada, Rainbows is licensed to operate at 1070 sites,
that is, that number of organizations have completed the training and been approved to provide
the program. About 9,000 children’s workbook/journals were sent to various program localities
in 2000.
In British Columbia, Vancouver’s ARK Child Services Society has also developed a curriculum
for peer support groups, Connections, to be run by professionals trained in listening skills. The
Boys and Girls Clubs in the province also run support groups for school-age children and
teenagers suffering loss, including family break-up.
- 28 -
An evaluation of 97 fourth, fifth and sixth graders attending Rainbows programs at 28 schools
near Chicago found positive responses but few gains for these children, compared to a control
group (Kramer and Laumann 2000). In high-conflict families, pre- and post-tests found some
improvement in the perceptions of children of one of the coping skills: positive reappraisal,
i.e. the ability to look on the bright side. There was no change in children’s perceptions of their
adjustment, the quality of their relationship with the parent they spend most time with, and other
coping skills such as getting support from peers, avoiding strategies that reflect hopeless or
blaming attitudes, and seeking support from other adults. Children’s perceptions of their well-
being did not change, although it declined for children of high-conflict families in the control
group. This suggests that the program might provide some stabilizing support to its children.
Counsellors express some concern that lay facilitators in the lay programs may not be able to
read the signals indicating that children in high-conflict families, or otherwise in distress, are
reacting adversely to what is happening in the group. One strength of these programs seems to
be their ease in normalizing the divorce and separation process.
3.4.4 Focussed Skills Teaching Programs: Children in the Middle
Separating and divorcing parents frequently put their children in the middle of their conflicts by
demanding that they choose sides and work with one parent against the other. Teaching children
strategies to deal with being caught in the middle is a popular component of children’s programs.
Many community agencies make the video-based Children in the Middle program materials the
primary focus of their program. Since the program has both parents’ and children’s components,
it is also often used as the basis for parenting education programs that include a children’s
program component. The children’s program has been distributed to more than 500 service
providers around North America.
Therapy and mediation programs targeted to high-conflict litigious parents are also likely to deal
with children being caught in the middle, since this is more typical in situations involving high-
conflict parents. But the problem in high-conflict families usually reaches a different order of
magnitude than in other families. One common feature of high-conflict parents is that they have
extreme difficulty hearing and listening to their children, or to each other. The education-
oriented Children in the Middle is not designed for these families.
Manitoba’s court-based Caught in the Middle is targeted to children whose parents are in custody
and access legal disputes (Bewski, pers. comm., Appendix D). Although it deals with being
caught in the middle, it is designed to provide more general therapeutic emotional support and to
teach coping skills for children akin to those provided in the programs discussed above.
There has been considerable evaluation of specific Children in the Middle programs, although
mostly of the parent-education version of the program (see Arbuthnot et al. 1997; and Arbuthnot
and Gordon 1996, for some of the most rigorous ones). However, one small study of 33 fourth,
fifth and sixth graders found significant improvements in children’s stress levels (Kearnes et al.
1991). In a four-week follow-up, children reported the frequency and stress of situations in
which they felt caught in the middle. The children reported experiencing significantly less stress
than those in a control group who watched a non-skills-oriented divorce video When Mom and
Dad Break Up. Improvements were clinically significant for 50 percent of the children. The
program appeared to have no impact on frequency.
- 29 -
3.4.5 Therapy-Based or Clinical Interventions
These kinds of programs are distinguished by their therapeutic intensity, whether in the
children’s program itself or in a parents’ program. Children’s groups will often include two
therapists (or one with an assistant), and focus on therapeutic emotional support and therapeutic
training in coping skills to manage feelings, such as despair and depression, and reduce anger
and acting out. When the children’s program is linked with a parental program, the intensity
would be equally located in the parents’ program, where small groups of couples are attended by
two therapists working to identify and resolve entrenched destructive behaviours among the
parents.
These intensive programs are usually directed at children in obvious distress, or children in high-
conflict divorcing and separating families. The programs are often linked with individual and
family therapy services (parents or children may be receiving both concurrently, or may move
between the program and individual therapy) and may be provided by family service agencies,
counselling and therapy centres, and mental health institutions. Clinicians who work with these
families emphasize how typically intransigent and hostile the parents are, and how difficult it is
to get them to attend to or recognize their children’s suffering (Hood, pers. comm., Appendix D).
Programs that link children’s and parents’ programs may also be court-connected. Families are
often referred to these programs because they are locked in court battles, frequently involving
violence and abuse. The ultimate goal of the parents’ program may be to resolve those disputes
using a combination of intensive group therapy and mediation. In these cases, the children’s
program provides a venue for children to receive therapeutic emotional help and to learn coping
skills. One primary function, though, is to give the parents feedback about their children’s needs
and concerns, and to reinforce and intensify the therapeutic push to change the parents’
understanding and behaviour (Johnston and Campbell 1988, cited in Brown 1995). These
programs provide what many experts consider to be the least threatening way for children to
voice their concerns about their parents’ conflict and separation to their parents (Brown 1995).
California’s center for Families in Transition has been a leader in developing court-connected
versions of these therapy-intensive interventions in the state (Johnston and Campbell 1988, cited
in Brown 1995). Family court services in Alameda County, for example, runs linked parent and
child programs for families before its court. To enter the program, children must be clearly
suffering and the parents must have failed mediation at least twice. The children’s programs
provide peer support to the children. After carefully preparing the children and parents, the two
groups are eventually brought together for a session about halfway through the eight-session
program (Schepard 1998). In these kinds of programs, children convey their messages to their
parents as a group through such devices as stories, pre-recorded videos, role-playing or videos
(Brown 1995).
These safe techniques for providing feedback to parents are also used in less clinically intensive
programs that include concurrent parent and children’s programs, and in which parents and
children join in a group meeting at some point. In many other programs, children prepare these
messages together as part of their activities (a group letter is popular) and deliver them
individually to their parents.
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The Family Centre of Winnipeg’s Giving Children Hope is a targeted program for parents and
children in high-conflict families (usually also in litigation) that combines therapy and mediation
for the adults. Its children’s sessions, which start a few weeks in advance of the parent sessions,
involve several therapists. Parents in litigation must suspend it during the course. An evaluation
of the program is in progress.
No evaluations of other intensive therapy programs for children were found. Evaluations of the
hybrid mediation-therapy programs measured parental outcomes only. A two to three year
follow-up of two studies of high-conflict families found that two thirds were able to keep or
renegotiate their own agreements regarding custody and access, and hence stay out of court (see
citations in Johnston 1994).
3.4.6 Evaluation Overview
Overall, there has been little evaluation of children’s programs, and existing evaluations tend to
be compromised by small sample sizes and by the use of limited research designs and methods,
often due to the external parameters of the evaluations (Fischer 1997; Grych and Fincham 1992).
There seem to be no long-term follow-ups.
Many of the program evaluations encountered in the literature stop at recording participants’
satisfaction with courses and their willingness to recommend the program to others. On this
measure, children’s programs tend to score highly. So do parent education programs. However,
there is only some evidence to show that parental education programs can actually change
parents’ attitudes, and little or no evidence that they change parental behaviours (see above). It
is even more difficult to assess the impact of children’s programs on their emotional states,
attitudes and behaviours when, in many studies, assessments are based on parents’, teachers’ or
group facilitators’ reports of how the children are feeling or adjusting. Children’s self-reports,
on the other hand, may be no more accurate than parents’ self-reports about the extent to which
they are aware of their children’s needs and feelings, are communicating well with their children,
or are putting their children in the middle of their parental conflicts.
In an overview of existing studies in the early 1990s, researchers raised several other concerns
(Grych and Fincham 1992). First, they pointed out that most evaluations do not assess whether
the goals of the group have been achieved (e.g. whether children have a better understanding of
divorce) before assessing whether the program improved children’s functioning. Only one study
referred to above (Roseby and Deutsch 1985, cited in Grych and Fincham 1992) specifically
tested whether children had understood the significance of divorce, for example, before testing
for adjustment outcomes.
Secondly, the teachers and parents who rated the children’s adjustment were usually fully aware
that the children had been in the program, and so may have been biased (the halo effect). In the
Children of Divorce Intervention Program evaluations, this possible effect for the adults’
assessments was offset by the children’s own mixed assessment of changes in their adjustment.
Thirdly and finally, researchers argue that evaluation studies should distinguish between children
living in single-parent homes and those in stepfamilies, since experiences and problems of these
two groups of children may be very different (Grych and Fincham 1992). Similarly, some of the
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studies do not distinguish children whose parents have recently separated from those who may
have been divorced for several years.
Another problem raised by researchers is the lack of good instruments for measuring children’s
adjustment outcomes (e.g. Freeman 1995; Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985). The psychometric
properties of several of the measures commonly used have yet to be determined. Moreover,
some researchers have expressed concern that behavioural measures, in particular, tend to focus
on negative behavioural outcomes. There are few measures to assess gradations of positive
behavioural outcomes (e.g. Amato 1994).
The dearth of evaluations on children’s programs limits assessment of their value. It also means
there is no research to guide policy makers in deciding, for example, whether it is more effective
to resource programs for parents (perhaps parent education, possibly support groups) or
programs for children, or only programs involving both, in order to alleviate children’s distress
and enhance their well-being.
Similarly, although courts in the U.S. clearly tend to tie children’s programs to parent education
programs, the impression is that Australian and British courts are expanding children’s programs
primarily as adjuncts to mediation or conciliation. There is no research yet to say which works
best, for children directly, for their parents, or for custody and access decision making committed
to securing children’s best interests.
Another important issue is whether targeted, more intensive interventions—possibly to children
exposed to many post-separation stressors and lacking supportive parents or social supports
(Wolchik et al. 2000)—are more needed than broad-based interventions for children. After all,
the research predicts children will rebound fairly quickly from the acute distress of separation
and divorce, if their parents also rebound.
In spite of the lack of evaluation of programs for children experiencing parental divorce and
separation (cited as the main reason for so few Canadian program evaluations), there appears to
be strong support for these programs among community social service providers, other
community sectors and parents. Providers believe strongly these programs work for children.
Most appear to believe that parents should also be involved, but not necessarily through a linked
or parallel program. In many programs, parents are very keen for their children to participate,
and are eager to know counsellors’ assessments at the end of the sessions (Filion, Gertner,
Freeman, pers. comm., Appendix D).
Providers of lay-led emotional-support programs have expressed some concerns about
counsellor-led programs, and counsellors leading programs expressed concerns about lay-led
programs. These two types of programs share the goal of helping children understand the
significance of divorce, that is, coming to terms with the fact that their parents will probably not
reconcile, but that they will not be abandoned by both parents. However, a support group
provides less structured support. The relative effectiveness of the different program approaches,
and the groups of children for which the different approaches might be effective, is another gap
in the research. Moreover, as indicated earlier, the one study that explored the impact of this
understanding (Roseby and Deutsch 1987, cited in Grych and Fincham, 1992) found that
understanding did not improve children’s adjustment.
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4. VOICE OF THE CHILD
Two reasons are advanced for including children’s voices in custody and access proceedings.
The first concerns their rights, and argues that children are entitled to have a say in decisions that
affect their lives. The second concerns their interests and argues that including children’s voices
in custody and access proceedings serves their best interests, either through its effect on them
directly, or its effect on the quality of decisions made.
4.1 THE RIGHT TO VOICE
The 1989 signing of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (e.g. Australian
Law Reform Commission, 1997) has stimulated Canadian and other national governments to
express more interest in, and concern for, giving children a voice in judicial and administrative
proceedings and decisions that affect their lives. The Convention requires governments to assure
children who are capable of forming their own views the right to express those views freely in
matters that affect them, and to give their views due accord in institutional decision making (e.g.
Brown 1996a). To this end, children are to have the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and
administration proceedings affecting them, either directly or through a representative or another
appropriate body. Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom (though not the United States)
have ratified the Convention.
Arguments asserting the primacy of inherent rights as the reason for giving children a voice in
custody and access proceedings do not claim that children always know their best interests or
that expressing their voice in legal proceedings never harms them. These arguments for giving
children a voice, therefore, may in certain situations be at odds with the children’s best interests.
Most commentators believe that children’s stated wishes often conflict with their best interests
(e.g. Austin et al. 1991; Huddart and Ensminger 1995; Brown 1995 1996a).
A basic issue for policy makers is when, and in what way, children’s rights are to be included in
custody and access proceedings, and when this needs to be tempered by considerations of their
best interests.
4.2 THE CHILDREN’S VOICE AND THEIR BEST INTERESTS
The second reason for including children’s voices in custody and access proceedings is that
doing so serves the children’s best interests. Custody and access decisions are now governed in
most English-speaking jurisdictions, Canada included, by the principle of the best interests of the
child. Several jurisdictions explicitly include the child’s own wishes as one consideration that
judges must weigh in deciding individual custody and access disputes.
Traditional custody and access proceedings entitle parents to decide post-parenting arrangements
on the child’s behalf, and this entitlement is based partly on the assumption that parents are best
able to decide their children’s best interests, or, if they fail, that courts can fulfill this role. In
1994-95, 38 percent of Canada’s separated and divorced couples had a court order governing
their broken union (with another 10 percent in progress) (Child Support Team 2000). Only a
tiny proportion of divorcing or separating couples have disputes decided by a final judicial
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hearing; most settle before that. In cases not using the legal system, parents reach agreements on
their own or with the help of lawyers and mediators.
Many commentators and researchers are skeptical that either parents or the courts always know
what is best for the child.
4.2.1 The Parents’ Capacity to Assess Children’s Best Interests
As discussed in section 1, many parents’ capacity to attend to their children’s needs, or
communicate with them, diminishes during the separation and divorce period. As a result,
researchers and commentators are often skeptical that the parents’ decisions made during this
period are always based on their understanding of their children’s best interests. The explosion
in parenting education programs reflects this skepticism.
This problem is compounded by the judicial system’s tendency to assume that children’s best
interests coincide naturally with those of their parents’ (L’Heureux-Dubé 1998), and to accept
uncritically that legal processes and post-parenting arrangements which best suit the parents will
also best suit the children. The research contains many examples of post-parenting agreements
that ignore young children’s developmental and emotional needs, but optimally satisfy the
parents’ needs. This is as likely to occur with agreements amicably and easily reached, as with
those reached amid high conflict. Examples include arrangements in which the child spends one
year at a time with each parent, or in which infants spend months at a time with different parents
(e.g. Wallerstein 1986-87; Beck and Bianck 1997).
Post-parenting agreements that work well when children are young often do not work well when
children reach adolescence, after parents’ and children’s interests have diverged (e.g. Wallerstein
1986-87). Both mothers’ and fathers’ time with children declines as children grow older
(Thompson 1986, cited in Nord and Zill 1996), at least partly because the children develop other
interests (Wallerstein and Lewis 1998). Yet some parents continue to rigidly enforce the original
custody and access arrangements (because they still work for the parents) at cost to the
teenager’s social and emotional progress. The longitudinal California study found children felt
silenced and coerced by the rigid enforcement of the original arrangements. This became a
major issue for these teenagers, especially the vacation arrangements (e.g. Wallerstein and Lewis
1998).
Researchers also found that none of the children who were forced to see their fathers (under a
rigidly enforced court order or unmodified parental agreement) had good relationships with them
as adults. To not include children’s voices and especially, to not allow the preferences of older
children to shape custody and access arrangements in an ongoing way, may undermine their
well-being as adults in ways beyond those usually captured in outcomes research.
These problems appear frequently enough to conclude that even parents who cooperate in low-
conflict post-separation parenting do not always serve their children’s best interests and are not
always aware of their children’s interests. Even researchers who argue that most parents (and
courts) genuinely believe they are acting in the children’s best interests, also believe that,
nonetheless, parents and the state tend to pursue claims that serve and protect adult interests (see
citations in L’Heureux-Dubé 1998).
