 Lesson 6 Support and Resources When parents separate, figuring out what to do next can be challenging. This lesson will look at how family justice counselors can help you, the benefits of mediation, and how to work with the other parent to develop a parenting plan. Family Justice Counselors Family Justice Counselors, or FJCs, are mediators who work in family justice centers and justice access centers across the province. The help FJCs provide to parents is free, so there's no charge for the services you receive from them. Let's take a look at what you can expect. It's important to note that they are not social workers, lawyers, or clinical counselors. They don't give legal advice or take sides, but are there to help you and the other parent sort out parenting decisions and arrangements for your child, whether you are separating or have already separated. These decisions may include where the children will live and how much child support will be paid. Family Justice Counselors may also refer you to other people in the community that might be helpful to your situation. It's important to every FJC that you feel supported, so you are welcome to bring a family member or friend to your initial meeting. As a Family Justice Counselor, we're really here for the families to assist them in working through issues that come up after separation and divorce. We're impartial in what we do, and so what that means is that we're not going to be taking the side of either of the people involved and we're not going to be making decisions for them. We really want to empower the families that we are working with to come together and reach agreements that would fit their particular family. We work with a variety of people, so it could be parents, step-parents, grandparents, other family members and caregivers that are involved in taking care of children. How Mediation Can Help Mediation is a chance for both of you to have a different kind of conversation about important issues that affect your child. You've got to put your kids first because you're always the mum and dad and it's going to play out one way or the other and you can either be in control of it as a mum and dad or you can let someone else define it. I'd much rather be their dad and their go-to guy than let someone else decide what the rules are. That's what their mum and I did. Twelve years later, I think we're seeing that there can be different ways of defining a family if you want to take that route or you can go the other way and you can have conflict and you can fight it out and you can achieve whatever you think you're going to achieve from there but there may be some collateral damage or debris that comes along the way and you have to be prepared for that as well. In my experience, I would say that those collaborative processes just it didn't make it easy, it didn't make it less painful but it was a kind of pain that was good pain that got us through to something that's been quite remarkable, quite beautiful something I wouldn't have even been able to imagine and if we had stayed stuck in thinking that we have to now hate each other be bad parents, do all the stuff that you sort of see in movies or things like that, I don't believe it's serving parents and most fundamentally I don't believe that that old story is serving our kids. You and the other parents still make the decisions but the FJC guides the conversation between you and keeps it focused on your child's needs which helps reduce the impact of the separation. So normally what I do is when parents have separated and they want to figure some things out so making parenting arrangements, deciding on maybe how often their child or children might go back and forth between their homes having an understanding about what kinds of decisions they'll continue to share maybe not share as they now parent from separate homes having an understanding about what their financial responsibilities are so when parents want to create a plan around that and they want to do it outside of the court process I'll try to help them figure out that plan. Mediation is a powerful tool for families to employ either along with the court process or before the court process. Using mediation lots of families never actually end up going to court as we understand separation is a very difficult process and it's a stressful time for everyone involved and so through mediation families have an opportunity to reach agreements and over time if they need to make changes to those agreements they can always use our services to do so and hopefully never ever have to go to court. The whole idea is that it empowers the people who are involved in the process. The mediator is not going to be making a decision we trust that the family members that are involved are the experts on what is best for their children and we want to bring that out and we want to allow them to come together and reach an agreement that saves time, that allows better communication between the family members and the role of family members is such that they will be connected for the rest of their lives because the kids are involved and so we want to build long-term relationships here. Mediation is going to help parents figure out how that communication can actually work with them. I mean I'll talk about different tools they could use and being able to communicate with each other and how to communicate when things get a little bit tricky and a little bit difficult. I'm there to help them have a conversation that's been proven difficult for them to have but ultimately they know their family best they know their children best and when they can make decisions on their own, solve their own problems it just allows them to move forward in a more positive way. It keeps the children away from the conflict. The children can move on with their relationship they can have an understanding that even though their parents might now live in different homes that doesn't change their relationship with each parent. What will mediation look like for you? Let's take a look at what you can expect. Usually what happens is that the first parent contacts our service or our center and an appointment is booked. I meet with that first parent. We talk about their circumstances, what they want help with we talk about their options at using mediation and I provide information. It's a really good opportunity for that parent to ask questions perhaps without the other person being there and then at the end of that appointment if I have permission from that person I'll contact or I'll reach out to the second parent and invite them in for a similar kind of appointment interview so that that person can also ask questions and me give information about the family law. Once we have met with each of the family members and the decision has been made to move towards mediation we would sign an agreement to mediate because confidentiality is a very important piece of mediation. We want to create a safe zone for the family members involved to be able to say what's important to them without having to worry about any of this information being used later in a court process. There are different ways for parties to mediate. Face-to-face mediation would be together in the same room. That's usually the most effective where you can really talk things out. In some situations you cannot be in the same room and in those situations you would do a shuttle mediation that's done over the phone. One person will be on the phone with the mediator then the combination will carry on with another phone call to the other person. There's also web-based mediation as well where people can be on a computer screen together with the mediator so that's sort of like being in the same room. When it's not possible or safe to mediate the family justice counselor can explain options for you and the other parent. So the times that mediation might not be appropriate is when there is cases of violence or excessive drug or alcohol use. In those cases I as a family justice counselor would most likely refer you to a lawyer to get some legal advice around that. The service that family justice counselors provides is free of charge. When people come in and perhaps English is not their first language our service has the ability to provide interpreters for them and they might have an interpreter at their separate or their individual meeting with me and of course then we can follow through with using an interpreter at their mediation. There is no cost for the services of an interpreter when working with an FJC.