Family Court Services: A Reflection on 50 Years of Contributions

In 1963, a family going through divorce would have a very different experience than a family going through a similar situation today. Access to court services would have been extremely limited, both in terms of the number of services available and the scope of each of these services. In order to obtain a divorce in every state in the United States in 1963, establishment of fault was necessary. If there were children from the marriage, the legal presumption was that they would live with their mother. In discussing children, courts used the language of custody and visitation, and not the more humane (and now commonplace) terms of parenting arrangements and shared parenting plans. There were no mediators or parent coordinators. The family would not have been referred or mandated to a parent education course.

In the fifty years between 1963 and today, the family court landscape has entirely changed. In many jurisdictions, family court judges have access to a range of court services to refer parents to, from mediation, to parent education, to parenting coordination. Courts are more aware of and sensitive to issues of domestic and family violence and the special needs of nontraditional families. Bound by precedence, courts are generally not considered to be institutions which change rapidly and, in court time, fifty years is quite brief. How can one explain these changes? Certainly societal changes (e.g., the role of women in the workforce changed significantly since 1963 as did the number of people seeking divorce), overburdened civil court dockets, and legal changes (e.g., abrogation of the tender years doctrine and adoption of joint custody presumptions) all contributed to the need for courts to develop new ways of providing services but one cannot ignore the major role that the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC) played as a catalyst to support and expand the provision of innovative court services to litigants and their families. In fact, if one looks at the significant innovations in court services over the years, it is easy to see the correlation between presentations and discussions at AFCC conferences, which then developed into articles or special issues of Family Court Review and ultimately led to the development of guidelines, standards, or best practices either led by AFCC or with AFCC as a major contributor.

In the pages that follow, I will examine these contributions by reviewing them in the context of the major changes in family court services over the past five decades. The article will conclude with some speculation about the future.

Conciliation Services

In the early 1960s (and the early days of AFCC), family court services took the form of conciliation courts. Led by California,1 the birthplace of AFCC, conciliation services were provided by mental health counselors who were court employees. The purpose of conciliation court was “to protect the rights of children and to promote the public welfare by preserving, promoting, and protecting family life and the institution of matrimony, and to provide a means for the reconciliation of spouses and the amicable settlement of domestic and family controversies.”2 As explained by AFCC founding member, Meyer Elkin, in 1973, the focus of conciliation services went beyond a “reconciliation function.” He noted that, “[i]f in the course of such service a family does not reconcile, this does not mean that the counselor's concern and responsibility to the family is at an end. In such cases, we still offer a very important and worthwhile service in our counseling efforts to help the family close the book gently.”3

AFCC's first conference was attended exclusively by Californians involved in conciliation court functions and the first issues of what later became Family Court Review were similarly targeted to conciliation counselors in California. By the second conference, at which the focus remained on conciliation, participants came from a variety of states. By 1965, nineteen states had developed some form of court-connected counseling services.4 It is from these initial services that the seeds were planted for assisting families in a new way.

Custody and Visitation Mediation

The focus on reconciliation changed by the end of the 1960s as no-fault divorce statutes began to be adopted and the women's movement brought even greater attention to the fact that marriages sometimes end. Through AFCC, conciliation court counselors and family court judges had already been gathering to discuss how to help parties “terminate the marriage with dignity, minimal trauma, and without the need to strike back.”5 Mediation, with its emphasis on parties exercising self-determination after having had an opportunity to talk, was the next logical development. It provided parents with a time and a place to discuss how to dissolve their marriage, while still attempting to reduce the emotional and economic costs of resolving custody disputes and improving parent–child relationships.

By the early 1970s, experimentation began in the use of mediation through the courts for custody and visitation disputes. As legislation moved from the tender years doctrine and the primary caregiver presumption emerged, judges became increasingly interested in services such as mediation to help resolve issues related to custody and visitation. In 1980, California became the first state to allow judges, by state statute, to mandate that parents participate in mediation.6

