Parenting Coordinator Training

5-Day Workshop

Thursday, May 17 and Friday, May 18, 2018,
Wednesday, June 20, 2018, and
Thursday, June 21 and Friday, June 22, 2018
9:00 am - 5:30 pm (each day)
CLEBC Boardroom, 500 – 1155 West Pender Street, Vancouver

Who should attend: All those wishing to offer parenting coordination as part of their client services: family lawyers, mediators, arbitrators, parenting coordinators, and mental health and collaborative professionals. Parenting coordination is a child focused-dispute resolution process offered to separated, divorced, and divorcing parents who need assistance to more effectively co-parent, minimalize parental conflict, and implement their parenting plan. All those wishing to apply to or remain on the BC Hear the Child Society Roster of non-evaluative child interviewers should attend Day 3.

Learning level: All levels

This 40-hour training is suitable for mental health professionals, mediators, and lawyers. Experienced family law lawyers, counselors, social workers, family therapists, and psychologists who have special training in mediating and arbitrating parenting disputes also require 40 hours of parenting coordinator training under the Family Law Act. Attending this 5-day training will satisfy the 40-hour requirement. No previous experience or knowledge of parenting coordination is required. The training will include discussions using case vignettes, audio-visual materials, demonstrations, and role plays.

The Program
Days 1 and 2 will cover the roles and functions of the parenting coordinator, the historical context, including the status of parenting coordination in Canada and the US, professional guidelines and training requirements, current research on effectiveness and inappropriate cases, and characteristics of high conflict families. Family violence and the implications for the PC process and the key components of the PC Order and PC Agreement will be addressed. Using case examples, the nuts and bolts of the process, including referral, intake, and contracting, the consensus building phase, involvement of collateral sources, and an overview of the arbitration phase will be discussed.

To prepare parenting coordinators for their role as a parent educator, the relevant social science literature research will be summarized. These topics include: the impact of separation/divorce on children and adolescents; consequences of parental conflict on children and adolescents and its impact on parenting and the quality of parent-child relationships; different types of parenting styles and effectiveness; impact of parent adjustment and fathering on child and adolescent adjustment; and developmental considerations for parenting time schedules for infants/toddlers, preschoolers, school-age children, and adolescents.

The focus on Day 3 will be the “Voice of the Child”. The social science research on the benefits and cautions of listening to the voices of children and adolescents will be reviewed; and various ways the child’s voice can be obtained and integrated into different dispute resolution options will be identified, such as child representation, mediation, assessment, parenting coordination, and judicial processes. The factors related to the reliability of the input provided by children and adolescents, including interviewer bias, memory, suggestibility, and maturity, will be discussed. Finally, a developmentally informed interview protocol will be introduced. 

All those wishing to apply to or remain on the BC Hear the Child Society Roster of non-evaluative child interviewers can attend Day 3 on its own.

If you register for only Day 3:

• BC Hear the Child Society recognizes 7.0 hrs from Day 3 towards the child interview skills portion of the basic training;
• BC Parenting Coordinator Roster Society recognizes 7.0 hrs from Day 3 towards the child interviewing portion of the PC basic training.

Days 4 and 5 will present a conceptual model of co-parenting work for high conflict co-parents. Disengagement through the structure of the parenting plan, and management of communication between co-parents are the essential components of this parenting coordination model. The nuts and bolts of constructing and management of a parallel parenting model including the use of email, shared parenting websites, and highly structured parenting coordination sessions will be explored and contrasted. Strategies for successful partnerships with other professionals typically involved in these cases will be explored. Participants will work with case vignettes that illustrate the ways that these cases can get derailed and pose challenges to effective case management. The last part of the presentation will address professional practice and professional risk management in this complex role.

*DISCLAIMER: In order to receive a certificate of completion at the end of the course, learners are required to participate fully in the course. "Full participation" is in the faculty's sole discretion. Activities such as reading the paper, watching videos on the computer, not being present, engaging in phone calls, and disrupting the class with irrelevant activities will demonstrate a lack of full participation.

You can also register for the separate workshop dates listed below:

Parenting Coordinator Training Day 1 and 2:
Thursday, May 17 and Friday, May 18, 2018

Parenting Coordinator Training Day 3 only:
Wednesday, June 20, 2018

Parenting Coordinator Training Day 4 and 5:  
Thursday, June 21 and Friday, June 22, 2018

**To register for the 3-day option (Day 1 to 3 or Day 3 to 5), please contact Customer Service at 604.893.2121 for special pricing.

Law Society of BC CPD Hours: 40 hours (a minimum of 2 hours will involve professional responsibility and ethics, client care and relations, and/or practice management)

BC Hear the Child Society recognizes 7.0 hrs from Day 3 towards the child interview skills portion of the basic training

BC Parenting Coordinator Roster Society recognizes 7.0 hrs from Day 3 towards the child interviewing portion of the PC basic training

Course Instructor
Arlene H. Henry, QC — Arlene H. Henry Law Corporation, Vancouver

Unable to attend without financial support? Learn about our Bursary Program and Easy Pay Plan.

CLEBC Programs Production Manager
Mary Kingston
mkingston@cle.bc.ca