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4.2.2 The Court’s Capacity to assess Children’s Best Interests
Some observers, including judges, are equally skeptical of a court’s ability to ascertain children’s
best interests (L’Heureux-Dubé 1998; Brown 1996). Studies show that judges tend to base their
decisions more on qualities of the parents as persons than on the quality of the parent-child
relationship in making custody and access decisions (cited in Brown 1996; L’Heureux-Dubé
1998). One 1982 study of U.S. judges and commissioners (admittedly somewhat outdated)
found that each parent’s mental stability and sense of responsibility to the child figured most
importantly in judges’ decisions. Judges also used different criteria to assess mothers and fathers
morally: fathers were more morally deficient when they did not provide for their families or
abused their children, mothers when they committed adultery or prostitution (Settle and Lowery
1982, cited in Brown 1996a). A subsequent study of psychologists and social workers found that
the same criteria predominated, except that this group assigned less importance to biological
relationships and to keeping young children with the mothers (Lowery 1985, cited in Brown
1996a).
Another small study of Canadian custody evaluators found that their three main criteria were:
child’s attachment to the parent, the child’s wishes, and the need for continuity of care (Parry et
al. 1986, cited in Brown 1996a).
Considerable evidence shows that children, too, are often unhappy with judges’ decisions (e.g.
Lyon et al. 1998; Wallerstein and Kelly 1980, cited in L’Heureux-Dubé 1998). For example, the
longitudinal California study found that the court decisions were rarely what the children wanted.
Commentators conclude that including children’s voices in custody and access hearings can help
the courts, as well as parents, make decisions that serve children’s best interests (e.g. L’Heureux-
Dubé 1998).
4.2.3 Children’s Voices and Their Long-term Adjustment
Some research shows that including children’s voices in the decisions that rule their lives,
including legal decisions on custody and access, contributes directly to their well-being and
adjustment, and by implication, to their best interests.
Child development research suggests that self-esteem, competence, self-efficacy and self-
understanding contribute importantly to developing children’s resilience. Researchers on
resilience argue that to develop the healthy self-concept crucial to resilience—and to keep it—
children need to feel they are in control of their lives, and are able to act on their own behalf,
especially during major transition times. Resilience demands more than passive acceptance
(Rutter 1989, cited in Family Law Council of Australia 1996). Australia’s Family Law Council
recently cited these kinds of benefits in calling for greater inclusion of children’s voices in
custody and access proceedings (Family Law Council of Australia 1996).
4.3 WHEN AND HOW TO INCLUDE CHILDREN’S VOICES
Since including children’s voices may advance their best interests, the most important issue for
policy makers is when and how to include children in custody and access proceedings in ways
that do this. The literature suggests four possible ways. First, children’s wishes and preferences
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may decide the matter. Second, their wishes and preferences may directly inform decisions.
Third, the needs and interests that children express inform, or are the basis for deciding, custody
and access decisions. Fourth, children are kept informed, and have events and decisions, and
their implications, clearly explained to them.
With older children, discussion focusses on the first two ways mentioned. Older children,
especially teenagers, are likely to want to express their wishes, and often want these wishes
respected. Discussion concerning older children revolves largely around the age at which, or the
criteria by which, the children’s wishes should be treated in the same way as adults’ wishes, that
is, as decisive. The pressing problem is to know when the court should override the children’s
own wishes, in cases when these wishes flagrantly conflict with their best interests. This is
largely a matter of judicial policy and practice. Current common judicial practice is to grant
considerable, if not controlling, weight to the custodial preference of children 14 and older, and
there is apparently a trend to give greater weight to younger children’s preferences
(Brown 1996).
With younger children, discussion focusses most often on the last two ways mentioned above.
There is considerable evidence that children do not want to make the big decisions about who
they will live with, and how often they will see their non-residential parents (e.g. Huddart and
Ensminger 1995; L’Heureux-Dubé 1998; Pruett 1999). They may be more interested in the
smaller questions of whether, for example, they have to go to the football game every Saturday
with Dad.
It appears to be more difficult to elicit younger children’s wishes and preferences concerning
larger issues. Young children’s capacity to articulate their genuine and rational preferences is
also dubious, as discussed in the next section. Few commentators appear to believe that
children’s wishes should always be decisive as a matter of principle, for older or younger
children (e.g. Huddart and Ensminger 1995; L’Heureux-Dubé 1998; Brown 1996).
Clearly, though, children do want their parents to recognize and attend to their needs and
interests in custody and access decisions. For policy makers, the key issues regarding younger
children are how to enable them to participate in legal proceedings that both optimize chances of
decisions that serve their best interests and minimize those that may harm them. Harmful results
can range from parental retribution to making children feel they are the sole decision makers,
responsible for making it all work out. Specific policy issues revolve around when, and if,
children should directly participate in proceedings (and, if so, which ones). Another issue is
when, and if, they should be heard indirectly through the voice of a disinterested third party, such
as a mediator, custody evaluator or expert witness, or any third party acting as advocate for the
child’s best interests.
Given the limited range of young children’s voices, a related policy issue to be resolved is what
kinds of decisions and deliberations need to include their voices.
A study of the ways in which Canadian children’s voices can be included in Canadian court
hearings—e.g., through direct testimony, judicial interviews, participation in the proceedings as a
party with legal standing, or through counsel charged with representing the child’s best
interests—was completed recently (Bessner 2002). Section 5 will examine how children’s
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voices may be included in proceedings leading up to the courtroom, or proceedings outside the
courtroom (such as preparation of custody assessments) that are used in making court decisions.
4.4 CHILDREN’S CAPACITY FOR EXPRESSING THEIR NEEDS AND WISHES
Both the rights-based and interests-based arguments for including children’s voices assume that
children can speak about their needs, or their wishes, authentically and rationally. If they cannot,
then one may argue that they can have no right to have their wishes heard, and that what they
would say may be little help in determining their best interests.
Rationality refers to the capacity to form rational preferences, or more precisely, to form
preferences that meet the criteria set for autonomous rational persons, and which are imputed to
adults. Authenticity refers to the capacity to express genuine preferences or needs in contexts
where the child is caught in agonizing conflicts of loyalty and/or is trying to please and appease
adult caretakers and authorities.
4.4.1 Rationality
Some studies show children can form reasonable preferences and wishes that reflect rational
deliberation (e.g. analysis of future risks and benefits). One study of 9 to 14 year-old children in
intact families found that, given two custody dilemmas and asked to state their preference and
reasons for a particular outcome, their reasons and preferences closely paralleled factors included
in existing U.S. legislation (Garrison 1991, cited in Brown 1996). Judges gave the children’s
reasons moderate weight when asked to resolve the same cases. Research also shows that
children often remember more than they say they do. The age of a child has been shown to
affect the amount of recall but not its accuracy (see citations in Brown, 1996). However,
children generally become confused under direct questioning, and have particular difficulty with
questions involving “yes” and “no” answers (see citations in Brown, 1996). Other research
suggests limits to children’s capacity to deliberate rationally (see e.g. Bowen 1998).
Research suggests there are limits to many children’s rational capacities, but it does not
demonstrate that children’s preferences should be dismissed. Even if children’s wishes do not
reflect the full rational deliberation we impute to adults’ wishes, there may be no reason not to
give children’s wishes decisive or significant weight in cases when doing so does not conflict
with their best interests or harm them. Concerns about children’s rationality surface mainly in
relation to discussions about the weight that should be given to children’s wishes and
preferences.
4.4.2 Authenticity
Most practitioners and service providers are concerned mainly with children’s capacity to
express genuine preferences in custody and access proceedings (Brown 1996; Austin et al.
1991). The best interests principle is part of a larger effort to reduce adversarial proceedings.
But there seems to be broad agreement that children are often manipulated or pressured by
parents, are made to feel (or may feel) responsible for parents, and are typically torn by loyalties
to parents to a degree that makes it extremely difficult for them to say what they want, even to
themselves (e.g. Austin et al. 1991).
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Concerns about authenticity apply as much to children’s capacity to express their needs and
interests as to their capacity to express preferences. However, there is considerable support for
the view that, under the right conditions, children are able to articulate their needs and interests
from a very young age (e.g. Wallerstein citations in L’Heureux-Dubé 1998; Brown 1996). These
right conditions do not generally exist in the courtroom. They include being asked questions by
skillful listeners who are knowledgeable about child development and the broader context of the
family’s circumstances (Brown 1996). For younger children, they include the same skills and
knowledge, as well as the ability to interpret behaviours as much as words (Brown 1996).
Given the parental and other pressures on children in custody and access disputes, most
practitioners and researchers are cautious about when to accept children’s voices as authentic in
custody and access proceedings (e.g. Austin et al. 1991; Brown 1996). Most do not think the
problems of determining authenticity and rationality should prevent children’s voices from being
included in custody and access decision making. However, as the discussion in section 5 shows,
many do think these problems circumscribe how children’s voices should be included and how
much weight they should be given.
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5. VOICE OF THE CHILD IN CUSTODY AND ACCESS
PROCEEDINGS
Just over 67,000 Canadian couples divorce each year and 50 percent of these couples have
dependent children (Child Support Team 2000). In addition, thousands of common-law couples
also separate annually and many of them also have dependent children. About half the total
number of divorcing and separating Canadian couples have court orders specifying their post-
separation custody and access (Marcil-Gratton and Le Bourdais 1999), while the rest may have
formal agreements forged with the help of lawyers, or informal arrangements. Court programs
and proceedings that help separating or divorcing families resolve custody and access disputes
therefore affect the lives of many thousands of Canadian children each year.
5.1 LEGAL PROCEEDINGS FOR CUSTODY AND ACCESS DISPUTES
Only a fraction of the separating and divorcing couples who enter the Canadian court system to
resolve their custody and access arrangements ever have their disputes ruled on by a judge. Most
couples with disputes either reach a settlement by themselves, or with the help of mediators or
counsellors. Many couples who reach settlements by themselves do so quickly. Most of those
who fail to reach agreement during mediation, or who do not use mediation, reach a settlement
before final hearing, often after custody assessments have been completed and their
recommendations have been absorbed by the couples, sometimes with the help of further court
program interventions.
Children’s voices may be included at several stages during the litigation. Two of the most
important times are during mediation or conciliation, and during the preparation of custody
evaluations (known as home studies or family assessments in some jurisdictions) which help
judges in their decision making. For difficult cases, other programs sometimes exist (e.g. the
Ontario Office of the Children’s Lawyer’s programs discussed below) to help families reach an
agreement before a final court hearing.
Children’s voices may also be heard in the courtroom, either directly as parties to the hearing
with counsel acting on their instructions, or through counsel or other legal representatives
mandated to advocate for their best interests and to present information about their needs and
interests that would otherwise be overlooked. (However, this section focusses mainly on the
possibilities for including children’s voices in programs and proceedings outside the actual
courtroom.) In some jurisdictions, children’s voices may also be heard through lay advocates,
but, as already noted, this report does not explore this possibility.
Most federal and provincial legislation in Canada permits children to participate in custody and
access proceedings, although it does not specifically provide for it. Quebec is an exception: its
Civil Code requires the courts to give children an opportunity to be heard if their age and power
of discernment permit it (L’Heureux-Dubé 1998; Bessner 2001).
Most other English-speaking jurisdictions similarly permit, but do not specifically provide for,
including children in proceedings. One exception is Scotland, where The Children Act 1995
requires that children have a say in custody and access decision making. Parents pursuing a
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custody and access or parenting writ (filing and application) are required to “crave” (request) that
notification be sent to each of their children asking them whether they want to tell the sheriff
their views on the matter. The courts then approve or reject the crave. Parents not wanting their
children involved must crave that no notification be sent (Samuel 1999).
Canadian provinces lacking specific legislative provisions may still include children in custody
and access decision making through specific programs and proceedings, although parents often
become gatekeepers to their participation. Appendix B outlines how Canadian provinces and
territories currently include children’s voices in such proceedings.
5.2 CHILDREN’S VOICES IN MEDIATION AND COUNSELLING
Most English-speaking jurisdictions have introduced, or are introducing, counselling, mediation
and/or arbitration programs to help parents resolve their custody and access disputes before they
reach the final court hearing. Courts in many Canadian provinces now offer mediation or
conciliation to separating or divorcing parents.
Mediation is more agreement-driven than (non-therapeutic) counselling, which typically mixes
techniques to effect change in parents with agreement seeking (Nicholson 1994). However, the
distinction can be subtle and the Family Court of Australia recently renamed its counselling and
conciliation services mediation services.
The number of Canadian parents using counselling or mediation to settle custody and access
issues is unknown. Australia’s federal family court reports that 95 percent of families with
custody and access disputes settle before a final court hearing and 75 percent during conciliation
or mediation provided at each court location (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997).
Parents may use mediation to settle custody and access arrangements at divorce or separation, to
vary existing arrangements or to resolve other access disputes such as access denial or breach of
access. Parents can use mediation for specific issues or to resolve all their post-separation
parenting issues together (comprehensive mediation).
Provincial court officials uniformly report that mediators only occasionally include children in
court-provided mediation. When children are included, they tend to be older (12 and over).
How they are included appears to vary with the individual mediators. A recent study found that
87 of the 250 practitioners involved in significant amounts of private family mediation do not
involve children in the mediation. Twenty-eight mediators said that exploring children’s feelings
directly with them was one mediation strategy they used, and 30 reported using meetings
involving children as a strategy (Kruk 1998). It is not known how often these strategies are used.
Quebec is considering extending funding for its free mediation services to include meetings
between mediators and the children alone. Currently it funds only meetings between mediators
and parents, or parents and children (Tanguay, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
5.2.1 How Other Jurisdictions Include Children
Practitioners in other jurisdictions tend not to include children in mediation either. In Scotland’s
family conciliation services, for example, conciliators included children in 20 percent of their
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186 mediation cases between 1986 and 1988, despite the stated policy to include children
whenever possible (Garwood 1990). By the late 1990s, most children were still not participating
in mediation in Scotland, despite the passage of the Children Act 1995, although the researchers
predicted this pattern would change once the new law gained more hold in practice (Lewis
1999). The study of Lothian conciliators (Garwood 1990) found that all the children included in
mediation met the mediators separately (siblings were seen together). Another 20 percent of
children also participated in a subsequent family interview with parents and mediator.
An earlier survey in England (Ogus 1989, cited in Garwood 1990) found even fewer English and
Welsh children being included in conciliation. They were involved in only 13 percent of the
court-independent conciliation cases, and 15 percent of the court-connected conciliation cases
involving children. By a random sampling of private mediators in the first half of 1997, an
Australian survey found children directly included in only 11 percent of the mediations provided
to families with children (Strategic Partners 1999). However, half of the 70 family court
counsellors surveyed said they included children more than 25 percent of the time.
An earlier study of private mediators in California found a similar picture. It also provides
insight into which children were included and how (Paquin 1988). Half the 124 mediators did
not involve pre-schoolers at all, but 90 percent did involve school-age children; all felt that
adolescents should be involved. In practice, mediators usually involved adolescents, particularly
when the parents disagreed about the youth’s feelings or needs, when the child requested it, or
when the mediation was stuck. They involved pre-schoolers largely when they feared or
suspected parental abuse or neglect, when the child was fearful of one parent, or was very
stressed. They usually involved school-age children when parents were in great conflict or had
agreed to give the child some decision-making responsibility.
5.2.2 Specific Ways to Include Children in Mediation
Children can be included in mediation in different ways (Saposnek 1991). They may be present
during the mediation, either for all sessions or intermittently. As they did in the Scottish study,
children may meet with mediators separately and have the mediator bring their concerns and
interests back to the bargaining table on their behalf. The California mediators were most likely
to see older children alone, and they were almost equally likely to see pre-schoolers alone or
with both parents (Paquin 1988). In indirect mediation, the children’s meeting with the mediator
may occur at the outset of mediation or later. Both direct and indirect inclusion allow children’s
needs and interests to be heard in the mediation, assuming the mediator faithfully reflects the
children’s views. Including children directly in mediation deliberations, of course, makes them
possible participants in the deliberations.