Interestingly, the adoption of this statute in California followed a pre-conference program at the winter 1979 AFCC meeting entitled “Mediation and Divorce Settlement.” As Alison Taylor describes, the event underscored the “considerable confusion” amongst those who were offering mediation services about such things as “the essential characteristics of mediation, the differences between mediation and therapy, and the rights of children to make decisions in the mediation process.”7 It is significant to note that the discussion took place at an AFCC gathering, and Taylor's article arguing for the development of “a theory of mediation … as a consistent, definable process to which all practitioners can ascribe”8 was published in Conciliation Courts Review. In the years that followed, AFCC would continue to foster discussion of mediation both at conferences and in the pages of Conciliation Courts Review (and later in Family Court Review),9 which enabled courts to take advantage of the experimentation attempted in one court in order to capitalize on the lessons learned. Not surprisingly, by 1995, thirty-three states had adopted statutes or court rules mandating mediation in contested custody and visitation cases.10

Another critical role that AFCC played in the development of mediation was to secure research grants and to provide a forum for presentation and discussion of research in the context of family services.11 Traditionally, courts are challenged to find the resources to complete research, despite having the advantage of possessing a critical number of events to study. Given difficult budget decisions, courts inevitably opt to provide services rather than conduct studies. AFCC, through its interdisciplinary commitment, was able to provide a forum for judges, mental health and legal service providers, court administrators, and researchers to meet, review current research, consider research implications, and create new innovations.

Finally, for services to obtain credibility, standards are necessary. Beginning in 1982, AFCC set the stage for mediation to move to the next level by convening three national symposia, which resulted in the production of the first set of model standards of practice for family and divorce mediators. AFCC was also responsible for co-convening a broad-based reexamination of the Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation in 1998,12 which “increase[d] public confidence in an evolving profession and provide[d] guidance for its practitioners.”13 After widespread distribution of the drafts and a series of symposia at which comments were considered, the standards were finalized in 2000 and later adopted by AFCC, the ABA, and the Association for Conflict Resolution.

Over the years, AFCC has been instrumental not only in supporting the development and use of mediation in divorce and custody situations, but also in expanding the use of mediation to child protection cases, nontraditional families, guardianship, and others. At the same time, the organization has been willing to confront and address the serious challenges relating to the use of mediation, especially in the context of high-conflict families and with families for whom domestic violence14 is prevalent.15

Advocates who work with survivors of domestic violence have traditionally been critical of mediation in custody and visitation cases because of their concern about the impact of intimidation on a process which relies so heavily on party self-determination. On the other side, proponents of mediation suggest that there is a need for a much greater sense of nuance in dealing with domestic violence situations, which are not all the same.16 As part of the 1989 annual conference, AFCC sought to engage in a discussion of these difficult issues at a preconference symposium on mediation and domestic violence.17 In 1992, AFCC received a grant from the State Justice Institute to collaborate with The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. to study the impact of mediation on custody disputes involving allegations of violence.18

This work culminated in the Wingspread Conference on Domestic Violence and Family Courts held in February 2007. The significance of that conference and the articles that were written after the conference was the intentional bringing together of family court professionals and domestic violence advocates to collaborate in order to improve court services to families.19 Participants in the conference included “members of the domestic violence advocacy community; family court judges and administrators; lawyers and mental health, dispute resolution, and other professionals working in the family court system; and academics from the fields of law and social science.”20 As a result of this work, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and AFCC committed to continue to work jointly and to engage others to:

1. Identify characteristics and variables significant for choosing appropriate interventions and outcomes for families, explore the existence of patterns of domestic violence and investigate hypotheses related to them, and develop a shared vocabulary to describe those characteristics, variables, and patterns;
2. Heighten the cultural awareness of professionals who work with families experiencing domestic violence;
3. Develop effective and culturally sensitive screening and assessment tools and protocols;
4. Identify best practices for intervention and provision of services;
5. Address how to make truly child-centered custody and visitation determinations that provide for children's safety and security.21

The importance of this work is reflected in changes that were made to court services. Many mandatory mediation regimes include exceptions for situations involving domestic violence.22 The Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation explicitly address situations involving domestic abuse.23 Also, basic and continuing education programs for mediators routinely include learning objectives on domestic violence. While one can still hear voices expressing the extremes on this issue, it is more common for the discussion of mediation and domestic violence to reflect a nuanced understanding that mediation is not appropriate for all family situations and not all situations involving domestic violence are per se inappropriate for mediation.

