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In April of this year, Debra Rodrigues, Dr. Dan Ashbourne, and Dr. Kim Harris presented a comprehensive three-day training entitled “Meeting and Interviewing Children for ADR”.   The three trainers have extensive experience working with children and families involved with the family and child protection legal systems.

The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada is a signatory, underscores that hearing from children is not just something that is respectful of children or that enhances decision-making; children have a right to be given an opportunity to express their views in all matters affecting them, and to have those views given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity. Ontario’s new Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017, which came into force on April 30, 2018, entrenches this right in child protection matters, requiring that all decisions that are made “in a child’s best interest” include consideration of “the child’s views and wishes, given due weight in accordance with the child’s age and maturity, unless they cannot be ascertained”.  Finally, there is a growing awareness among family law professionals that children’s participation in family law decision-making needs to be better enabled and supported.

From our perspective, a key barrier to children’s involvement in family law and child protection processes has been a lack of training for professionals on how best to include children. To this end, Debra Rodrigues initiated and prepared training that not only teaches interview skills but provides a thorough framework from which to complete the process of obtaining the Voice of the Child for ADR processes. She developed a 12-step Voice of the Child Report (VCR) process to teach professionals how to bring children’s voices into ADR processes, including mediation, collaborative law, parenting coordination, Family Group Conferences, etc. Indeed, the participants in our training reflected this broad range of professional experience and, as a result, we had enriched discussions regarding the many challenging topics associated with this work.

Dr. Rachel Birnbaum was our guest speaker on the first day and she provided an academic perspective on the issue by sharing her Ontario-based research on the Voice of the Child.  On the third day, Carolyn Leach joined the training team, offering insights and practical interviewing techniques from the perspective of child’s counsel.

Our belief is that family law professionals working directly with children must have a solid understanding of children’s development, how children are impacted by separation and divorce, and the steps we can teach to parents to support their children through this difficult transition. We discussed other ways that children can be supported when their parents’ capacity to attend to the needs of their children is diminished by the issues of separation and divorce.  As such, the first segments of our workshop focused on these topics, and Dr. Dan Ashbourne and Dr. Kim Harris provided information about children’s development across the social, emotional, cognitive, and language areas. They discussed how these developmental changes must be evaluated in order to develop good interview techniques for children (including young children) as well as how to adjust them for children with special needs.

We then moved to the actual process of meeting and interviewing children, beginning with a discussion of both the benefits and the risks of including children in the process.  This discussion informed two critical aspects of the process, which we then explored in detail: assessing parental readiness to hear from children, and techniques for meeting with and interviewing children. Parental readiness is an essential, often overlooked aspect of the process and requires careful consideration.

In our view, meetings and interviews with children must be approached from the perspective that children should fully understand the purpose of the meeting or interview, what will happen to the information they share, and how it may or may not form part of the decision-making process. They should retain control over their participation and the information to be shared by being offered a fully confidential process (subject to the professional’s duty to report child abuse). We also focused on interview techniques that yield information from children that is rich in detail and most accurately reflective of a child’s true views.

The workshop included a practical framework for professionals to use involving the 12-Step VCR file management system, suggested templates for contracts, intake forms, consent forms, and the report. We developed best practice guidelines for the VCR and for interviewing children. As well, a completed sample of the VCR and a recorded demonstration are being prepared and will be distributed to all participants.

After three long days of active discussion and learning, the participants reported that they learned valuable information, very much appreciated the 12-step system, and their feedback about the training was quite positive. One participant emailed back the next business day to say she had already applied the skills she learned in an interview with a child that morning.

Authored by:

Dr. Dan Ashbourne, C. Psych., Director of the London Family Court Clinic.  He can be reached at dan.ashbourne@lfcc.on.ca

Dr. Kimberly Harris, C. Psych, London Family Court Clinic Director of Assessment Services. She can be reached at kim.harris@lfcc.on.ca

Debra Rodrigues, Director, Peel Counseling and Consulting Services. She can be reached at drodrigues@pccs.ca

This article was written for and published in the AFCC-O Spring 2019 newsletter.  Click here to download a copy.

Canada has witnessed ethnic shifts in migration, with 6,264,800 immigrants identifying themselves as a member of a visible minority group (2011 National Household Survey). Of this demographic, 65.1% were born outside of Canada. The Region of Peel is one of the most diverse ethno-cultural populations in Ontario, with a steady flow of newcomers. This reality underlines the need for inclusive community development and for all services to be culturally appropriate. New family models have emerged in Canada and parenting is evolving due to social change and   diverse cultural norms around parenting practices. This diversity and change justified the need for developing educational resources as preventive measures, and socio-legal support in the community, in consultation with community members with lived experience.