Children may also be included in mediation another way: they may be brought into the
mediating room after the agreement has been reached, so that the mediator and parents can tell
them what has been decided and seek their acceptance.
As indicated in section 2, programs designed to help children adjust to separation and divorce
may be linked to mediation proceedings. In such cases, they have a secondary function of
incorporating the children’s needs and interests into mediation deliberations (as in, for example,
the Centres jeunesse de Montréal’s Confidences program or the Family Centre of Winnipeg’s
Giving Children Hope). Such programs may be a safe way for children to be included. They
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may also be more responsive to mediators if their meeting comes at the end of a program
designed to solicit their feelings and soothe their distress.
5.2.3 The Arguments for Including Children in Mediation
Researchers and practitioners disagree strongly about whether to include children in mediation
and conciliation. One complexity in discussing this is that participants do not always distinguish
the different ways that children can be included. They may say they oppose or support including
children, but in reality they only support or oppose some ways of including children.
Researchers and practitioners who support children’s inclusion say it helps the children, helps the
parents focus on their children’s best interests, gives parents a better sense of their children’s
wishes and feelings overall, produces better agreements for the children, and increases the
chances that parents will comply with their agreements (Drapkin and Bienenfeld 1985, Landau
1990, and Saposnek 1983, cited in Saposnek 1991; Brown 1995). Specific purported benefits
include:
• children can disclose their genuine feelings to mediators, which they often cannot or will not
disclose to their parents;
• the mediator gives the children a nonaligned confidant while their parents battle, which can
help reduce their fears and anxieties and at least makes them feel someone cares;
• the children feel they have more input and some, if limited, control during a period when their
lives seem out of control;
• the children can deal better with their feelings by talking about their concerns and interests;
• the children are often confused and may be helped by hearing what agreements their parents
have reached;
• children may cope better with changes if they know and understand the reasons for them; and
• parents are encouraged to recognize adolescents’ growing independence and ability to
develop their own lives.
Some supporters also argue that children should be included because they have a right to know
(Brown 1995).
It is clear that children can receive most of the benefits listed above if they meet with the
mediator separately, rather than participate directly in deliberations. However, some researchers
say children need to be present at the table to force their parents’ attention away from their own
feelings of injustice, and toward problem-solving aimed at helping their children (e.g. Saposnek
1983, cited in Saposnek 1991; Paquin 1988). These researchers are most adamant about having
children present in high-conflict mediation, when parents get stuck because of their mutual
hostility. They suggest that the children’s momentary exposure to intense conflict is worth the
long-term rewards of an equitable agreement and subsequently less conflict (Paquin 1988).
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Other researchers and practitioners who generally support including children believe they should
be excluded in cases in which they are likely to feel responsible for resolving their parents’
disagreements. However, there seems to be little research on whether including children directly
is always likely to make them feel responsible, or on what the long-term effects of direct
participation may be (McKenzie, pers. comm.). Many experts appear to feel that directly
including children is not advisable in most cases because of the burden it places on the children
(Kruk, McKenzie, pers. comm., see Appendix D; also Brown, 1995).
Given the risks in involving children directly, it has been proposed that parents and mediators sit
down at the outset of the mediation process to agree beforehand about the role the children will
play, and how the parents will conduct themselves during the mediation (Austin et al. 1991).
Mediators can then use their judgement, based on this meeting, to assess the risks involved in
including the children. The meeting can also be used to commit parents to responding more
positively to their children if they do participate.
Some researchers believe that, when children are involved, it should be for a limited number of
sessions only (Austin et al. 1991). Researchers are more likely to allow that adolescents who
want to express their views in mediation should have that option, but urge that mediators proceed
with caution (Kruk, pers. comm., see Appendix D).
Australian court mediators surveyed have said they would exclude children in cases when:
• parents could misuse information;
• parents were likely to manipulate children;
• one or the other parent has no interest in knowing the child’s needs;
• parents do not want, or disagree about, the effect of including the child;
• the children are too young (the age limit varied);
• involving children will not help; and
• child sexual abuse is involved (Strategic Partners 1999).
Australia’s Attorney General recently endorsed children’s inclusion in mediation on a case by
case basis (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). The government argued that children
would receive a positive image of their parents communicating, negotiating and reaching an
agreement, and that parents would be more likely to abide by their agreements (Australian Law
Reform Commission 1997a). The Australian Law Reform Commission also has urged that
children should participate in mediation and conciliation if they want to, and that ways should be
found to encourage their participation (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997).
5.2.4 The Arguments Against Including Children in Mediation
Researchers and practitioners who oppose including children in mediation argue that it harms the
children and undermines parental authority. The harmful effects cited for children (Marlow and
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Sauber 1990, Emery 1994, Meggs 1993, cited in Brown 1995; Australian Law Reform
Commission 1997a; Strategic Partners 1999; Myers and Wasoff, 2000) include:
• placing responsibility on children for making decisions their parents are unable to make;
• creating further stress for the child who may have divided loyalties;
• putting children at risk of retribution from disappointed parents;
• exposing the child further to parental conflict;
• placing the child in a position of power and so possibly eroding parent/child relationships;
• exposing the child to “system abuse” by which a child is damaged by repeated professional
probing; and
• making the child the “problem” in families where parents do not want the child involved.
Many mediators also resist including children because they feel doing so violates their own
neutrality and, therefore, their professional responsibility to their clients, the parents. By
introducing the children’s feelings, needs and interests into the process—which may be inimical
to the arrangements the parents are trying to negotiate—the mediator is impelled to become the
child’s advocate (Beck and Bianck 1997; Wallerstein 1986-87). This seems to be a concern
more of private mediators than court-appointed mediators, because the latter’s work is also
governed by the principle of the child’s best interests. Nonetheless, some practitioners argue that
private mediators do not violate their obligations by bringing a child’s concerns into the process
(e.g. Beck and Bianck 1997).
In a recent study, Australian mediators and counsellors expressed reluctance to include children
because they felt they themselves lacked sufficient confidence or expertise (Strategic Partners
1999). Court mediators overwhelmingly wanted more training, even though half of them already
had child-oriented training at a university level. Other experts have also expressed concerns
about mediators’ qualifications for working with children effectively (e.g. Brown 1995; Beck
and Bianck 1997; Austin et al. 1991). Younger children generally express their feelings through
their actions rather than words; indeed, they may be uncommunicative verbally or their words
may be misleading. Canadian practitioners and service providers interviewed emphasized
repeatedly that interpreting a child’s behaviour accurately requires considerable skill and
knowledge of child development. Mediators typically do not receive this kind of knowledge
during their training.
Many practitioners and researchers oppose including children in mediation both indirectly and
directly. For example, the Australian Association of Social Workers told the Australian Law
Reform Commission’s inquiry into children’s voice in custody and access that one of the results
of counselling for many children is that they say they want their parents to leave them out of the
dispute (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a).
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5.2.5 Research on the Effects of Indirectly Including Children in Mediation
Including children indirectly in mediation appears to be gaining ground. Australian researchers
recently piloted an indirect inclusion program as part of their recent study of children in
mediation. Studies of both the Scottish pre-reform mediation practice and the Australian pilot
explored children’s and parents’ responses to indirect inclusion, but the long-term impacts on
children and their post-parenting circumstances are not yet known.
The small study in Scotland has explored the effects of involving children in their parents’
conciliation by means of separate meetings with the conciliators (Garwood 1990). Most of the
186 families in the Lothian Family Services program between 1986 and 1988 participated in
order to decide custody and access arrangements, but some were there to initiate access before
taking on access arrangements independently. Individual children (or, if there was more than
one child, groups of siblings) usually met with the conciliator separately at the beginning of the
conciliation, and the conciliator reported the children’s wishes, concerns and feelings to the
parents in subsequent sessions with them. A few conciliators only involved children through
family sessions because they felt that seeing them separately undermined the parents’ authority.
The children’s main concerns tended to focus on specific aspects of access, such as having to go
to the football game with Dad every Saturday afternoon, rather than the central issue of custody.
A few children wanted to reduce or limit access.
Follow-up with some of the families revealed that 25 of the 28 children who had seen
conciliators separately thought the process had improved their communication with their parents,
and helped them express their feelings. Several felt that it had improved or renewed their access
to their parents. Children were more likely to think the experience unhelpful when their parents
did not respond to their requests (and ended up in court). The children liked the conciliators and
the sessions (Garwood 1990). Many of the children were unclear why they had met with the
conciliator (although conciliators felt they had explained carefully), and some said they did not
understand much of what the conciliator said. Some would have preferred individual meetings
without their siblings present. However, none of the children appeared worried about their
parents hearing what they said (although this did worry some of the conciliators).
In the Australian study, researchers explored the effects of including children in mediation
through single-session private consultations, as part of their larger study of child-inclusive
practice in family and child counselling and mediation (Strategic Partners 1999). They were
forced to run the pilot after finding low inclusion of children in existing mediation and
counselling programs. The pilot was modelled on the U.S. Center for Families in Transition’s
“separate representative” program. The small Melbourne-based study found that almost all the
17 children who had the single-session consultations were unequivocally positive about their
experience (McIntosh 2000). The children cited having the opportunity to talk to someone,
express their feelings, and have their parents hear their feelings and wishes as the main benefits.
They even seemed to feel they benefited in these ways when their parents did not accommodate
their feedback. Only four children thought there were situations in which their involvement
would not help; these were when the children’s involvement produced no changes in their
parents’ behaviour or when the children did not want, or need, to participate.
The mediation pilot included four sessions, with children interviewed by a child consultant after
the parents’ first mediation session, and the results fed back into the mediation. Children were
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carefully briefed about the boundaries of the 60 to 70 minute session, and were told that their
parents would be informed about how they generally seemed to be handling the family changes.
They were also told that particular issues would not be discussed if the child did not want it. In
sessions with the parents, the mediator discussed his or her general assessment of the impact of
the separation on the child, the child’s current needs, as well as any specific issues the child
wanted raised.
Almost all the parents whose children participated thought the mediation had benefited the
children, compared to about 60 percent of another group of parents whose children did not
participate. Families were included in the study if parents and child had agreed to participate,
and the parents were willing, with support from the mediator, to listen to and discuss their
children’s views. Most were families in low to medium conflict, although two were in high
conflict. Parents mediating property-only cases were included. Earlier Australian studies of
mediation services in Melbourne and Sydney (Moloney et al. 1996, 1995, cited in Strategic
Partners 1999) had found that 40 percent of participating Melbourne parents thought their
children had benefited from the mediation (which rarely involved children) through improved
parental communication or improved parenting arrangements.
In the Strategic Partners pilot, the parents whose children were involved mainly felt their
children had had a chance to “offload,” share and find solutions. They frequently considered that
this had led to more open communication between them and their children, and that the children
had gained from their resolved conflicts. Several parents felt it was good for their children to
have an outsider to talk to—someone they could speak to honestly—because their own conflict
and distress was so great. Parents also indicated that they thought taking part in mediation,
rather than counselling, avoided stigmatizing the child as troubled, and made the child feel he or
she was trying to find a way through the problems, just as his or her parents were.
Mediators overwhelmingly supported the children’s involvement. Still, they had reservations in
several kinds of cases, believing that the model did not work well when parents remained
overwhelmed, when the couple was in high conflict, when the children’s feedback was given too
much weight, or when parents could not reach agreement on parenting plans.
The Scottish and Australian studies suggest that including children indirectly in mediation may
not harm them, and may help their parents reach agreements that serve their best interests, as
well as improve communication between the parents and children. Without further longitudinal
follow-up, however, it is difficult to assess the long-term impact of these children’s participation
on their own well-being, on the durability of the agreements reached with their participation, or
on whether the agreements reached better served their best interests.
Still, some experts remain cautious about one-on-one interviews between mediators and children
(Kruk, pers. comm., Appendix D). Experts emphasize that when children are included in
mediation, they should be clearly told that whatever they discuss with the mediator will be
shared with their parents, and perhaps with lawyers and judges (Brown 1996). Yet, in spite of
what conciliators thought were clear explanations, many children in the Scottish study, for
instance, did not really know why they were meeting with the mediator, or by implication, how
their words would be fed back into their parents’ mediation.
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Given these problems, experts also warn that children should not be pressured to go beyond their
comfort zones in expressing themselves to mediators, since they may later pay a price for their
words to vengeful parents (Brown 1996). Moreover, even without parents present, eliciting
genuine feelings from a child is difficult. Experts appear to agree that younger children should
never be directly asked questions such as “Who do you want to live with?” Moreover, when
children state preferences, as older children usually do, the experts urge mediators (and other
professionals eliciting the child’s voice in proceedings) to balance the children’s wishes against
their knowledge of the family context (Brown 1995, 1996; Austin et al. 1991).
5.2.6 When to Include Children During Mediation
There is no consensus about when children should be included in the mediation process.
Researchers identify both disadvantages and advantages in including them at the beginning,
middle or end of the process (Brown 1995). Including them at the beginning may help parents
focus on their children’s needs from the outset, but one expert likens it to “traversing a minefield
without having first cleared the mines or finding out where they are” (Brown 1995). On the
other hand, if mediators include children only at the end of the process, to comment on the
arrangements, children may be spared any participation in the conflict, but may also feel that
their voices have not really been heard.
5.2.7 Child Assessments in Mediation
Some practitioners have proposed that mediators include child assessments as part of their
mediation (Beck and Bianck 1997). The assessments would be done by a child therapist, and
information about the child’s mental state and needs would be reported back to the parents by the
mediator. Practitioners argue that commissioning child assessments is an effective way to help
ensure that mediated decisions are in the child’s best interests, while also taking account of
mediators’ concerns about neutrality and the level of mediator skills and training in dealing with
children.
5.2.8 Mediation and High-conflict Families
As indicated above, most researchers and practitioners strongly oppose including children
directly in mediation when parents are in high conflict, although a minority do favour it. There
is less agreement on whether children should be indirectly included by independent meetings
with the mediator. In any case, children in high-conflict families are the most likely to be
manipulated, put in the middle, and even punished by their hostile parents, and are therefore
more at risk than other children even if their participation is indirect.
As indicated in section 2, hybrid therapy-mediation programs for parents and children can
provide a safe vehicle for including children in the mediation; children can report back to their
parents as a group, and there are therapists to mediate their reports with the parents. As indicated
above, no studies were found that specifically assessed the impact on high-conflict children of
either their participation in the children’s groups (with other children of high-conflict parents) or,
indirectly, in their parents’ mediation. Studies have found benefits for the parents, especially
their ability to resolve their disagreements and abide by them without returning to the courts (see
citations in Johnston 1994).
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5.3 CHILDREN’S VOICES IN OTHER PROCEEDINGS
Outside mediation and conciliation, children’s voices may be indirectly heard in custody and
access proceedings in three main ways: family assessments, the testimony of expert witnesses,
or a separate children’s representative (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). All three of
these methods can include the child’s voice in courtroom hearings, insofar as they are used in, or
participate in, courtroom deliberations. However, all three provide means by which children’s
voices can be heard in the courtroom, without the children themselves having to participate as
parties to the hearing or by providing testimony (Shear 1996; Australian Law Reform
Commission, 1997a). Moreover, custody assessments and the roles sometimes played by
children’s lawyers outside the courtroom often help parents reach an agreement at the courtroom
door, thereby averting courtroom battles that most experts believe are stressful and frequently
damaging to children (Kruk, pers. comm., see Appendix D; also Shear 1996), and may no more
capture children’s genuine preferences than proceedings outside the courtroom (Grassby, pers.
comm., Appendix D).
5.3.1 Family Assessments (Court Evaluations, Family Reports, Home Reports)
Federal and provincial legislation in Canada permits courts to order assessments for families and
children who are litigating custody and access (or other) disputes. Parents and attorneys may
also initiate court or family assessments privately, or request them from the court. The basic
purpose of a typical full assessment is to evaluate the children’s needs, and the parents’
willingness and ability to meet those needs (Austin et al. 1991). If the case reaches final hearing,
the report is usually presented to the court and used by judges in making their ruling.