Parenting Coordination24

Domestic violence is not an issue for all high-conflict families for which court services are needed. One of the clearest examples of the critical role that AFCC has played in innovative court services is found in tracing the development of parenting coordination. Christie Coates, the president of AFCC from 1998 to 1999, made the following observation about AFCC's role in shaping new ideas and attempting to better serve high-conflict families:

In the 1990s some Colorado colleagues began meeting to study high-conflict families, based on Janet Johnston's25 work. We were beginning to realize that mediation wouldn't resolve everything and we thought custody evaluations were not always the answer. I was doing med-arb. In California they were calling it special mastering. We presented our work in 1994 at the first AFCC Custody Evaluation Symposium. We called it assessment-based PC [parenting coordination].26

Parenting coordination is an alternative dispute resolution process designed to assist high-conflict families and the courts by combining assessment, education, case management, conflict resolution, and, sometimes, decision-making functions. It is described in the AFCC pamphlet Understanding the Parenting Coordination Process as:

A parenting coordinator (PC) is typically appointed by a court order or private consent agreement to help parents implement, modify, and comply with the parenting plan. PCs assist parents by providing: (1) education about co-parenting and parental communication; (2) the psychological and developmental needs of the children; (3) strategies to manage conflict and reduce the negative effects on children; and (4) effective post-separation parenting. To further assist parents and children, PCs facilitate referrals to community providers when necessary and collaborate with other professionals who may already be involved with the family.27

In 2000, the ABA Section of Family Law and the Johnson Foundation convened an interdisciplinary conference to address the issues embedded in high-conflict custody cases.28 The stated goal of the conference was “to develop recommendations for changes in the legal and mental health systems to reduce the impact of high-conflict custody cases on children.”29 Recognizing the importance of collaboration between the bench, bar, and mental health professionals, the conference report identified operational principles for each group that could “form the basis of policy and procedural changes.”30 Among the services which the group identified that “should be available to all families … through the court or referrals”31 were “[p]arenting monitors, coordinators, or masters who are trained to manage chronic, recurring disputes, such as visitation conflicts, and to help parents adhere to court orders.”32

By 2001, fourteen states had implemented some form of parenting coordination. Despite this interest, parenting coordination was not without its critics. Specific concerns include those related to the jurisdiction of the court to appoint a parenting coordinator after the case has technically concluded,33 inappropriate delegation of judicial duties,34 and the amount of access parenting coordinators should have to nonparties, children, and privileged information.35 To ensure the careful consideration of concerns so that parenting coordination would develop as a process with integrity, AFCC President Denise McColley appointed a Task Force on Parenting Coordination36 in 2001. The task force discussed creating model standards, but given the relative youth of the programs, decided that a more useful outcome would be the identification and publication of implementation issues along with “the manner in which jurisdictions that [had already adopted] parenting coordination [had] resolved those issues.”37 In 2003, the task force published “Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues.”38 Subsequent to this publication, AFCC President George Czutrin appointed a new task force and charged it with developing model standards of practice for parenting coordination. These guidelines were published in 200539 and reflected the task force's determination that it still was too early to set standards. Instead, the document provided “very specific and detailed recommendations for training and best practices”40 with a clear understanding that in order for parenting coordination “to be accepted as a credible professional role, certain minimum guidelines of conduct and best practices must be articulated and followed.”41

As a result of the intentional work that AFCC accomplished, first as an incubator for new ideas, then collecting and disseminating implementation assistance, and finally by offering both minimum guidelines and guidance in best practices, parenting coordination has developed as an important service option for assisting high-conflict families. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the parenting coordination process, it was appropriate that AFCC—whose mission makes clear that it is “an interdisciplinary, international association of professionals dedicated to improving the lives of children and families through the resolution of family conflict”42—stepped forward to take on this task. The rapid growth and acceptance of parenting coordination is attributable to AFCC's work in this area.

Parent Education

At the same time that courts began to experiment with mediation of custody and visitation disputes, attention was focused on how best to prepare parents for the consequences of parental conflict and the divorce adjustment process.43 Operating under a variety of names and in a range of manners, these activities are generically known as parent education programs.44 Similar to its involvement with other court services, AFCC set out to provide structured opportunities for providers to share their experiences and to learn about the latest research. From 1994 to 2008, AFCC convened a biannual International Congress on Parent Education and Access Programs. Held at the same time, but separately from AFCC's International Symposium on Child Custody Evaluations, the Parent Education Congresses featured plenary sessions on the latest research.45 Sessions at the Congress included opportunities to build or improve skills, such as working with Latino Parents (2008) and Non-Traditional Families (2006), and ways to expand services, such as Parent Education as Part of a Thriving Practice (2008) and Maintaining a Quality Program (2006).

