Interesting results from Canada on a programme called 'New Ways for Families'. Some Family Courts in Alberta are operating the programme cases under a three-year grant from their Provincial Ministry of Justice.
One of the two goals of the grant is to reduce court hearings – especially of high conflict divorce and separation cases that are clogging the courts worldwide. The other goal is to reduce family conflict in the community. All of this is being researched during the three years.
The cases are mostly referred to the New Ways program by court order, based on each individual judge’s belief it may become a high conflict case. The recommended standard is an easy bright line: is either party submitting a court application for a hearing to restrict the parenting of the other parent? (For example, supervised visitation, no contact orders or very limited time.) That has been the clearest early warning sign that a significant conflict is brewing Medicine Hat is now half-way through their 3-year grant, and is starting to see some dramatic results. During the first 8 months of the program, 58% of cases settled after going through the two counseling phases of New Ways, while the rest went on to have court hearings. However, these cases did not have a mandatory ADR method, such as mediation, after the counseling and before a court hearing (such as is required in California with Family Court Services mediations before any court hearing). During the past 7 months of the program, they have had a mandatory mediation (or Collaborative Divorce or other ADR method) and 89% of the cases settled out of court and only two went to court hearing. This reinforces the idea that potentially high conflict parents need structure and focus to actually settle their cases using their skills – but they can! The sample size is still small – approximately 50 cases – but the feedback is positive.
New Ways for Families is a structured parenting skills method with short-term (6 weeks, once a week) counseling to reduce the impact of conflict on the children in potentially high-conflict cases.Its “skills-building” counseling, which means that the focus is shifted from discussing the past at length and instead focusing on how to solve future problems.
Common sense suggests that such programmes would be likely to be of value to any family, particularly high conflict cases but in these times of austerity the financial resources required to roll-out such a programme nationwide would be immense.
Does anyone know of a similar programme being implemented as a pilot in England?
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