It is not known how often courts commission family assessments in custody and access cases in
Canada, although every jurisdiction contacted for this report uses them to some extent (see
Appendix B). However, about 60 percent of Australian cases proceeding to trial involve family
reports (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). Australian courts also report that, when
they are involved, family reports either prompt settlement before final hearing, or are followed
by judges 76 percent of the time (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). Canadian
officials estimate similarly high rates of settlement and influence on judges’ rulings in Canada
(Behr, pers. comm., Appendix D). In the United States, too, studies show that judges follow
custody assessment recommendations about 85 percent of the time. In 70 to 90 percent of the
cases, parties reach a settlement after hearing the recommendations, which is then entered as a
consent judgement (see citations in Johnston 1994).
2
Assessments are governed in most jurisdictions by the principle of the child’s best interests.
They are not intended to be vehicles for children’s wishes and preferences. Evaluators typically
see themselves as neutral parties evaluating the child’s best interests. An exception is Ontario’s
Office of the Children’s Lawyer, whose social workers see themselves as advocates for the best
2
However, agreements reached as a result of custody assessments seem less durable than agreements reached
through mediation. One two-year follow-up study found families who had had custody evaluations re-litigated at
two and a half times the rate of those who had settled by themselves (19 percent compared to 7 percent) (Ash and
Guyer 1986, cited in Johnston 1994). Another eight-year follow-up study found similar results: 71 percent of those
with custody evaluations re-litigated compared to 41 percent of the divorcing population in general (Hauser and
Straus, cited in Johnston 1994).
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interests of the child. Social workers, psychologists, or sometimes mental health professionals,
typically prepare the assessments. They are used as alternative or additional expert testimony
presented to the court.
A typical comprehensive family assessment will include interviews with each parent and the
child in the home(s), and may include further interviews with the child alone. Most family
assessments done for Canadian courts are comprehensive family assessments (see Appendix B).
5.3.1.1 The Children’s Voice in Family Assessments
There is no agreement about whether family assessments provide an effective vehicle for hearing
children’s voices. Several submissions to a recent Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry
argued, for example, that family assessments are effective because they allow children’s wishes
and opinions to be expressed without making them decision-makers (Australian Law Reform
Commission 1997a). The assessment allows experts to decide whether, and to what extent, a
child’s views should be put forward to the court, thus, promoting the child’s best interests and
protecting him or her.
Critics of family assessments argue, however, that they leave too much room for experts’ biases,
experiences, training and values to shape the result (Bala 1990, cited in Huddart and Ensminger
1995). Some of these critics insist that counsel should have the right to be present at the
examination on which the assessors’ judgements will rest, or that these be video-taped (Sachs
1985, cited in Huddart and Ensminger 1995).
One way around this problem is to permit courts to commission investigations by any person
satisfactory to the court at the parties’ expense (Huddart and Ensminger 1995). However, a
report commissioned by a parent—one of the parties to the dispute—is no less likely to reflect
the investigator’s bias; it would also likely add the parent’s bias, and would open the door to the
battle of competing assessments in courtroom deliberations.
Most experts and practitioners hold the same view about the role of children’s wishes in custody
assessments as they do about children’s wishes in mediation. They resist giving children’s
wishes much weight in family assessment recommendations, except in certain cases when
children are older and the issues are delimited (see sections 4.3.a.ii and 4.3.a.iii below). This
resistance is motivated by the rationality and authenticity concerns raised in section 3, as well as
a mandate to serve the child’s best interests, which most experts and practitioners believe does
not always coincide with the child’s best interests.
Experts argue that assessors need to consider children’s wishes in the context of their needs,
which are identified using legal and clinical criteria of “best interests” such as parenting ability
or the length of time children spend in a stable home. The more congruence between children’s
wishes and the assessment of their needs, the more congruence there will be between their
wishes and the report’s recommendations (Austin et al. 1991; Brown 1996a). They emphasize
that there is no easy formula for combining age and maturity in measuring wishes, but the
broader context of children’s needs must always be considered.
In Ontario, the Office of the Children’s Lawyer prepares 1,500 to 1,700 social work reports or
family assessments a year for Ontario courts. Office officials say that the child is always
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interviewed in these reports (McTavish, Moyal and Martin, pers. comm., Appendix D).
However, as advocates for the child’s best interests, rather than neutral assessors, Office
investigators only include children’s preferences in the report when doing so is in the child’s
interests and does not pose harm. The Office considers the child’s wishes to be one piece of the
puzzle in assessing the family; it is why the child is saying what he or she is saying that is most
important (McTavish, Moyal and Martin, pers. comm., Appendix D). The Office deals with high
conflict families (average time in litigation is more than three years) and many cases involve
violence and abuse, or allegations of them.
Youth advocates have criticized family assessments for stifling teenagers’ voices that could and
should be directly heard. Youth advocacy organizations told the Australian Law Reform
Commission inquiry that family assessments fail to uphold many teenagers’ rights under the
Convention for the Rights of the Child when they substitute for youth who can speak directly to
the court. The Commission concluded that “it is important to remember that a family report may
not adequately discharge the obligation under CROC to provide children who desire to
participate directly in proceedings with an opportunity to be heard as required” (Australian Law
Reform Commission 1997a). It recommended that when children are old enough, they should be
allowed to give evidence on their wishes directly in court (Australian Law Reform Commission
1997a).
5.3.1.2 Focussed Assessments
Focussed assessments, when they are relevant, may provide a better vehicle for children’s voices
than traditional comprehensive assessments (although they do not overcome all the criticisms
raised above). Pioneered and studied in Canada by Ontario’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer
and the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry (Birnbaum and Radovanovic 1999), focussed assessments
may reduce the burden of traditional assessments, and provide opportunities for children’s
perspectives to be given greater weight. Focussed assessments were researched in the 1990s as a
short intensive pilot intervention for high-conflict litigious parents in access denial disputes that
did not involve violence or abuse (Birnbaum and Radovanovic 1999). Whenever possible,
parents were seen together or with the child early in the intervention, and this was followed by
parent-child interviews as well as interviews with the child alone.
Researchers found that a 10-hour intervention focussing on specific problems in dispute was
more effective than the conventional, comprehensive and more usual 22-hour assessments. Just
under half of the 40 parents in the pilot continued to have disputes, 30 percent reported
continuing poor to very poor parent cooperation, and 55 percent said the intervention had not
helped improve their communication with their spouse. However, 35 percent said their existing
visitation arrangements had been arranged with the assistance of the clinicians, and 63 percent
said the evaluators’ suggestions were incorporated during court motions covering their disputes
shortly after the intervention.
The Office of the Children’s Lawyer estimates that 10 to 15 percent of the 1,500 to 1,700 social
work reports it does each year are now focussed assessments (McTavish, Moyal and Martin,
pers. comm., Appendix D). The assessments are used for access-based disputes involving
specific problems (such as a child wanting to visit with Dad on Saturday morning rather than
Friday night) and usually involving older children aged 14 and 15. Typically, the child’s wishes
and the facts of the dispute are clear, and the assessment is to satisfy the court that the proposed
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arrangement is what the child really wants, and is without detriment to the child (McTavish,
Moyal and Martin, pers. comm., Appendix D). The focussed assessment enables families to
concentrate on a specific dispute involving the child while bracketing other ongoing conflicts.
While courts in several provinces appear to be using focussed assessments more frequently, how
many assessments are actually focussed assessments is not known (see Appendix B). In Alberta,
focussed or mini-assessments are usually prepared when cases are not likely to go to court (and
not as an adjunct or follow-up to mediation) (Delanghe, pers. comm., Appendix D). They
provide an alternative tool for parents trying to resolve disputes, and lawyers may recommend
them for that purpose.
5.3.1.3 Views of the Children Reports
Courts in British Columbia may order short reports specifically to ascertain children’s views
when a full report is not justified (Morgan, pers. comm., Appendix D; also Huddart and
Ensminger 1995). These are typically used to assess and present teenagers’ wishes in specific
access disputes. In preparing the reports, counsellors try to describe the child’s character and
personality, and the child’s capacity to state his or her views. Counsellors give their opinion as
to whether the views are authentic (Huddart and Ensminger 1995). Focussed assessments appear
to fulfill this function in Ontario, and possibly elsewhere.
Views of the children reports are not available in all parts of the province because some family
court counsellors are unwilling to interview children directly in this way (Huddart and
Ensminger 1995).
5.3.1.4 Reducing the Harmful Effects of Family Assessments
There is some concern that family assessments may harm children. One Australian organization
providing legal services for children told the Australian Law Reform Commission inquiry that
family reports are intrusive and traumatic for children, partly because they take so long to
prepare and often have to be updated by the time of final hearing. They therefore add to the
excessive interviewing and probing of children who are caught in the middle of protracted high-
conflict litigation (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). Recognizing this problem,
Australia’s Family Law Council recently recommended that courts determine whether other
relevant reports already exist in the community before commissioning a family assessment
through the court (Family Law Council of Australia 1996).
The Australian Law Reform Commission, while acknowledging the problem, suggested that
family reports are nevertheless useful tools, and integral to expanding children’s voices in
custody and access proceedings (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997). Its report argued
that including independent evidence from family reports early in court hearings of disputes
frequently led to early settlements and avoided lengthy court battles. The reports were also a
better use of finite court resources, and a better way for children to be heard than having them
participate in court hearings (Australian Law Reform Commission 1977a). Most experts appear
to believe that younger children should be kept out of the courtroom whenever possible (Kruk,
pers. comm., Appendix D).
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5.3.1.5 Modifying the Role of Assessments and Assessors
Several ways have been proposed to enhance the role of family assessments and assessors to
better serve children’s best interests in custody and access decisions. The Australian Law
Reform Commission has proposed a number of recommendations aimed at expanding the
investigative powers of court counsellors preparing family assessments, and linking these
counsellors more effectively with the legal side of proceedings, including the children’s
representatives (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). Ontario’s Office of the Children’s
Lawyer has developed a social worker-lawyer team program for high-conflict parents that
integrates the family assessment and legal guidance functions (see section 5.3.3.1 below).
The Australian Commission recommended that family reports be prepared sooner, that court
counsellors’ investigative powers be expanded to permit wider examination, and that court
counsellors writing the reports take on a greater role in providing information to the court about
the child’s best interests (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). The Commission
suggested that counsellors’ report gathering should include many of the functions currently
performed by the child’s representative, such as conducting relevant collateral interviews with
school and other community officials (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997). Moreover, in
cases when a child has not been assigned a representative solely because he or she is unwilling to
express a view, the court counsellor should be responsible for keeping the child informed about
the progress of the litigation (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997).
As outlined in section 2, the children’s program of the Centres jeunesse de Montréal also
provides a link between the assessors and the counsellors providing group therapeutic emotional
help to the child. When possible, the assessors are present at the counsellors debriefing with
parents at the end of the program (see Appendix A).
5.3.2 Expert Witnesses
Expert witnesses may be ordered by the court to testify in custody and access court hearings.
These expert witnesses are usually mental health or counselling therapists who have had dealings
with the family. Several of the counsellors and therapists who operate children’s programs in
family service agencies or mental health institutions said they are often called to testify as expert
witnesses (and some also prepare custody assessments in other cases).
Parents may also call their own expert witnesses to testify at hearings. However, mental health
evaluators are generally most useful if they serve as an impartial expert appointed by the court
(or by stipulation of both parties), rather than as an expert retained by one party, and who is then
pitted against the other party’s expert (Johnston 1994).
Some concerns have been expressed about harm to children resulting from experts’ excessive
interviewing of children (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). At present, Australian
courts can appoint experts, or any party can request their appointment. The Australian Law
Reform Commission concluded that experts are often appointed when a family report would do.
It recommended that the court take the child’s wishes into account when deciding whether to
grant application for the child to be interviewed (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a).
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Some Canadian therapists who run programs for children experiencing parental separation and
divorce, and who are often required to testify in court for the children, say that being forced into
the dual role of therapist and expert undermines their therapeutic effectiveness (Sinclair, pers.
comm., Appendix D). Children need to feel that the programs are providing a safe space for
them. When the counsellor appears in court to testify, this trust is broken.
5.3.3 Separate Representatives
Many jurisdictions allow for the appointment of children’s representatives—usually lawyers—to
represent children’s best interests in the courtroom and outside it. The roles and responsibilities
of children’s representatives vary widely across jurisdictions. They may act, traditionally, as the
child’s counsel in court hearings (governed by either his or her instructions or best interests,
depending on the child’s age), or as a friend of the court, presenting information and
considerations that might otherwise be ignored (e.g. Shear 1996; Australian Law Reform
Commission 1997a; Huddart and Ensminger 1995; Bessner 2001). In some jurisdictions, the
representatives assume certain powers of the court and can make binding decisions on custody
and access disputes outside the actual courtroom. Other representatives may play investigative,
supportive or advocacy roles outside the courtroom.
In Ontario, the Office of the Children’s Lawyer expands the traditional separate representative
role in a program that integrates the legal roles of children’s representative with the investigative
and assessment roles of social work reports (family assessments). The Australian court system
expands the traditional separate representative role in a different direction by giving the
representative the dual responsibility of communicating the child’s perspective to other parties
and representing the child’s best interests.
5.3.3.1 Social Worker-Lawyer Teams in Ontario
Ontario’s Office of the Children’s Lawyer has pioneered social worker-lawyer teams for high-
conflict, extremely hostile families who are entrenched in litigation and who are seen to need
both clinical and legal services. The interdisciplinary team provides family assessment and legal
advice to the families, but integrates these services for maximum effect. Once team members are
assigned to a family, they work together to decide what should be done and by whom, meeting
repeatedly with parents and with the children on their own. The primary goal is to forge a
resolution that is in the child’s best interests before the case reaches final hearing. The social
worker prepares an assessment of the family, often involving collateral interviews with school
and other officials, which is used by the lawyer providing legal advice and guidance in
discussions with the parents. Alternatively, the lawyer can help the social worker use the
assessment to forge resolution by focussing parents and their counsel on the legal options. If the
parents do not settle, the lawyer proceeds to pre-trial conference to represent the child’s best
interests, and the social worker presents his or her report to the court.
Office officials believe about 75 to 85 percent of social worker-lawyer team cases settle without
going to court (Moyal, Martin, McTavish, pers. comm., Appendix D). It is not known how many
of the families who do settle re-litigate later. The Office expects to be able to track outcomes
soon, but officials caution that settlement rates are not a good measure of program success.
About one third of the Office’s 3,000 to 3,500 cases are assigned social worker-lawyer teams.
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Office officials believe that integrating the social work assessments with legal deliberation
provides a safe, effective way for children’s voices (mediated through the family assessments) to
be heard and to influence decisions to reflect their best interests. Yet they do not expose children
to the harm and retribution they risk if the case goes to court and they have to testify there (as
high-conflict parents often want). Australia’s Family Law Council, in a 1989 report, also
recommended that the role of separate representative be undertaken by a team made up of a
solicitor and social worker (Family Law Council of Australia 1989, cited in Australian Law
Reform Commission 1996).
5.3.3.2 Separate Representatives in Australia
In a 1995 decision, the Family Court of Australia ruled that children’s representatives should act
in an independent and unfettered way in the child’s best interests, that they should impartially
make submissions to the court suggesting courses of action in the child’s best interests, and that
they should convey the child’s wishes to the court. In addition, the representative should arrange
for the collation of expert evidence and otherwise ensure that all evidence relevant to the welfare
of the child is before the court (Brown 1996).
Separate representatives in the Australian courts are therefore expected to speak to the children
outside the court, and when appropriate seek their wishes. At the same time, they are required to
work closely with custody evaluators or mediators when these have been appointed in cases.