By 2001, parent education had achieved sufficient recognition such that twenty-eight states had established parental education programs statewide and an additional seven states had local court rules governing these programs.46 Unlike mediation and parenting coordination, however, parent education providers did not develop into a cohesive practitioner group with an interest in developing standards or other quality-control mechanisms. In fact, after the initial proliferation in the 1990s, “the surge of enthusiasm, innovation and activity of the parent education movement has diminished over the past decade.”47

A complete discussion of the possible reasons for this apparent contradiction (widespread use accompanied by a lack of interest in research, refinement, and advancement) goes beyond the scope of this article, but the parent education experience is an example of the importance of having an interested, willing group to partner with AFCC. As a convener, AFCC was not in a position to demand continued involvement of the practitioners. Instead, AFCC provided the venue (the conferences), the evaluative opportunities (through Family Court Review), and the resources to explore developing guidelines and standards until they were no longer desired. In 2008, AFCC discontinued hosting the Congress on Parent Education and Access Programs.

The Future

Broadly speaking, services can be offered solely via the court's budget, in a public–private partnership (with the provision of services shared between full-time or contract court employees and private individuals paid by the parties) or exclusively via the private sector. In light of the severe budgetary constraints courts have been under for the last several years, these alternative sources of funding are highly significant in terms of which services remain viable and available. Court services that rely exclusively on state court funding have been limited or in some cases eliminated entirely. Data on the current status of state courts is sketchy at best. According to the National Center for State Courts staff researcher Nora Sydow, there “appears to be a gap in the data surrounding the current state of family court services.”48 She underscored that funding remains a hurdle for family court services, particularly today given the current funding crisis in the courts, and believes that many courts are relying on volunteers (or other alternative methods) for their family court services.49

While it is unclear what services will survive and how they will be offered, there is no doubt that families will continue to need family court services and a return to a 1963 type of experience is both undesirable and unlikely. There also is wide consensus that not all families are the same and thus a range of possible interventions is required.

One option gaining some traction is triage or differentiated case management in family court services. The notion is that it is both more efficient and better for families to be referred to appropriate services on the front end, rather than to require all families to participate in tiered services beginning with mediation and only moving on to more intrusive processes if mediation is unsuccessful. Peter Salem makes a compelling argument in his 2009 article, The Emergence of Triage in Family Court Services: The Beginning of the End for Mandatory Mediation?, 50 asserting that the assumptions which spurred the growth and acceptance of mandatory mediation for families are no longer true. Specifically, court-connected mandatory mediation is no longer able to fully deliver on its promise of party self-determination and secondly, the alternatives to mediation are both more numerous and are not nearly as negative as they once were.51 Salem notes that the development of Collaborative law, Cooperative law, and unified family courts have changed the nature of the litigation process.52 With respect to mediation's promise, Salem says:

If mediators lack sufficient time to conduct mediation, it is not possible to honor, protect and nurture parties' self-determination; to conduct a mediation process in which parties can fully express their views and develop their own agreements; to help parents work together; and to help them understand the impact of conflict on their children. And there is little disagreement about the lack of resources.53

Salem's thesis is not universally embraced. But that is not what is significant about the thesis. What AFCC has demonstrated over the past fifty years is that what is important is that new ideas have a place to be considered, debated, and explored. Many will then be piloted, discussed, and evaluated. Some will then be discarded; others will evolve into other ideas, which will in turn be piloted and evaluated. Some will even survive to be the subject of improved standards. For the past fifty years, AFCC has been the incubator of new ideas; convener of critical discussion; publisher of research; and developer of guidelines, best practices, and standards. We all will benefit if the AFCC continues to serve that important function for the next fifty years.

Notes

1. 1

   The California Conciliation Court Act was enacted in 1939 and was first implemented in Los Angeles County.

2. 2

   Family Conciliation Court Law, 1939 Cal. Stat. 2261-62, codified as Cal. Fam. Code § 1731 (1939) (repealed in 1980).

3. 3

   Meyer Elkin, Conciliation Courts: The Reintegration of Disintegrating Families, 22 Fam. Coordinator 63, 64 (1973).

4. 4

   AFCC, History, AFCCNet.org (2012), http://www.afccnet.org/About/History.

