Families in Crisis: The Family Court Perspective

The Chief Justice, Family Court of Australia, explores the changing and challenged concept of family’ and the range of critical external pressures which impinge on families and inhibit their functioning. He then considers Family Court responses to issues of partner and child abuse, and recent legislative changes especially as they impinge on children.     

The New Zealand Family Court: its structure and process

SUMMARY. During the last decade the New Zealand Family Court has been central to the transformation of key aspects of Family Law. It has provided a forum for conciliation, thus enabling the resolution of family conflict without recourse to the formal adjudicative process. Conciliation, coupled with a diminution in the use of adversarial techniques by lawyers., have combined to take the bitterness and recrimination out of family breakdown. The Family Court has therefore succeeded in enhancing the welfare of children. These two articles are based on papers given to the Family Courts Campaign Conference, May 1989     

High Conflict Family Court Cases: Working for the Child's Best Interests

High levels of parental conflict in separated families can have a devastating impact on children and their development. This paper describes the challenges inherent in the notion of ‘the best interests of the child’ in high conflict cases. It proposes an ethical framework which can guide family therapy work through the labyrinth of adult interest towards solutions which promote the interests of these children. A case example illustrates how this framework is put into clinical practice.     

Putting asunder: the restructuring of the Australian Family Court

This article reviews the Australian Family Court system. In describing the history, the author argues that the system is still incomplete: each state or territory has a different division of labour between their own and the federal courts. The Australian system has been criticised, not least from senior members of the judiciary in Australia. But the author concludes that some of the criticisms are exaggerated, and the benefits have been ignored. The fundamental problem is still the low status and priority given to children and families by lawyers.     

Family preservation and child protection: The reality of Children's Court decision-making

Abstract

Ainsworth and Maluccio (Australian Social Work, December 1998) drew attention to the increased use of kinship care for children who need care away from their parents. This paper discusses the aim of family preservation, on which kinship care is predicated, and the challenges for legal decision-makers to meet this aim when children are before the courts in need of care and protection. It draws from findings of a study of magistrates' decision-making in child protection cases (Sheehan 1999). The paper provides examples of family situations that typically confront the Children's Court in Victoria and the court's response to them as it attempts to balance the importance of family ties and the reality of risk for a child; a reality that challenges valued beliefs about families and their ability to always care for their children.     

Family Court Mediation: New Zealand Practices and Perspectives

Family separation is increasingly being dealt with by counsellors trained in the skills of mediation, along with skills of counselling and therapy. Other professionals also offer mediation services. In New Zealand, special provisions exist in the Family Court system to minimise the trauma for families by using mediation services, with the special opportunity for a couple to enter a Mediation Conference chaired by a Family Court Judge. It is argued that mediation is different from counselling and therapy, but that mediation requires many of the skills of counselling. This has particular consequences for training and for multidisciplinary teamwork.     

Are Children Protected in the Family Court? A Perspective from Western Australia

Despite a landmark High Court judgement in the area of child sexual abuse allegations (M and M, 1988), a major concern in such cases seems to be the fear that mothers use false accusations against fathers as ‘weapons’ in custody and contact cases. This paper seeks to examine the validity of such views as they apply to Western Australia. In particular, it examines the belief that false accusations are rampant; the questionable nature of ‘parental alienation syndrome’, the belief that young children's accounts of abuse lack credibility, and the ignoring of the effect of abuse itself on the nature of a child's testimony. The paper argues that the principle of ‘protection of the child's best interests’ should not necessarily be equated with the child having access, even supervised access, with a parent previously accused of having abused the child.     

A Critical Analysis of Parental Alienation Syndrome and Its Admissibility in the Family Court

Abstract

Over the past three decades, parental alienation syndrome (PAS) has been proposed to explain behaviors by a child who refuses to spend time with a parent and actually denigrates that parent within the context of a child custody dispute. Although some mental health professionals and child custody evaluators, attorneys, and judges have been quick to accept and admit PAS as evidence in these disputes, there has been no consistent empirical or clinical evidence that PAS exists or that the alienator's behavior is the actual cause of the alienated child's behavior towards the target parent. This article attempts to help those working with custody issues understand how the PAS construct fails to meet scientific standards and should not be admissible in courts.     

Illuminating the Black Box From Within: Stakeholder Perspectives on Family Drug Court Best Practices

This article describes a mixed-methods, concept mapping study in an urban family drug court (FDC) designed to identify keys to FDC success from stakeholders’ perspectives. Participating FDC team members and clients developed a set of items they deemed integral to an FDC, thematically clustered the items, and then rated their relative importance. Using these data, cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling generated 6 themes perceived as contributing to positive outcomes. Resultant concept maps revealed that, compared to team members, clients view relational aspects of the FDC as more important. The findings point to implications for future research and social work practice.     

The Supreme Court and the Constitutional Convention

The cornerstone of sound social studies pedagogy is the ability of teachers to use materials that spur students to think critically, reflect honestly, and to participate purposefully and passionately. This article illustrates how elementary teachers can use select children's literature that prompts students to think critically about their geographic surroundings and encourages student-centered reflection and action.     

The Supreme Court and Race

The Supreme Court has attempted to redefine race relations for decades. This unfortunately turned into a quagmire from which it was able to extricate itself only by lowering the intensity of its moral rhetoric. In particular, the Fullilove case represented a welcome retreat from race-conscious social engineering.     

Death in the Family Implications for Family Development

This article attempts to integrate concepts from psychoanalytic literature on parent loss with concepts from family literature in order to demonstrate their compatibility. A case is described that suggests that family treatment for this patient population provides the optimal opportunity for comprehensive diagnosis and treatment planning. The patient and family were treated by one of the authors. The other author served as supervisor and consultant.     

Family problem solving: A case study

Abstract

Working with the families of young offenders may often be the best method of helping those young offenders to change. Sometimes, however, social workers and others who work with young offenders are reluctant to work with family groups because they may feel that they lack skills in family counselling. This article presents a case study which illustrates a family counselling intervention. The case study uses Family Problem Solving, a method which involves the adaptation of mainstream social work skills to work with families. It is anticipated that the article might be of interest to social workers who work with families but who feel apprehensive about counselling family groups.