When opinions among these professionals differ, the separate representative’s job is to present
all the differing opinions to the courtroom. However, the representative has no duty to make
submissions to the court which represent the child’s wishes or argue for best interests, or argue
for a case outcome in line with the child’s wishes. This hybrid role is applauded by experienced
mediators in the Australian court system for bringing together the children’s preferences
(articulated needs and concerns) and the family context in which they occur, and bringing the
whole picture before the court (Brown 1996). The separate representative functions as a kind of
cipher for the children’s best interests, rather than an adjudicator of those best interests. In many
cases the representatives play a critical role in brokering settlements outside the courtroom that
are in the children’s best interests rather than a parent’s (Nicholson 1996).
However, the Australian Law Reform Commission has expressed several reservations about the
current model of separate representation in Australia. It has asked whether this kind of separate
representation goes far enough in meeting the requirements of the Convention on the Rights of
the Child (Australian Law Reform Commission 1996). It has also suggested that the multiple
roles of separate representatives may conflict. They may be asked to conduct investigations and
make assessments that are properly within the range of expertise of social scientists, and then to
draw conclusions in submissions on the basis of that assessment which are properly within the
province of the judiciary (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997).
The Commission has indicated that separate representatives’ investigative roles and dispute-
resolution efforts with the parties outside the courtroom could be done instead by court
counsellors or family assessors (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997). It has also urged
that the separate representative’s role be kept fluid (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997).
Since the multiple separate representative roles require multiple skills, the Australian family
court has conducted extensive training for representatives, and believes the quality of
representation has improved significantly as a result (Nicholson 1996).
- 55 -
In addition, the Commission has expressed concern that children may not appreciate the
complexity of their separate representatives’ responsibilities. One New South Wales study of
children in child welfare hearings revealed that the children expected their lawyer to act as their
advocate or interpreter of their views, but few lawyers thought this was their job (Australian Law
Reform Commission 1997).
5.4 CHILDREN’S COORDINATORS
The discussion so far in section 5 has looked at ways in which children’s voices can be included
at specific stages and in specific ways in custody and access proceedings. However, some
methods exist that may be able to ensure that children’s voices are included all the way along the
litigation pathway as needed. In its 1989 report, for instance, Australia’s Family Law Council
recommended introducing a children’s coordinator in addition to a separate representative in
family law proceedings (Family Law Council of Australia 1989, cited in Australian Law Reform
Commission 1996). Under this model the separate representative would retain full control over
the conduct of the child’s case in court. The coordinator, on the other hand, would perform such
functions as producing a report on the child’s best interests, interposing the child’s interests in
discussions between the relevant parties, working with the separate representative and explaining
some of the processes to the child. (The social worker in Ontario’s team model fulfils many of
these functions.)
The Family Law Council suggested further that the coordinator could be appointed alone in
appropriate cases (Family Law Council of Australia 1989, cited in Australian Law Reform
Commission 1996). It also suggested that the coordinator role could be filled by a number of
professionals, including court counsellors and welfare officers, depending on the case.
In its recent report, the Australian Law Reform Commission raised the idea of appointing
“child’s interest coordinators” to oversee and manage complex cases before the courts (and
thereby take over some of the current separate representatives’ and counsellors’ functions)
(Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). It indicated that the major unanswered question
was whether the use of these coordinators or special masters would reduce litigation in cases in
which litigation would otherwise be likely (Australian Law Reform Commission 1997a). It also
wondered whether coordinators would be more effective if arbitrators or judicial registrars, who
could provide advice and decision making where necessary, provided support.
In some American jurisdictions, mental health specialists (variously called court masters,
custody commissioners, co-parenting counsellors or guardian ad litems) are appointed by the
courts, or at the parties’ request, to help families with custody and access decision-making on an
“as needed” basis at any point in the proceedings (Johnston 1994). These coordinators may
provide counselling, mediation, recommendations or arbitration, depending on parents’ requests.
They are considered most useful in high-conflict cases in which parents repeatedly litigate, in
families with children who have special needs or with parents who have mental health problems,
or in cases in which the children are very young and initial custody and access arrangements may
need frequent revision. The effectiveness of these specialists in easing conflict and reaching
speedy agreements, or in allowing children greater voice in decisions, is not known.
- 57 -
6. CONCLUSION
In spite of growing interest in programs that respond to the needs, wishes and concerns of
children experiencing parental separation and divorce, there are only a sprinkling of programs
and services specifically for children in Canada and other English-speaking countries.
Interviews with providers and court officials indicate strong support for programs to help
children adjust to their parents’ separation and to the subsequent dramatic changes in their lives.
Providers and court officials report a strong demand for such programs by parents as well, and
too few resources and services to meet the current demand.
Research indicates that the period during family breakdown is the most acutely stressful for
children, but that most children’s acute stress fades quickly. In addition, most children who
experience parental separation or divorce reach adulthood without identifiable psycho-social
scars. Overall, research does not show that children’s responses to parental separation, or their
later responses, are important factors in determining their long-term adjustment.
Nonetheless, researchers have identified “tasks of adjustment” that all children must accomplish
to adapt successfully to their parents’ separation or divorce. Children who fail to achieve these
tasks risk poor long-term outcomes. The research also shows that parents, struggling to adjust
themselves to their family’s breakdown, often cannot help their children achieve the tasks they
need to do during the period of separation, and may hinder them. Many of the existing programs
to help children adjust are structured to help children move through these tasks.
Research on the effectiveness of existing programs is limited, and shows only modest direct
influence on children’s adjustment. However, some experts defend these programs on the
grounds that focussing on the children’s responses to separation and divorce may still be an
effective strategy, given the greater difficulty of influencing parents’ attitudes and behaviours.
Moreover, even small changes in a child’s responses may facilitate the parental adjustment
which research shows is very important to the child’s long-term adjustment prospects.
Practitioners and researchers are less certain about including children’s voices in custody and
access proceedings. Canadian court-based mediators rarely include children in mediation,
especially younger children, and other mechanisms to convey children’s voices, such as custody
assessments, are used only in a minority of family disputes in court. A similar situation seems to
apply in most other jurisdictions.
However, courts in some provincial jurisdictions are beginning to explore ways to increase the
inclusion of children’s voices in custody and access proceedings. As well, some provincial
jurisdictions have developed programs to provide children involved in certain kinds of
proceedings and disputes with a safe indirect way to have their voices heard in decisions.
Practitioners and researchers who oppose including children’s voices most often argue that
including children harms them, since it may make them feel responsible for decisions, or exposes
them to parental anger, retribution, manipulation and more conflict. In some cases, opposition
may stem from the view that these decisions are the parents’ responsibility.
- 58 -
Relatively few practitioners or researchers appear to support including younger children directly
in proceedings, for example, by sitting them down around the mediation table with their parents.
Most support inclusion that is indirect, as when children meet separately with the mediator, or
when the mediator meets with the parents, child and counsellor after the child has participated in
a children’s support program. Experts who support children’s inclusion also caution that
children’s expressed wishes and concerns need to be weighed together with other factors, since
their wishes and concerns may not always be genuine.
The little research that exists on including children in custody and access mediation indicates that
indirect inclusion may not generally harm them and may serve their best interests.
- 59 -
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APPENDIX A
CANADIAN PROGRAMS FOR THE CHILDREN OF SEPARATING AND
DIVORCING PARENTS
- 71 -
Table A.0 Canada-Wide
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Rainbows
Program Description
• Peer support program operating, or licensed to operate, at 1,070 sites in all
Canadian provinces except Saskatchewan. Not available in the Territories (see
Appendix C for full program description and evaluation of some U.S. sites).
Number of sites offering regular programming is unknown. In 2000, the
Canadian program served an estimated 9,000 children, with grades four through
six the largest age group served. An estimated 85 percent of participants were
children of divorce or separation (Bertram, pers. comm.).
• Offered primarily by schools and religious organizations. Availability varies
greatly by region—there are two sites in PEI and none in Toronto, for example,
but 95 percent of schools in Durham Region northeast of Toronto have programs.
Organizations approach program offices for licensing, training and materials.
Knowledge of the program is largely by word of mouth.
• About one-half of participating Canadian children receive the religious version of
the program, and one-half the secular version.
• There are long waiting lists to participate in the four Barrie, Ont., program sites
(which serve a total of of 20 children at a time), but it is not known whether
waiting lists exist elsewhere too.
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Table A.1 British Columbia
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
No program is currently offered. However, officials are considering whether to
add a children’s program, either as a component to the existing Parenting After
Separation parent education program, or as a program especially for children
(Morgan, pers. comm.).
Community Programs
Peer Support Group for
Children, ARK Child Services
Society
A sprinkling of programs available.
Program Description
• Therapeutic program for children and parents experiencing separation and
divorce, funded by the Province and linked to the Burnaby-New Westminster
Family Justice Centre. Provides group and individual counselling (Morgan, pers.
comm.).
• Program goals are to:
• provide parents and children a (separate) opportunity to meet and share with
peers;
• provide an atmosphere of belonging, love and security in which children can
share their feelings;
• help the children express and understand their feelings;
• discuss various topics such as grief, anger and trust; and
• support parents through the divorce/separation process and discuss topics of the
parents’ choosing.
• Open to all families, but preference is given to families referred by the
Burnaby/New Westminster Family Justice Counsellor (only children so referred
receive the additional individual counselling).
• Intensive intake of up to 12 hours per family, followed by six group sessions of
2.5 hours each for parents, and 2.5 hours each for children. There is a maximum
of seven children per session.
• Up to five individual therapy sessions for each child, up to 40 hours total service.
• Agency staff provide information and liaison to Burnaby-New Westminster
Family Justice Centre staff and other government agencies.
Connections
ARK Child Services Society
Program Description
• Peer support group curriculum for children experiencing crises, traumas, or
upheavals due to their parents’ separation or divorce.
• Purpose:
• To be used by professionals (school counsellors, therapists, social workers,
pastors, etc.) trained in listening skills, to help youth discuss their feelings and
experiences of divorce or separation. Can be used with a minimum of
preparation.
• Premised on the assumption that children are more likely to turn to sympathetic
adults or trained counsellors to talk about their experiences than to their
parents, extended family or classmates.
• Designed for groups of four to seven children, led by one or two adults.
• The curriculum is flexible for different age groups. It can incorporate drama,
puppets and other activities for younger children.
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Table A.1 British Columbia (cont’d)
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Kids’ Turn Vancouver
Program Description
• Adaptation of the San Francisco-based Kids’ Turn program (see Appendix C),
offered since 1997. Concurrent parents’ and children’s groups
(http://www.members.home.net/kidsturn/hompage).
• Age- and activities-based children’s sessions. Program runs five sessions a
week.
Circle of Friends
Boys and Girls Clubs of BC
Program Description
• Support group for young people aged 8 to 20 suffering loss, including family
deconstruction (information on this BC program is available on this
Saskatchewan Justice website: http://www.saskjustice.gov.sk.ca).
• Professionally led weekly meetings in schools or community agencies.
• Potential participants meet for a one-hour orientation with a trained facilitator,
where confidentiality is also taught and stressed.
Other Counselling
Individual and family counselling is available privately and through community
agencies.
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Table A.2 Alberta
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
The Province’s mandatory parent education program currently includes no
children’s component. However, there are suggestions to add a children’s program
(Delanghe, pers. comm.).
Community Programs
There is little available through social service agencies, although Rainbows is
fairly widely available (see Table A.0).
Children of Divorce Program
Calgary Counselling Centre
Program Description
• Program to help children and parents adjust to life changes resulting from
separation and divorce (http://www.inform.calgary.org).
• Groups are therapist-led.
• Open to all families in which parents have been separated at least six months.
• Fees are charged on a sliding scale up to $90 per counselling hour.
Program Evaluation
Published pre-test results of an evaluation begun in 2000 show 60 percent of
children from divorced homes in the program showed signs of clinical depression,
compared to 20 percent of children in intact families in a control group. Dominant
signs were low self-esteem and high irritability. Three-quarters of divorced
parents were experiencing clinical levels of stress related to life-situational factors
and two-thirds were experiencing stress related to parenting the children. One
third were experiencing extreme crisis placing them at risk of abusive behaviour,
compared to none of the parents in intact families (Wolfe 2001, cited in Bacon and
McKenzie 2001).
Other Counselling
Individual and family counselling available privately and through community
agencies.
- 75 -
Table A.3 Saskatchewan
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
A curriculum was developed two years ago for a program for children
experiencing parental separation or divorce, but no program was implemented
because of lack of resources (Behr, pers. comm.).
• Proposed education-oriented course involves three to four weeks of two-hour
sessions for children only.
• Court officials are considering how community agencies might deliver the course
(Behr, pers. comm.).
Community Programs
A sprinkling of programs is available around the province, provided by various
agencies (Digout, pers. comm.). Individual and family counselling are also
available in provincial centres.
Other
Counselling
Individual and family counselling are available privately and through community
agencies.
- 76 -
Table A.4 Manitoba
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs Program Description
Caught in the Middle
• Voluntary, court-provided support and education program for children 8-10 or
11-12 years old whose parents are in conflict over separation and divorce issues
(http://www.gov.mb.ca/fs/programs/brochures).
• Small groups of six to eight children in either of the two age groups are given an
opportunity to work through their questions, concerns and anxieties with children
their own age on issues of self-esteem, family restructuring, loss, anger and grief,
stepfamilies, blended families, dealing with family conflict, loyalty issues,
feelings and legal concerns. No parents’ program link.
• Therapeutically oriented, experiential sessions led by professional counsellors.
• Ten weekly 90-minute sessions, offered twice a year in Winnipeg, serving about
14 to 18 children a year.
• Children are screened with parents before entry to ensure that their ages are
appropriate and that the program is likely to benefit the children. Parents and
children may meet with the facilitator again at the end of the program.
• Free to all Manitoba children, including children whose parents divorced several
years earlier. Parents typically bring their children because they feel a problem
exists or they want their children to be informed about the process (Bewski, pers.
comm.).
• This program was developed a decade ago by Manitoba court staff, based on
contemporary research. Court officials are considering shortening the program,
offering it more often and reviewing the content (Bewski, pers. comm.).
Program Evaluation
No recent evaluation is available.
Community Programs
Giving Children Hope
The Family Centre of
Winnipeg
Program Description
• A program for parents and children in high-conflict families experiencing
separation or divorce, aimed to help parents refocus on their children’s
developmental needs (Rauh, pers. comm.).
• Parents involved in litigation required to suspend it during the program.
• Consists of therapeutically/oriented parallel sessions for small separate groups of
about six parents and children. The parents attend six weekly therapeutic
sessions separately, followed by another six weeks of joint mediation to develop
shared parenting plans. The children’s sessions begin two or three weeks before
the adult sessions. The children’s sessions are activity- and age-based.
• One adult and two children’s therapists lead the sessions.
• Extensive intake assessment involving four meetings, one each with individual
parents, and one with each parent and child.
• The sessions are based on a manual developed by Janet Johnston (Johnston and
Roseby 1997); includes some modifications depending on families.
Program Evaluation
The evaluation is nearly finished, involving qualitative research with 10 families,
and quantitative analysis using parent conflict scale and parent-rated child
behaviour scale. Quantitative data are positive, showing families cease litigation
and are able to sustain parenting plans reached during mediation. Families in this
evaluation completed the program up to two years ago.
- 77 -
Table A.4 Manitoba (cont’d)
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Other Counselling
• Family counselling provided for parents and children experiencing divorce and
separation at Family Centre.
• Counselling is also available in some other agencies in Winnipeg and in other
centres.
- 78 -
Table A.5 Ontario
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
• None (Dwyer-Hunte, pers. comm.).
• Family Court clinics connected to courts in various provincial centres may
provide programs for children. Since 1999, each unified family court in the
province contracts for four services, including parent education programs. It is
not known if any of these programs include children’s program components.
• Until recently, Toronto’s Family Court Clinic partnered with the Clarke Institute
of Psychiatry to provide For Kids’ Sake, an intensive therapy-based program for
children in distress as a result of their parents’ high conflict separation and
divorce.