5. 5

   Cal. Fam. Code § 1731 (1939).

6. 6

   Id. § 3170(a) (originally enacted as Cal. Civ. Code § 4607 (West 1983)).

7. 7

   Alison Arnold Taylor, Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Mediation, 19 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 1, 1 (1981).

8. 8

   Id.

9. 9

   In the early 1980s, articles were aimed at describing mediation services and implementation strategies. See Maxine Baker-Jackson et al., Common Problems in the Mediation of Child Custody Disputes, 22 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 21 (1984); Elizabeth A. Comeaux, A Guide to Implementing Divorce Mediation Services in the Public Sector, 21 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 1 (1983); Kendall D. Johnson, Factors Predicting the Outcome of Divorce Mediation, 22 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 31 (1984); Elizabeth J. Koopman & E. Joan Hunt, Divorce Mediation: Issues in Defining, Educating and Implementing A New and Needed Profession, 21 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 25 (1983); Hugh McIsaac, Court-Connected Mediation, 21 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 49 (1983); Jessica Pearson et al., A Portrait of Divorce Mediation Services in the Public and Private Sector, 21 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 1 (1983). Later exploration included research findings and more critical pieces. See A. Elizabeth Cauble et al., A Case Study: Custody Resolution in Hennepin County, Minnesota, 23 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 1, 15, 27 (1985); Elizabeth J. Koopman et al., Child Related Agreements in Mediated and Non-Mediated Divorce Settlements: A Preliminary Examination and Discussion of Implications, 22 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 19 (1984); Margaret Little et al., A Case Study of The Custody Mediation Service of the Los Angeles Conciliation Court, 23 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 1 (1985); Eleanor Lyon et al., A Case Study: The Custody Mediation Services of the Family Division ; Connecticut Superior Court, 23 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 15 (1985); Donald Saposnek et al., How Has Mediation Fared? Research Findings of the First Year's Follow-up, 22 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 7 (1984). By the late 1980s, articles continued to focus on empirical research and the development of standards. See Muriel Brotsky et al., Joint Custody Through Mediation—Reviewed: Parents Assess Their Adjustment 18 Months Later, 26 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 53 (1988); Amiram Elwork & Mervin R. Smucker, Developing Training and Practice Standards for Custody Mediators, 26 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 21 (1988); Howard H. Irving & Michael Benjamin, Divorce Mediation in a Court-Based Fee for Service Agency: An Empirical Study, 26 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 43 (1988); Alison Taylor, Shared Parenting—Is It Working? Reflections by a Court Service Mediator, 27 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 7 (1989); Melanie Trost et al., Mandatory Mediation: Encouraging Results for the Court System, 26 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 59 (1988). If one were to look at the more recent editions of Family Court Review, there are fewer articles written about mediation. Instead, special issues have focused on Children of Incarcerated Parents (2012), Alienated Children in Divorce and Separation (2010), Substance Abuse and Addiction in Family Court (2009), and Child Protection in the 21st Century (2003), to name a few.

10. 10

    Peter Salem & Ann L. Milne, Making Mediation Work in a Domestic Violence Case, 17 Fam. Advisor 35 (1995).

11. 11

    See, e.g., Peter Salem & Ann Milne, The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts: Forty Years of Leadership and Interdisciplinary Collaboration, 41 Fam. Ct. Rev. 147, 150 (2003) (showing the effects of mediation on custody and visitation disputes in courts in Connecticut, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis).

12. 12

    Additional convening organizations included the Family Law Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) and the National Council of Dispute Resolution Organizations, which, in turn, included the Academy of Family Mediators, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution, the Conflict Resolution Education Network, the National Association for Community Mediation, the National Conference on Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution, and the Society of Professionals in Dispute Resolution. Participants in the symposia included representatives from each of these organizations, as well as the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, the ABA Commission on Domestic Violence, the California Administrative Office of the Courts, the Colorado Council of Mediators, the Connecticut Council of Mediators, the Delaware Federation for Dispute Resolution, the Family Mediation Council of Louisiana, the Family and Divorce Mediation Council of New York, the Florida Association of Professional Family Mediators, the Florida Dispute Resolution Center, Hofstra University School of Law, the Indiana Association of Mediators, Inc., the Mediation Association of Northwest Ohio, the Mediation Association of Tennessee, Mediation Council of Illinois, Montgomery County Mediation Center, New York State Council on Divorce Mediation, the New York State Dispute Resolution Association, the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators, the Tennessee Superior Court ADR Commission, the State Bar of Wisconsin ADR Section, the Supreme Court of Ohio Dispute Resolution Program, the Agreement Zone, and the Wisconsin Association of Mediators. The symposia resulted in the final version of the Standards.

