Proposals - Child Welfare
These proposals let family law lawyers discuss and vote on what changes they think should be made to the law or court procedures. The results can be viewed and shared with legislators and the Courts. The proposals put forth are written by member lawyers, and do not necessarily reflect the views of this website or its administrators. You can view more proposals or make a proposal yourself.
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 | Cynthia A. Murphy of C.A. Murphylaw (Alberta) | 5 Comments |
While practicing in BC, I hardly ever ran a trial in a child welfare matter. Instead, liberal use of mediation was used. The mediators were not lawyers but they had the mediation course as well as a specialized course in mediating child protection matters. The mediations include all parties, lawyers, social workers community support individuals, extended families, foster parents (sometimes) and elders. They could easily involve 8 to 12 participants or more. Almost all matters came to some resolution from these. Sometimes there would be more than one mediation during the course of the matter. Avoiding trial means the parents are not sitting in a courtroom hearing terrible things said about them which they find personally devastating. It frees up court and trial time for other matters. 89% in favour out of 18 votes | ||
