The ADR Institute of Saskatchewan is excited to offer this virtual 5-day, 40-hour Parenting Coordination Training Course in November 2020. This training meets the Ministry of Justice’s new regulatory requirements, including for recognition on the Minister’s roster.
DATES:
Day 1 – Monday November 2
Day 2 – Tuesday November 3
Day 3 – Friday November 6
Day 4 – Monday November 16
Day 5 – Tuesday November 17
TIMES:
8:30 am to 5:30 pm each day (CENTRAL MOUNTAIN TIME)
FORMAT:
Via Zoom platform (or equivalent)
OVERVIEW 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 & bolts of the process, how to set up and manage a PC practice – including referral, intake, checklists, protocols. The consensus building phase, involvement of collateral sources, and an overview of the arbitration phase will be discussed. To prepare PCs 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, adolescents and adults; 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, schoolage children, and adolescents.
Day 3 will focus on the “Voice of the Child”. The social science research on the benefits & 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, with a particular emphasis on the parenting coordination 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.
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.