Collective Impact is a framework used by many community leaders who, together, are working on impacting systems to enhance community change. The Peel Parenting Collective (PPC) used the Collective Impact framework to work with community stakeholders, including parents, to develop innovative solutions to reduce parental stress. PPC’s goal was to increase healthy family relationships through improved positive communication skills and increased access to credible, consistent, and trusted parenting information and supports.

The PPC began through community conversations and visioning a half-day gathering designed as a “Community Conversation” to examine local parenting research, discuss new regional service maps, and explore new and different ways for agencies to provide parenting education and to work together. The interest and participation in the “Community Conversation” solidified the idea that there was an interest and need in Peel for the PPC to move the conversation forward. It strove to continue the community efforts to move “from fragmented action and results” to “collective action and deep and durable impact,” (Collective Impact framework, by John Kania and Mark Kramer, Stanford Social Innovation Review 2011).

Over a six year period, PPC grew from a five member Steering Committee to a collective of 26 member organizations spanning a variety of sectors, including social service, health, education, law (private/corporate), government, and peer-to-peer community based groups.

PPC launched into a local research project and published “Understanding Family Communication and Information Access Among Peel Families.”  The research solidified PPC’s understanding that children and youth are dependent on a loving, positive, knowledgeable, and supportive family environment to thrive, and parents, caregivers, and adult allies play a critical role in the overall development and emotional resilience of their children. High levels of stress experienced by parents and present in families can be an impediment to families thriving. This research also provided the growing PPC with direction for collective action using Human-Centred Design.

The PPC created a tool to support the PPC members in sharing common and consistent messages regarding positive family communication with their clientele. The pilot intervention projects, which included the “Have a Conversation” poster, the development of a PPC website, the PPC Digest, and a PPC Facebook account, provided  PPC members with common and consistent tools to share  positive family communication messages within their organizations and agencies, and measure the impact through a shared measurement tool.

Data was gathered and a report was written that included amazing results and impactful learnings.  PPC members worked together, taking advantage of each partner’s expertise and role in the community, to share evidence-based common and consistent messages within the community. Together, PPC helped build thriving families.

Key learnings from the PPC’s experimental and innovative process to an integrated and collaborative approach included:

• consistent messages being shared in effective, innovative, and relevant ways to diverse audiences on varied platforms;
• breaking down silos, and a collective agreement to work towards one goal to decrease parental stress and improve family relationships;
• being sensitive to the needs of many stakeholders by involving them in each step of the process, using human-centered design; and
• members learning from each other by looking over each other’s fences and sharing ideas and best practices.

The PPC hit a roadblock in 2017 due to lack of funding. Other collectives in the Region of Peel were also experiencing the same dilemma. As of today, there are no known collaborative groups using the collective impact framework in Peel.

The PPC is currently refocusing its efforts and has become a Networking and Professional Development Group, and is eager to continue to sharing ideas to learn from each other and to continue to help families thrive. Hopefully, the PPC experiment will go down in regional history as a revolutionary effort that built cross-sector collaboration to tackle complex parenting challenges.

Authored by:

Archana Medhekar, B. Sc. LL. M., Certified Family Law Specialist and Family Mediator practicing in Toronto, Ontario. You can reach her by e-mail at amlaw@amlaw.ca. Archana was a member of PPC and is a current  AFCC-O Board Member and Newsletter  Committee member

This article was written for and published in the AFCC-O Spring 2019 Newsletter.  Click here to download a copy.

Over the last two decades, I have been working in the field of family conflict resolution as a family lawyer and mediator.  I want to share my journey from local to global-acting locally with my gender equality work, and thinking globally for sustainable development and peacebuilding work.

Mediators Beyond Borders International

When I joined an international not-for-profit organization “Mediators Beyond Borders International” (“MBBI”), I committed to building a more peaceable world, to building local skills for peace, and to promoting mediation worldwide. I was attracted to MBBI for its people-centric approach and emphasis on collaboration and inclusiveness.

Through MBBI, I became part of a global network of peacebuilders. I learned the revolutionary concept of “Positive Peace”: “justice for all” that involves the unfolding of conflict in a constructive way, which is broader than “absence of violence”. Peace is the process of building resilient and just societies.