Community Programs Program Description
Specialized Programs for
Changing Families
• Families in Transition (FIT) offers therapeutic programs for children and their
parents, solution-focused individual and family counselling, educational group
programs and closed mediation of parenting plans in which children may be
involved.
• The programs (including support-groups for lone parents and a program for
stepfamilies) serve about 1,500 parents and children annually, with 80 to 100
families being served in the core program.
Families in Transition, Family
Services Association of
Metropolitan Toronto
Core Program
• Therapeutically-based parallel sessions for children and parents (each parent in
separate group) aimed to:
• reduce parental conflict;
• create functional co-parental relationships;
• support children’s grieving; and
• strengthen parent-child relationships.
• No curriculum. Includes some basic information about the divorce/separation
process and skill building. Children’s groups may include videos, letters to
parents, as well as facilitated discussion. Led by qualified counsellors.
• Children’s groups age-based, serving children aged 4-14, and all run on Saturday
mornings.
• Open to all families. On applying to enter the program, families—including
those referred by courts, lawyers and other professionals—are given an in-depth
assessment to identify treatment needs and set specific goals.
• Each family receives a case manager who follows up with parents and children at
the end of the course to identify goals met and new needs. Some families may
proceed into mediation, or to preparing or revising parenting plans (or they may
already have had mediation).
• Program serves high and low conflict families, but families are increasingly high
conflict (Freeman, pers. comm.). FIT researchers are currently developing ways
to adapt their services for diverse ethno-racial and cultural families.
Counselling
• Following the initial assessment (or the core program), family members may be
referred to therapeutic counselling.
• Families are directed to different services depending on their ability to tolerate
group sessions, rather than on the level of family conflict or other problems
facing the family.
- 79 -
Table A.5 Ontario (cont’d)
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
One Family, Two Homes
Jewish Child and Family
Service
Program Description
• A program for parents and children experiencing divorce and separation that
provides information to parents and a venue for children to express their feelings
and discuss coping strategies (Gertner, pers. comm.).
• A three-week workshop for parents provides information about their children’s
needs and the impact of their behaviours on their children, as well as legal
information about divorce and separation (fourth week for parents with
adolescents). Loosely structured parallel group for children allows children to
talk about their feelings and discuss coping strategies. May include the video
Children in the Middle with activities.
• Children’s group for children five and older only.
• The program was originally developed two years ago because of long waiting
lists for the more intensive Picking Up the Pieces and now runs several times a
year. Some parents proceed to the more intensive program, or other services,
after completing One Family, Two Homes, while others appear to have gotten
what they needed.
Program Evaluation
No evaluation. High satisfaction ratings.
Picking Up the Pieces
Jewish Child and Family
Service
Program Description
• A therapy-oriented program for parents and children experiencing divorce and
separation, aimed primarily to improve communication among parents and
children. Not intended for high conflict parents who cannot examine their own
behaviour, or families where violence is involved (Gertner, pers. comm.).
• Parallel group sessions for parents (separated parents attend different groups) and
children (run after school).
• Children’s groups are age-based (ranges depend on ages of children in the
program at the time).
• Six weekly sessions, wrap-up meeting with family at the end of six weeks, plus a
seventh follow-up six weeks later for parents individually.
• Intensive intake assessment (two to three hours) involving interviews with family
together, where possible, to see the family dynamic, and individual interviews.
• Children’s sessions are activity-based. Children are facilitated to express
feelings and articulate their needs and interests to parents. Small parents’
sessions (seven to ten parents) involve group therapy to help parents grasp how
their children are feeling and experiencing events and to leave their own needs
aside to focus on their children’s.
• Counsellors facilitating parent’s and children’s groups meet regularly to ensure
issues raised by children are addressed in parents’ groups, and other cross-
fertilizations.
• Wrap-up meeting consolidates learning. Follow-up appraises the changes
parents have been able to make, reinforces goals and behaviours, and helps
parents identify further needs, including further services.
Program Evaluation
High satisfaction ratings. No formal evaluation because of difficulty finding
suitable instruments, but internal evaluation to begin shortly.
Counselling
Parents and children in the program can be linked with individual and family
counselling as needed.
- 80 -
Table A.5 Ontario (cont’d)
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Other Children’s Programs A sprinkling of other children’s programs appears to exist in Toronto and other
provincial centres.
Other Counselling
• Other group programs believed to be sprinkled around the province and in
Toronto and other metropolitan centres.
• Family and individual counselling available in family service agencies and other
agencies around the province.
• Private therapists and family counsellors available in most parts of the province.
- 81 -
Table A.6 Quebec
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
Province considering reconfiguring the information session on the province-wide
mediation services that courts currently provide to separating and divorcing
parents. Plan under consideration is to expand the information session to two
sessions totalling two to three hours and turn it into more of a parent education
session (Tanguay, pers. comm.). It is possible that the reconfigured sessions would
include something for children.
Confidences
Centres jeunesse de Montréal
Program Description
• Children’s program for children whose parents are in voluntary mediation, or
receiving a psychosocial evaluation (custody assessment). Not linked to the
parent education program that is provided. However, is linked where possible
with the mediation and custody assessment process (Filion, pers. comm.) and
two-thirds of referrals come from mediators (Vallant 1999)
• Program aims to:
• provide a safe space for children to share with other children and express their
feelings;
• help children tell parents how they feel;
• help children explore solutions to their difficulties; and
• increase parents’ awareness of children’s needs and wishes.
• Children enter the voluntary program only with their parents’ permission. The
counsellor running the sessions meets with both parents to make clear she will
not appear as an expert witness in court, and will include mediators and custody
evaluators in final follow-up meeting where possible.
• Four sessions for six to ten or eleven year olds. Small groups of five to
eight children. Currently offered only in French. Serves about 55 children a year
(seven groups).
• Open to all children except those with serious behavioural problems.
• Following the children’s sessions, the counsellor/facilitator talks to both parents
together, where possible, about their children’s needs and how they can best take
their children’s needs into account. Mediators or experts preparing psychosocial
evaluations are present at these meetings. The children are sometimes present.
• A high demand exists for program, and for a similar program for adolescents.
However, resources do not permit more.
• A ball-park estimate is that 25 percent of children of mediating parents at
Montreal centre use the program.
- 82 -
Table A.6 Quebec (cont’d)
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Program Evaluation
• A survey of 160 parents and 112 children in the program (Vallant 1999) found
about one third of the parents felt their children’s sense of security had been
increased by seeing other children in the same situation, and nearly as many
thought the program helped their children express themselves more easily about
the separation. One quarter of the Parents reported their children were calmer,
and one-fifth felt their children expressed themselves more readily about the
separation.
• Sixty-three percent of parents felt the final meeting between parents, child and
counsellor helped them understand their children’s needs and feelings better, and
13 percent saw it as an occasion to show their love to their child.
• Almost one-half the parents reported their children were enthusiastic at the
prospect of participating in the program, while one eighth were apprehensive
about the first meeting.
• Sixty-eight percent of the children reported being very happy participating in the
program, and less than five percent responded negatively. Their most frequent
reasons for enjoying it were that it gave them a chance to talk about the
separation (12 percent), and to meet other children in the same situation
(11 percent). Another 13 percent said they found talking about the separation
boring. The activity preferred by 65 percent of the children was to discuss their
feelings using dog photos.
• Eighty percent of the children felt the program activities (puppet theatre,
drawing, talking, watching a video, final meeting with parents) had helped them,
with 36 percent saying it had helped them talk about the separation, and
15 percent saying that it had helped them understand the separation.
• Over 90 percent of children told their parents very little or nothing of what went
on in the group.
• Parents most often saw the program as a place where their children could express
their feelings (28 percent), and could comprehend the separation (26 percent).
Community Programs
A sprinkling of children’s programs exist, provided by organizations such as
Montreal Catholic Counselling and Mediation Centre.
Other Counselling
Individual counselling for children experiencing their parents’ separation or
divorce in some centres.
- 83 -
Table A.7 Nova Scotia
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
• No court programs. A mandatory parent education program exists for parents
(Hebert, pers. comm.).
• A complementary voluntary program for children has been developed and may
be in place in 2001-2002 (Nichols, pers. comm.). The program will be four to six
hours long and education-oriented. Goals include helping children understand
that their parents will not reconcile and that they are not to blame.
Community Programs
Few to no programs for children adjusting to divorce or separation. Informal or
intermittent supports may be offered at some family resource centres (Blanchard,
Wenzel, pers. comm.) and have been offered in schools at various points (Nichols,
pers. comm.).
Other Counselling
Individual counselling for children experiencing their parents’ separation or
divorce in some centres.
- 84 -
Table A.8 New Brunswick
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected programs
No court programs. Parent education program recently introduced (Guravich,
pers. comm.).
Community Programs
• Few, if any, regular group programs for children experiencing their parents’
separation or divorce (Smith, pers. comm.). Some ad hoc groups for children
receiving individual counselling and therapy at Family Services of Fredericton
Inc.
• Discussions begun about introducing intensive therapy-based program modeled
on the former For Kids’ Sake program provided until recently by the former
Clarke Institute for Psychiatry in Toronto (see Table A.5).
Other Counselling
Family and child counselling for children experiencing their parents’ separation
or divorce in Fredericton and possibly other centres.
- 85 -
Table A.9 Prince Edward Island
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs
• No court programs. Parent education recently introduced for parents (Bulger,
pers. comm.).
• No programs for children. Need felt for program (Lightwood, pers. comm.).
Community Programs
Few ongoing programs for children currently (McCann-Beranger, pers. comm.).
Other Counselling
Individual and group counselling programs for families and children at P.E.I.’s
three family service centres in Charlottetown and Summerside (Lightwood,
McCann-Beranger, pers. comm.).
- 86 -
Table A.10 Newfoundland and Labrador
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected Programs Program Description
Children’s Program
St. John’s, Family Court
• Program offered about twice yearly for children experiencing their parents’
separation or divorce, aiming to:
• normalize the experience;
• provide an opportunity for children to express their feelings;
• help children develop coping strategies; and
• familiarize children with the terms around divorce and separation.
• Eight weekly sessions of 90 minutes, led by court counsellors with intern
support. No parents’ program link.
• Education and activities for age-based groups of children, including game
playing, watching videos (including Children in the Middle and Children: The
Experts on Divorce), writing letters to parents about how they feel and
identifying their needs.
• Open to all families, including those in other court-connected programs.
• Program has run off and on—depending on resources—for about 10 years. Does
not meet demand (Foster, pers. comm.).
Program Evaluation
No evaluation.
Community Programs
Few or no programs, especially outside St. John’s.
It’s Still O.K.
Health Care Corporation of
St. John’s
Program Description
• Program for children experiencing their parents’ separation or divorce aimed to
help children identify and deal with their feelings, get a sense of support around,
and normalcy of, the experience, understand the experience, bolster the
children’s self-esteem and ability to cope, and help them understand the court
process and role in divorce and separation (Sinclair, pers. comm.).
Therapeutically oriented, activity-based small groups of 9 to 12 year olds, led by
trained counsellors. Includes sessions with parents before and after the
children’s course. More activity-based groups for younger children, depending
on resources.
• Open to all families (often referred by the court). Children tend to be more
distressed than average. Children in program may also be in individual therapy
at the centre.
• Program operating for about four years.
Program Evaluation
No systematic evaluation. Parents are asked to assess changes after course. Most
likely to indicate child is less irritable or aggressive, cries less and can articulate
feelings better. Sometimes children become more agitated, as feelings surface.
Focus Consultations
Health Care Corporation of
St. John’s
Program Description
• Intensive short-term counselling
• Intensive family therapy for parents and children experiencing their parents’
separation or divorce. Narrative therapy involving two therapists in hourly
weekly sessions over six weeks. Solution focussed. Serves 70 to 80 families
annually.
Program Evaluation
No long-term evaluation but 91 percent of parents completing course judged to
need no further interventions.
Other Counselling
Family and individual counselling available in some centres.
- 87 -
Table A.11 Yukon
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected and
Community Programs
• No court-connected program (McLeod, pers. comm.).
• No established community programs. However, a proposal is under discussion
for local community services and counselling agencies to provide an education-
based program for 6 to 12 year olds in elementary schools, and involve school
counsellors (McLeod, pers. comm.).
Other Counselling
Some family and individual counselling available.
- 88 -
Table A.12 Northwest Territories
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected and
Community Programs
• No court-connected programs for children experiencing their parents’ separation
or divorce (Laycock, pers. comm.).
• No group-based community programs for children experiencing parental
separation or divorce who are not in overt distress (Bentley, pers. comm.).
Other Counselling
• Most of the children needing intensive supports in the N.W.T. are not receiving
them (Bentley, pers. comm.).
• Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board, part of the territorial government,
provides group and individual therapy to children experiencing difficulties in
adjusting to changes in family structure:
• for children up to age 19 typically experiencing significant behaviour problems,
who also may be in child protection;
• walk-in clinic, but also referred by child protection services, doctors;
• typically solution-focussed, short-term therapy of less than 6-8 sessions.
Provided by 2.5 therapists, including psychologists and mental health
professional;
• more than 300 children served annually; and
• no evaluation since provincial government took over this responsibility in
2000.
• Private therapists in Yellowknife.
- 89 -
Table A.13 Nunavut
Type of Program Program Description and Evaluation
Court-connected and
Community Programs
No programs available (Berzins, pers. comm.).
Other Counselling
Government social workers posted in communities provide some family and
individual counselling.
APPENDIX B
CANADIAN CHILDREN’S INCLUSION IN CUSTODY AND ACCESS
PROCEEDINGS
- 93 -
Table B.1 British Columbia
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Information Counsellors Children not directly involved.
Voluntary Conciliation
Mediation
• Children are rarely directly involved in the conciliation provided by family
justice centres around the province (Morgan, pers. comm.).
• Occasionally older children (12+) are interviewed separately by conciliators.
Guidelines require conciliators discuss the interview with the parents
beforehand, and clarify the purpose of meeting with the child at the outset of the
interview.
• The ministry has begun to explore ways to increase children’s involvement in
court-provided conciliation or mediation.
• Children may be more frequently involved in private custody and access
mediation, but it is not common.
Custody and access reports
Comprehensive Reports
• Involve interviews with parents, collateral interviews with officials familiar with
child and family, interviews with children and each parent separately at home,
in the playground, etc., interviews with child and siblings, and interviews with
each child alone (observation of preschoolers). Adolescents are asked for
feedback, but younger children’s wishes are not directly solicited (Morgan, pers.
comm.).
• Children not interviewed in cases where mental health expert judges they risk
being harmed from excessive interviewing. In those cases assessors use existing
expert reports.
• Assessment directly addresses each of the criteria provided by the legislation to
determine the child’s best interests. Brief account of marital history and plans
for future.
• A 6-8 month waiting list for court-provided (free) comprehensive reports.
Given the backlog in preparing reports, reports now most frequently ordered for
children with high conflict parents, enmeshed in litigation, where one or more
parents may be self-litigating, the child’s health or safety is feared at risk, or
there has been prolonged access denial.
Views of the Children Reports
• Short reports that assess and present teenagers’ wishes in specific access
disputes.
Focused Assessments
• Assessments focused on specific access issues such as overnight visits, and
bracket or exclude other ongoing conflicts.
Children interviewed, as well as other relevant parties.
- 94 -
Table B.2 Alberta
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Information Counsellors Provide information to parents initiating legal custody and access proceedings.
Children not involved.
Voluntary Mediation Children not normally involved in court-connected voluntary mediation available
to families with custody and access disputes. Older children (15-16) may
sometimes be present with parents, or seen separately by mediator (Delanghe,
pers. comm.).
Court Assessments / Home
Studies
• Social workers in provincial court, and social workers and/or psychologists in
Queen’s Bench, provide standard assessments involving home visits with each
parent and child to observe family, and further interviews with the children if
needed (or observation of young children at activities), and with parents.
• Some mini-assessments for older children, where specific issues are in dispute.
May be court-ordered or initiated by parents or their lawyers. Typically are not
used by families felt to be on their way to final hearing, since assessors prefer
not to present these “snapshots” in court, or appear as expert witnesses to
present them.
• Parents liable for costs of assessments, although they may be eligible for some
subsidy if they have participated in court-connected mediation.
Amicus Curaie No longer provided to children and youth. Court can appoint counsel for the child;
this occurs in exceptional circumstances.
- 95 -
Table B.3 Saskatchewan
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Voluntary Mediation Children are rarely involved in court-connected mediation. Similar situation
applies in private mediation (Acton, pers. comm.). Where children are involved,
they are most likely to be older.
Court Assessments
• Provide standard assessments typically involving home visit with each parent
and child, to observe family, and further interviews with children if needed (or
observation of very young children at activities), and with parents.
• Recent sharp increase in use of focussed/mini-assessments for children 12 and
older, which focus on resolution of specific issues, and in which only children
are interviewed (may be collateral interviews as well) (Behr, pers. comm.).
Especially likely to occur in application to vary custody and access orders, and
with older children. (Saskatchewan judges follow assessments’
recommendations in about 90 percent of cases.)
- 96 -
Table B.4 Manitoba
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Voluntary Mediation Children present at mediation (where parents request it and mediator judges it
suitable), or mediators meet separately with the child to assess the child’s best
interests, in less than five percent of cases (estimate) (Bewski, pers. comm.).
Court Assessments
• Provide standard comprehensive assessments, typically including home visits
with each parent and the child by the assessor, to observe family, and meetings
with parents. Children’s preferences not solicited, but reported if offered by the
child. The assessor is not bound by these preferences in assessing the child’s
best interests.
• The court is increasing its use of focussed assessments, in which children may
play a more direct role in the assessment.
Amicus Curaie
• Service eliminated March 2001.
• More than 40 older children a year used the support of amicus curaie attorneys
in recent years, partly because of long waiting lists for assessments. Court
officials are planning to make more mediators and evaluators available to
replace this service (Bewski, pers. comm.).
- 97 -
Table B.5 Ontario
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Information Services Children not believed to be included (Dwyer-Hunte, pers. comm.).
Voluntary Mediation
Children included in voluntary mediation programs only sometimes. Typically
older children (Dwyer-Hunte, pers. comm.).
Custody Assessments/Social
Work Reports
Social worker-lawyer teams
Office of the Children’s
Lawyer
• About one third of the Office of the Children’s Lawyer’s 3000-3500 cases—
typically high conflict, chronic litigation cases—receive family assessments
(social work reports). Children are always interviewed, and their preferences
will be included in the report if it is considered in the child’s best interests
(Moyal, Martin and McTavish, pers. comm.).
• Assessments may include may include interviews at child’s home. Children
may be observed with family members and may be interviewed privately, if
appropriate (http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca). Children’s interviews
outside the home done in “comfortable environment,” and may include play,
drawing or stories to elicit children’s feelings. Children not asked to choose
between parents. Reports are prepared by social workers whose mandate is to
serve as an advocate for the children’s best interests.
• While preparing the report, social workers also attempt to mediate parents’
dispute. Reports are presented to court with recommendations where no
agreement reached.
• Another third of the Office’s families receive combined assessment and legal
guidance and representation through the Office’s social worker-lawyer team
program. The social worker-lawyer teams integrate information about the
family dynamics and parenting capacity, etc., explored in the assessment, into
legal guidance and suasion provided by the children’s representative on the
team. Conversely the legal options and guidance are used to inform the social
workers efforts to facilitate agreement in the child’s best interest before the case
proceeds to court.
10-15 percent of Office’s assessments are focussed assessments.
- 98 -
Table B.6 Quebec
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Voluntary Mediation
• Children not usually included in mediation usually. Children, usually older,
sometimes involved (Canozzi, Tanguay, pers. comm.). Where children are
involved, mediators involve them in different ways, depending on family and
mediator’s approach (Canozzi, pers. comm.).
• Quebec currently considering regulatory changes to its free mediation services
that will include meetings between mediators and the children alone. At present
the free service officially only covers meetings between mediators and parents,
or parents and children (Tanguay, pers. comm.).
Psycho-social Evaluations
(family assessments)
Comprehensive assessments involving interviews with parents. Also interviews
with children, either alone or with their parents (Canozzi, pers. comm.).
- 99 -
Table B.7 Nova Scotia
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Mediation or Conciliation
Children not usually included in court-based mediation, although older children
may sometimes be, where parents want to involve their children and mediators
consider this beneficial (Hebert, pers. comm.).
Custody Assessments
Custody assessments, prepared by social workers or psychologists may include
interviews with children alone, depending on age and circumstances. Scope of the
assessment varies according to assessor’s judgement (Nichols, pers. comm.).
Family Group Conferencing None at present, but under consideration.
- 100 -
Table B.8 New Brunswick
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Mediation or Conciliation
Children may be included in mediation provided through the government’s
domestic legal aid services, depending on individual mediators. However, most
avoid including children, especially younger children (Guravich, pers. comm.).
Custody Assessments
Custody assessments contracted out to private assessors and the provincial
department of family and community services. Assessors always interview
children in some capacity, often meeting privately with children, but assessment
practices vary significantly (Guravich, pers. comm.).
- 101 -
Table B.9 Prince Edward Island
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Voluntary Mediation Children rarely included in mediation (Bulger, pers. comm.).
Home Studies (court
assessments)
Standard comprehensive assessments, involving meetings with parents, meetings
with parents and children, and meetings with children at school (Bulger, pers.
comm.). In transition to doing more mini-assessments (1-2 completed) (Bulger,
pers. comm.). Expect children will be as involved in these as in standard
comprehensive assessments.
- 102 -
Table B.10 Newfoundland and Labrador
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Voluntary Mediation
Children not involved in mediation. Mediator may meet with children at the end of
the mediation to help explain the outcomes to them (Foster, pers. comm.).
Corner Brook integrated court
services pilot program.
Short term counselling for children, or children and parents, in families involved in
custody and access disputes, including access enforcement disputes (Reynolds,
pers. comm.).
Court Assessments
• Standard comprehensive court assessments provided, that include interviews
with parents, parents and children, and collateral interviews with school and
other officials.
• Mini-assessments are also conducted in some cases. These may involve
children meeting alone with the assessor for their perspective on the specific
issues on which the assessments focus, or meetings with parents and children
together (Foster, pers. comm.).
- 103 -
Table B.11 Yukon
Proceedings and Services Children’s Inclusion
Mediation or Conciliation
No court-based mediation or conciliation services available at present (McLeod,
pers. comm.).
Custody Assessments Few, if any, assessments completed, since very few cases reach court hearing.
- 104 -
Table B.12 Northwest Territories
Proceedings and Services
Children’s Inclusion
Mediation or Conciliation Little mediation or conciliation available (Laycock, pers. comm.).
Custody Assessments Few, if any, assessments completed, since very few cases reach court hearing.
- 105 -
Table B.13 Nunavut
Proceedings and Services
Children’s Inclusion
Mediation or Conciliation
None yet available. Program planned but in program model not yet decided
(Berzins, pers. comm).
Custody Assessments Few, if any, assessments completed, since very few cases reach court hearing.
APPENDIX C
AMERICAN PROGRAMS TO SUPPORT CHILDREN EXPERIENCING
THEIR PARENTS’ SEPARATION OR DIVORCE
- 109 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Children in the Middle
Center for Divorce Education,
Athens, Ohio
Program Description
• Comprehensive education program for children experiencing their parents’
separation or divorce, often used in conjunction with parent education program
using parent version of the program (http://www.divorce-education.com).
• Materials include videos and booklets for parents and children, materials for
service providers, and materials for judges.
• The video-based children’s component of the program aims to teach children
how to respond effectively when caught in the middle of disputes between
separated/divorced parents. The children’s program also includes sections on
why parents divorce, children’s feelings and fears, myths and truths, and coping
skills (how to get out of the middle, asking for help, using self talk, changing
thoughts, etc., and getting on with their lives (Arbuthnot and Gordon 1996).
• Children’s program designed to reinforce and be reinforced by parents’ version
(Arbuthnot and Gordon 1996).
• Children’s program had been used by over 500 service providers North America
by 1995 (Arbuthnot and Gordon 1996).
• Program example: Children in the Middle, Tidewater, Virginia
(http://www.jfshamptonroads.org/children/middle.html).
• Children’s program run in conjunction with parent education program by
family service agency.
• Children’s program consists in one-hour age-based group sessions run weekly
for four weeks. Groups share experiences and work on feelings using video,
activities and discussion.
Program Evaluation
• In a four-week follow-up with 33 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders, children
reported the frequency and stress of situation in which they felt caught in the
middle. Children in the program reported experiencing significantly less stress
than a control group who watched the non-skills oriented divorce video When
Mom and Dad Break Up.
• Improvements were clinically significant for 50 percent of the children (Kearnes
et al. 1991).
- 110 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Families in Transition
Program
Louisville, Kentucky
Program Description
• Court-connected program for children with divorcing or separating parents.
Mandatory children’s program run parallel to mandatory parent education
program [Brown et al., 1994; http://www.louisville.edu/kent/community/fit).
• Children’s program goals (based on Wallerstein 1983’s six tasks for children at
separation and divorce [see Chapter 1]):
• help children identify and understand their feelings;
• reduce feelings of isolation and misconceptions about divorce;
• increase children’s awareness of how divorce affects their parents; and
• increase appropriate ways to respond to anger.
• Parent’s program goal: to develop parental competence by teaching skills to
handle children’s divorce-related concerns, co-parental relationships, and parent-
child relationships.
• Mandatory attendance for parents and children in all families with children ages
eight to 16 who petition for divorce with Jefferson County Family Court.
• Two three-hour or 2.5-hour small-group sessions over two or three weeks.
Optional additional classes and counselling. Children’s group led by trained
facilitators, and largely activity-based.
• Group facilitators receive five hours training to deliver the program.
• One parent and child attend separate parallel sessions with other parent attending
separately. Curriculum-based program.
• Available in easy-to-reach, safe community settings where ongoing clinical
services available. Fees by sliding scale.
Program Evaluation
• High client satisfaction found: ninety-seven percent of participants providing
feedback on the program said they found it very or somewhat helpful. Almost
two-thirds were interested in follow-up sessions (Brown et al. 1994).
• Preliminary assessment of parents and children—using pre- and post-test Divorce
Adjustment Inventory (one measure for parents, one for children)—found “those
who have completed the FIT program are adjusting satisfactorily to the divorce.”
No control group.
• Less than 10 percent of families completing the program return to court with
child-related issues (Administrative Office of the Courts, cited in Di Bias 1996).
- 111 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Kids First (1998+)
(They’re Still Our Children
1988-1998)
Hawaii (First, second, third,
and fifth circuit courts)
Program Description
• A court-based educational program for divorcing parents and their children aged
six or older. Mandatory children’s and parents’ program for families within six
weeks of filing a divorce complaint, and for families litigating custody and
access disputes.
• Children’s program aimed to:
• demystify the court process,
• let children know divorce is not their fault, and that being angry, scared, and
wanting the family back are common feelings;
• get children to talk about their feelings; and
• reassure children that they still have both parents, and a family.
• One 2.5 hour session. Curriculum-based program. Children and parents initially
meet together in a courtroom to learn about the legal process and watch the video
Divorce and Other Monsters. Separate children’s group—led by a judge,
children’s coordinator, and community volunteers—tours the courtroom first.
Children then role-play divorce cases, are encouraged to explore their feelings
about the divorce, and draft letters to their parents singly and together. Parents
and children reunite to hear children’s group letter read to parents (Di Bias
1996).
• The name of the program was changed from They’re Still Our Children to Kids
First in 1998, when the programs run in various circuits were merged
administratively (McNish, pers. comm.). The program format does not appear to
have changed.
Program Evaluation
Exit evaluations show more than 95 percent of participants are glad they attended
and felt that program worthwhile (Anaya, pers. comm.).
Focus on Children In
Separation (FOCIS)
Jackson County, Missouri
(16
th
Circuit Court)
Program Description
• Mandatory court-connected program for parents and children aged 5-17 in
separating or divorcing families, or families in custody and access disputes.
Parents’ program run parallel to children’s programs (Glenn 1998;
http://www.family-court.org/res/focis.htm).
• Education and awareness program. Children’s (age-based) program goals to help
children:
• deal with grief reactions to divorce (age-appropriate levels);
• not blame themselves for the divorce;
• identify and express their own reactions to the events;
• talk to parents about their concerns (providing children with techniques); and
• understand basic legal terms.
• Children and adolescent groups include some lecturing, videos, discussion, and
the children’s class creates a newsletter for parents. Parents’ activities include
lecture, discussion, videos and take-home materials. Parents’ and children’s
groups meet separately.
• Two two-hour classes.
• $30 fee per parent per class, with low-income subsidy.
Program Evaluation
• Initial evaluation of 400 (adult) participants in 1996 indicated need to expand
initial program from two to four hours, and to create a separate class for people
applying to modify an existing decree. Overall positive response (Glenn 1998).
• Attempt to provide programs in a wide number of locations blamed for initial
poor attendance and high level of class cancellations.
- 112 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Rainbows
Program Description
Grief recovery program to provide a bridge to emotional healing for children,
adolescents, and adults confronting death, divorce and other painful family
transitions. Weaves grief education with format and objectives of self-help groups
to strengthen the children’s:
• coping skills;
• self-esteem; and
• family and personal adjustment.
• ability to communicate feelings and ideas about divorce and parental loss
(Kramer and Laumann 2000).
• Lay-led peer-support sessions for children, led by trained and compassionate
adults—sometimes guidance counsellors in schools, sometimes social workers,
teachers and parent volunteers (http://www.rainbows.org).
• Small groups of 3-5 same-aged children. Older children receive empathetic
listening and practice it with each other, use games, journal keeping and other
activities to accept their feelings of loss as normal.
• Age-based programs (4-5, 7-8, 9-11 and 12-14 years old). Also Spectrum
(adolescents), Kaleidoscope (college age), and Sunbeams (age 3-4) in
development. Curriculum-based program with both secular and religious
versions.
• Twelve-week program of weekly meetings plus two special multi-group days (3
to 4 hours) after sixth and final sessions.
• Open to all children, including children whose parents divorced or separated
several years before. Sponsored by faith and community agencies and typically
run in schools, and sometimes in churches or agencies. May be offered by
schools as part of school-based social services. Volunteer managed and /or
financed by sponsoring organization.
• No fees.
Program Evaluation
• High client satisfaction found: 80 percent of 97 fourth to sixth graders in the
secular Level III program at 28 school sites in central Illinois and greater
Chicago reported being happy with the program and felt it offered a safe place,
helped them understand their feelings, and taught them new ways to solve
problems. About 60 percent reported feeling less alone after the program, and
72 percent felt more cared for. Three quarters or more of parents felt children
were blaming themselves less, were asking for help more, were more
communicative and talked about feelings more, had a better understanding of
divorce, and were more accepting of divorce and more optimistic (Kramer and
Laumann 2000).
• Applying standard pre and post-test measures to program participants and to
children with divorced parents in a control group (parent, facilitator and child
reports) found:
• no improvement for children’s perceptions of their well-being, although parents
of control group children in high conflict families perceived decline during
course of the program (well-being measures included anxiety, peer social skills,
rule compliance and acting out, and school interest);
• no change in children’s perceptions of their adjustment;
• no change in children’s perceptions of their warm or hostile relationships with
the parent they spend most time with; and
• no change in children’s perceptions of their coping skills, except Positive
Reappraisal—looking on the brighter side—where children in high conflict
families improved; other coping skills tested were seeking support from peers,
avoiding strategies that reflect hopeless or blaming attitudes, and seeking
support from other adults (Kramer and Laumann 2000).
- 113 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
• Many of the children in the program had experienced their parents’ divorce or
separation up to five years earlier. The pre- and post-tests were conducted at
the beginning and end of the program. Attrition during the study was
50 percent.