Consultative Status to United Nations

MBBI invited me to the United Nations (“UN”) Working Group. MBBI has a special NGO consultative status with the UN’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). This led me to participate in activities at the UN platform. In 2018, I was part of MBBI’s delegation for two major events held at the UN Headquarters in New York: Commission on the Status of Women (CSW62), and the High-Level Political Forum 2018 (HLPF).

Sustaining the Peace Agenda

The fundamental shift in the UN’s approach to peace and conflict came in April 2016 with the concept of “Sustaining Peace”, adopted in resolution of the Security Council and General Assembly. This new agenda required a change in  mindset from reactive to proactive. Although conflict prevention and Positive Peace are two sides of the same coin, the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has openly told the Security Council that the UN must be “bold and creative” in harnessing the avenues and capacities available for mediation and make prevention its priority.

Symbols of Peace and Non-Violence

When I stepped into the UN Headquarters in New York, I could feel history breathing through the iconic building. It reminded me why the UN is described as a “Parliament of Nations”, a voluntary forum created to avoid future wars through preventive diplomacy and dialogue amongst nations. The UN is built on three pillars: peace, human rights, and development.

At the public entrance, a sculpture captured my attention.   Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s “Non-Violence” was a gift of the Government of Luxembourg to the United Nations. It symbolizes non-violence by replicating the revolver with a knotted barrel, with the muzzle pointing upwards, standing tall for peace.  The “Meditation Room”, a quiet space dedicated to world peace, is known as “a room dedicated to silence in the outward sense and stillness in the inner sense.”

CSW62

The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a global policy-making body, dedicated exclusively to promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Commission’s mandate is to prepare recommendations on promoting women’s rights in the political, economic, civil, social, and educational fields. Representatives of Member States, UN entities, and NGO’s gathered at the UN Headquarters for the Commission’s annual session.

I attended CSW62 with two other Canadian delegates from MBBI, Mina Vaish and Tricia Morris. At the opening ceremony, the General Assembly Room heard statements from various countries sharing their national policies, legal frameworks, and strategies to accelerate progress on gender equality.

HLPF: Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, the General Assembly agreed on the Global Agenda 2030, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are the development targets for 2016 to 2030. The Agenda 2030 pledges “to leave no one behind”.

The Agenda 2030 explicitly recognizes the strong impact of violence and insecurity on development, and vice versa. Particularly, Goal 16 is to “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”.

In July 2018, I attended the High-Level Political Forum, which is the main UN platform on SDGs for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda at the global level.

Canada’s Voluntary National Review (VNR)

On July 17, 2018, Canada presented its first VNR Review report at the HPLF, which highlights Canada’s progress and action plan to achieve the 2030 Agenda. According to the SDG Index and Dashboards Report 2017, Canada ranks 17^th on SDG index ranking. However, Canada’s Voluntary National Review underscores the Canadian government’s commitment to implement all 17 SDGs.

Rule of Law and Women’s Participation

The Rule of Law is the bedrock upon which the UN is built. In 2012, this high-level declaration covered the importance of judicial systems to informal justice systems, and reaffirmed that the Rule of Law is indispensable for upholding peace and security, encouraging sustainable development, and respecting human rights.

The UN has also recognized that certain obstacles prevent women from accessing their legal rights, resulting in discrimination and inequality, which in turn hampers their ability to live free of violence and contribute to society as full and equal citizens.

The UN Security Council has also recognized the importance of increasing women’s participation in resolving conflicts and building peace, particularly at decision-making level, since its landmark Resolution 1325. The Sustaining Peace Agenda recognizes that women’s rights are vital to achieving peace and justice, so that all individuals can fulfill their potential with dignity and equality. New evidence from the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Broadening Participation Project shows that when women’s groups were able to effectively influence the process, a peace agreement was almost always reached and the agreement was more likely to be implemented. The project examined the roles of women’s groups (and other groups) in forty peace and transition processes. New statistical research involving a larger dataset also shows that women’s participation increases the probability that the peace agreement will last longer.

One important lesson I have learned from this volunteer work is that we have to break down the silos amongst various professions and take an integrated approach for sustainable development and peacebuilding.

Authored by:

Peacebuilding-Think globally act locallyArchana Medhekar, B. Sc. LL. M., is a Certified Family Law Specialist and Accredited Family Mediator practicing in Toronto, Ontario. She is a co-chair of the SDG Action Group of MBBI as High Level Political Forum (HLPF) 2019. You can reach her by e-mail at: amlaw@amlaw.ca. Archana is also an AFCC-O Board member, and Newsletter Committee member.

This article was written for and published in the AFCC-O Special Edition Fall 2018 Newsletter.  Click here to download a copy.