Divorce Support Groups for
Children and Adolescents
The Kids First Center
Portland, Maine
Program Description
• Discussion-centred support groups for children and adolescents experiencing
separation and divorce (http://www.kidsfirstcenter.org).
• Separate age-based groups for children 6-18, focussing on the developmental,
emotional, and relational needs faced by children of divorce or separation.
• Six weekly sessions of just over an hour (6-8 and 9-11 year olds) or 90 minutes
(12-14 and 15-18 year olds).
• Groups explore feelings of those whose parents divorce or separate, identify
coping strategies for those feeling abandoned or conflicted, and stress that
children can cope with the change of divorce.
• Fees: $60.00.
Program Evaluation
None found.
Children of Divorce
Intervention Program
(CODIP)
Children’s Institute Inc.
Formerly Primary Mental
Health Project Inc. (PMHP),
Rochester, New York
Program Description
• Established preventive mental health program for school-age children aged 5 to
12 (kindergarten to eighth grade), carried out in about 50 schools in the
Rochester, N.Y., area. Pilot programs included two parent components: mother
and child, and mother alone
(http://www.pmhp.org/programs/programs.htm#codip; Pedro-Carroll et al. 1985;
Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986).
• Program goals to help children cope with divorce by:
• providing a supportive group environment for children to share common
feelings;
• encouraging children to express divorce-related feelings;
• clarifying misconceptions about divorce;
• improving children’s coping skills, such as controlling anger, reducing
blaming, getting along with other children; and
• improving self-esteem and feelings of competence.
• Initial pilot (1985) for 9-12 year olds focused in equal measure on expressing
feelings, solving personal problems—such as learning how to express feelings
and distinguish the problems they could not solve, and did not cause—and
dealing with anger (Pedro-Carroll et al. 1985). A second pilot for this group
expanded the self-esteem component (Pedro-Carroll et al. 1986), and later
modifications expanded the program to other age groups and developed a
program for low income, urban 9-12 year olds (Alpert-Gillis et al. 1989). The
program was adapted again for trial with fourth-to sixth graders in a low income,
urban setting (Pedro-Carroll et al. 1992, cited in program description
(http://www.childrensinstitute.net). Procedures manuals currently available for
children up to 7
th
and 8
th
grade.
• Groups led—in pilot studies at least—by one mental health professional or
graduate trainee and one experienced paraprofessional, working in twos.
- 114 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Program Evaluation
• Pedro-Carroll and Cowen, 1985: Pre- and post-test study of 75 mostly white
middle-class children two weeks after program ended found mostly positive
outcomes for children, compared to another group of children of divorce not in
the program.
• Parents, teachers and program leaders reported children to be:
• less shy or anxious at school, with fewer learning problems;
• more competent, with less frustration, more sociable, more compliant with
rules, more adaptive assertiveness;
• less self-blaming; and
• less anxious overall.
• Children reported:
• no difference on perceived competence and self-esteem; and
• less anxiety (and less anxiety than control children), less negative self-
attitudes and perceptions about the divorce.
• While adult reports may have been influenced by common positive
expectancies, the children’s reports indicated their responses were not.
• Children’s parents had been separated an average two years.
• Pedro-Carroll et al., 1986: Replication pre- and post-test study of 54 mostly
white middle-class children also found positive outcomes, compared to another
group of children in intact families.
• Children in program scored as less well adjusted than the children in other
group during pre-test, except in the children’s perception of control.
• Parents, teachers and program leaders again reported children less anxious,
more competent, less self-blaming and with fewer problems learning.
• Children again overwhelmingly reported less anxiety.
• Children in the program caught up to control group children on many measures.
• Children’s parents had been separated an average of four years.
• The researchers state that little is known of the psychometric properties of some
of the study’s key measures. (Pedro-Carroll and Cowen 1985). No
behavioural measures were used.
• Pedro-Carroll et al., 1999: A follow-up two years later of CODIP participants in
an earlier evaluation found CODIP children still had significantly greater gains in
adjustment than divorced children in the control group.
• Children in the control group had higher anxiety than either CODIP children or
children in non-divorced families.
• Parents of CODIP children reported increases in their children’s coping skills
and ability to handle effectively divorce-related concerns. Divorce control
children had higher rates of school tardiness and more frequent visits to the
school nurse.
• Parents also reported their children had experienced multiple or other benefits
including increased ability to talk about their feelings, less anxiety, self-blame
and somatic symptoms, and increased self-confidence, problem-solving
abilities and coping skills.
• Children were measured using the Teacher Child Rating Scale, Parent
Evaluation Form, Children’s Family Adjustment Scale, the State-Trait Anxiety
Inventory for Children, and a telephone interview of custodial parents.
- 115 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Rollercoasters
Families First
Atlanta, Georgia
Program Description
• Program of Families First of Atlanta to help children facing parents’ separation,
divorce, remarriage or death to:
• understand their up-and-down feelings;
• resolve self-blame and other myths;
• manage anger;
• develop new coping strategies; and
• learn to avoid being put in the middle of parent conflicts.
(Based on Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980’s six divorce-related coping tasks (Fischer,
1997)).
• Groups of 6-8 children led by experienced counselling professionals (largely
school counsellors) in which children raise questions, and the group process
allows them to talk about their feelings and understand them. Activities-based
(Fischer, 1997; http://www.familiesfirst.org). A total of 51 children participated.
• Primary group for children ages 5-8, intermediate group for ages 9 to 12.
• Curriculum-based.
Eight weekly meetings of nearly an hour each.
Located primarily in schools (counsellor’s office) during school day.
Program Evaluation
• Parents’ pre- and post-program surveys show few parents felt prior to the
program that their children were experiencing difficulty communicating about
the divorce, though more felt the children were acting out, had low self-esteem,
or were unwilling to express their feelings. About 45 percent of parents reported
improvements in acting out and communication after the program, and two-thirds
felt the child’s willingness to express feelings had improved. Overall, 85 percent
of parents reported improvement on some measure (Fischer 1997). Non-
respondents to the post-program survey (30 percent) were mostly fathers.
• Children who were reported more communicative before the program were most
likely to improve on that score by the end of the program. Children who
expressed feelings less, had lower self-esteem or acted out more than other
children before the program improved the most on these dimensions following
the program.
• Most parents said they would recommend the course.
• Children’s teachers’ pre- and post-program assessment (using Behaviour
Problems Index) showed relatively few children had behavioural problems at
school before the program (about 20 percent) and children showed a non-
significant improvement after the course (Fischer 1997).
• A low sample size and wide variation among sites and children at the sites.
- 116 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Kids’ Turn
San Francisco, California
Program Description
• Community program for children with separating or divorcing parents, linked
with concurrent parents’ program, run on schools and community agencies.
Families may be referred to, or self-refer to, the program. (Bolen 1993;
http://www.kidsturn.org).
• Children’s programs aim to:
• demystify and de-stigmatize the separation process;
• provide a safe place for children and parents to discuss their thoughts and
feelings about their experience;
• provide information to parents and children about other services in the
community; and
• provide children and parents with communication and problem-solving skills to
help them through the separation process (Bolen 1993; Di Bias 1996; Schepard
1998).
• Parents program aims to teach parents not to put children in the middle, to
improve communication and family structure, to build children’s self-esteem, and
to deal with the other parent.
• Parents and children attend separate concurrent groups (two parent groups run to
allow both parents to attend separately). Parents and children join in potluck
supper at end of the course.
• Children’s small age-based groups led by pairs of qualified teachers and mental
health professionals. Parents’ groups led by mental health professionals.
• Children’s groups activities-based, and include watching Divorce and Other
Monsters video, drawing, puppets, visits by family court judge, writing
newsletter to parents, role-play. Six weekly 90-minute sessions.
• Small fees, waived on request. Plans to franchise program beyond San Francisco
area (Bolen 1993).
Program Evaluation
• Parents and older children participating were overwhelmingly positive in exit
evaluations. Graduates most likely to cite support, increased understanding of
separation/divorce process, greater optimism, and better parent-child and parent-
parent communication as program benefits (Bolen 1993).
• Program seems most effective when both parents participate (Bolen 1993).
- 117 -
Program Program Description and Evaluation
Kids Koping with Divorce
Good News Community,
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Program Description
• Expressive program to help children discuss feelings about the divorce, to
understand divorce, and to learn better ways to cope with it
(http://www.goodnewscommunity.org/kidskop.htm; Blaisure and Geasler, 2000).
Linked with parents’ program.
• Children and parents meet in concurrent groups (two parent groups run to allow
both parents to attend separately). Parents, staff, and children share a meal
together at the outset of the eight week, eight meeting program.
• Children’s groups run by trained facilitator under supervision of a professional
family and children’s therapist. Adults confer with a social worker.
• Children’s group activities based, including video lessons, playing games,
discussing feelings, using puppets, drawings and role-play.
Program Evaluation
None found.
Children’s Support Program
Marriage Council of
Philadelphia
Program Description
• Program to help children discuss feelings about the divorce, understand divorce,
and express their feelings, especially to parents (citation in Davis et al. 1997).
• Parent and children’s groups meet in concurrent support groups. Parents attend
at least one children’s group session as a participant. All the children in the
family participate in the children’s programs.
• Group leaders may also contact other mental health professionals, lawyers,
teachers and clergy, etc., who may be helping the family, if parents agree.
• Sessions run for up to four months. Children can attend more than one group
series and can thus be followed for as long as a year.
Program Evaluation
• Parents report more frequent open discussions about the divorce with their
children than before the program, as well as fewer angry and exchanges with
their children over household matters, with exchanges less intense (citation in
Davis et al. 1997).
• Parents also report their children are more willing to talk about the divorce with
peers and significant adults outside the family.
• Non-custodial parents report increased comfort and greater candor from their
children about past and present dissatisfactions and fears of abandonment.
Group Mediation Model of
Family Court Service
Alameda County, California
Program Description
• Court-based program for parents and children in custody and access disputes, to
provide therapeutic emotional help children caught in the middle, and encourage
parents to comply with existing court orders and reduce ongoing conflict
(Schepard 1998).
• Eligible participants must have failed twice at mediation, and children must
appear to be suffering. Screened by court employees, and about one-half
attending by court order.
• Eight 90-minute weekly sessions.
• Separate parents’ and children’s sessions for first half of course, with fifth
session a joint one with parents, children and counsellors. Parents’ sessions
include therapeutic emotional help, which later segue into mediation.
• Joint sessions led by mixed-gender group counsellors
Program Evaluation
Nine-month follow-up showed men and women in the program were substantially
more cooperative, expressed less disagreement with each other, and were more
likely to resolve the disputed custody issues with their ex-partner than a control
group of similarly litigious parents. Domestic violence diminished to negligible
levels (Johnston 1997, cited in Schepard, 1998).
APPENDIX D
LIST OF INFORMANTS
- 121 -
A. COMMUNITY PROVIDERS AND PROGRAM EXPERTS
Brenda Bacon
School of Social Work
University of Manitoba.
Jim Bentley
Director, Community and Family Services
Yellowknife Health and Social Services Board
Yellowknife
(867) 920-4846
Carol Bertram
Director of Development
Rainbows
Barrie, Ont.
(705) 726-7407
Yvonne Blanchard
Executive Director
Nova Scotia Council for the Family
Halifax
(902) 422-1316
Bev Digout, Co-ordinator
Parenting Education Saskatchewan
214 - 510 Cynthia Street
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
(306) 934-2095
Rhonda Freeman
Families in Transition
Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto
(416) 595-9618
Elinor Gertner
Program Director
Jewish Child and Family Service (northern location)
Toronto
(905) 882-2331 ext. 232
- 122 -
Miriam Grassby
Miriam Grassby et Associés
Suite 1750
770 Sherbrooke St. W.
Montreal, QC
H3A 1G1
(514) 844-1550
Eric Hood
Division Head and Senior Psychiatrist
Toronto Family Court Clinic
(416) 595-6000 ext. 4994
Edward Kruk
School of Social Work and Family Studies
University of British Columbia
(604) 822-2383
Greg McCann-Beranger
Director
Community and Family Service of P.E.I.
Charlottetown
(902) 892-2441
Brad McKenzie
School of Social Work
University of Manitoba
417 Tier Building
(204) 474-8767
Steve Rauh
Manager
Giving Children Hope Program
The Family Centre of Winnipeg
Winnipeg
(204) 947-1401
Kathy Sinclair
Family Team Leader for Family Team
Community Mental Health Division
Child Health Program
Healthcare Corp. of St. John’s,
Newfoundland and Labrador
(709) 778-4925
- 123 -
Anne Smith
Executive Director
Family Services of Fredericton Inc.
Fredericton
New Brunswick
(506) 458-8211
Linda Wentzell
Regional Prevention Coordinator
Department of Community Services
Nova Scotia
(902) 424-3529
B. GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES
British Columbia
Shauna Morgan
Program Analyst
Family Justice Services
Attorney-General Department
(250) 356-7521
Alberta
Edith Delanghe
Solicitor
Court Services
Alberta Justice
(780) 427-4993
Saskatchewan
Ken Acton
Director
Mediation Services
Saskatchewan Justice
(306) 787-5749
Robbi Behr
Program Manager
Saskatchewan Justice Family Law Support Services
(306) 787-9417
- 124 -
Manitoba
Ron Bewski
Acting Director of Family Conciliation
Manitoba Justice Department
14th Floor
405 Broadway
Winnipeg R3C 3L6
204 945 7224
Ontario
Michelle Dwyer-Hunte
Coordinator
Family Mediation Services
Ontario Attorney General
(416) 326-0176
Lorraine Martin
Director of Counselling
Office of the Children’s Lawyer
Toronto
(416) 314-8066
Wilson McTavish
Children’s Lawyer
Attorney General
(416) 314-8011
Dena Moyal
Legal Director,
Personal Rights,
Office of the Children’s Lawyer
Toronto
(416) 314-8098
Quebec
Daniel Canozzi
Staff Mediator
Mediation Services (Les Centres jeunesse de Montréal)
(514) 393-2286
(514) 593-3974 (main number)
- 125 -
Lorraine Filion
Director
Mediation Services (Les Centres jeunesse de Montréal)
(514) 393-2286
(514) 593-3974 (main number)
Pierre Tanguay
Special Registrar’s Office
Ministère de la Justice
(418) 644-7706
Nova Scotia
Cheryl Hebert
Consultant, mediation ADR
Court Services Division
Department of Justice
(902) 424-2887
Karen Nichols
Program Coordinator
Family Court Division
Supreme Court of Nova Scotia
(902) 424-2616
Prince Edward Island
Frank Bulger
Family Court Counsellor
Family Court and Probation Services
Office of the Attorney General
(902) 368-6056
Jill Lightwood
Coordinator
Justice Resource Services
Justice and Corrections
Attorney General
(902) 368 4583
- 126 -
Newfoundland and Labrador
Cathy Foster
Family Counsellor
Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador
Unified Family Court
(709) 729-2322
Berkley Reynolds
Court Administrator
Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador
Unified Family Court
709 729 1864
New Brunswick
Michael Guravich
Operations Consultant
Program Support Branch
Court Services Division
New Brunswick Dept. of Justice
(506) 457-6952
Nunavut
Andrejs Berzins
Policy Counsel
Nunavut Department of Justice
(867) 975-6172
Yukon
Deanna McLeod
Project Officer
Child Support Guidelines
Yukon Department of Justice
(867) 667-3066
Northwest Territories
Janice Laycock
Policy Advisor
Northwest Territories Department of Justice
(867) 873-7772
- 127 -
Hawaii
Charlene Anaya
Kids First Coordinator
Family Court of the First Circuit
Office of the Director
The Judiciary—State of Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii 96811-3498
(808) 539-4291
Fax: (808) 539-4402
Hon. Douglas McNish
Second Circuit Court
2145 Main St.
Wailuku, HI 96793
(808) 244-2702
Fax: (808) 244-2704