13. 13

    AFCC, Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation at ii (2000). These standards were meant to replace the 1984 Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation and the ABA Standards of Practice for Lawyer Mediator in Family Law Disputes.

14. 14

    Domestic violence includes a variety of behaviors, but in the family court context it generally is considered to include “a pattern of coercive behavior aimed at the control and intimidation of an intimate partner.” Andrew I. Schepard, Children, Courts and Custody: Interdisciplinary Model for Divorcing Families 90 (2004).

15. 15

    See Janet R. Johnston & Nancy Ver Steegh, Historical Trends in Family Court Response to Intimate Partner Violence: Perspectives of Critics and Proponents of Current Practices, 51 Fam. Ct. Rev. 67–77 (2013), for a more detailed discussion of the evolution of how cases with domestic violence have been handled. An abbreviated discussion is included here because of the importance of this topic to the development of court services.

16. 16

    At the Wingspread Conference, attendees discussed the following categories, but acknowledged that the lack of common vocabulary made it impossible to reach complete consensus: violence used by a perpetrator in the exercise of coercive control over the victim, violent resistance or self-defense, violence driven by conflict, separation-instigated violence, and violence stemming from severe mental illness. Nancy Ver Steegh & Clare Dalton, Report from the Wingspread Conference on Domestic Violence and Family Courts, 46 Fam. Ct. Rev. 454, 458–59 (2008).

17. 17

    Salem & Milne, supra note 11, at 151.

18. 18

    The research study proposed to compare the use of mediation and custody evaluation procedures in custody and visitation disputes involving domestic abuse in Portland, Oregon and Minneapolis, Minnesota. For a variety of reasons, the number of cases was smaller than had been planned, so the study was modified to examine the characteristics of those who completed a screening instrument. Lisa Newmark et al., Domestic Violence and Empowerment in Custody and Visitation Cases, 33 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 30, 33–34 (1995).

19. 19

    Peter Salem & Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, Beyond Politics and Positions: A Call for Collaboration between Family Court and Domestic Violence Professionals, 46 Fam. Ct. Rev. 437, 439 (2008). It is worthwhile to note that the authors of this article were the executive director of AFCC (Peter Salem) and Billie Lee Dunford-Jackson, who practiced family law for sixteen years in private practice, helped found a shelter for battered women and their children, represented domestic violence victims in civil and family court, and worked as co-director of the Family Violence Department of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Ms. Dunford-Jackson is now retired.

20. 20

    Ver Steegh & Dalton, supra note 16, at 455.

21. 21

    Id. at 469.

22. 22

    See, e.g., Fla. Stat. § 44.102(2)(c) (2005) (“A court under rules adopted by the Supreme Court: In circuits in which a family mediation program has been established and upon a court finding a dispute, shall refer to mediation all or part of custody, visitation, or other parental responsibility issues as defined in s. 61.13. Upon motion or request of a party, a court shall not refer any case to mediation if it finds there has been a history of domestic violence that would compromise the mediation process” (italics added)).

23. 23

    Standard X of the Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation states, “A family mediator shall recognize a family situation involving domestic abuse and take appropriate steps to shape the mediation process accordingly.” Note, Model Standards of Practice for Family and Divorce Mediation, 39 Fam. & Conciliation Cts. Rev. 121, 132 (2001). The standard goes on to suggest that mediators have appropriate training and that some cases are not suitable for mediation because of “safety, control or intimidation issues.” Id. In addition, the standards enumerate measures a mediator should take if domestic abuse “appears to be present,” which ranges from establishing appropriate security arrangements, conducting the mediation entirely in separate sessions, and encouraging a representative and support person to participate with the victim at mediation to suspending or terminating the mediation session if necessary. Id.

24. 24

    The umbrella term parenting coordination includes processes which go by a variety of names, “including: ‘special master’ in California, ‘med-arbiter’ in Colorado, ‘wiseperson’ in New Mexico, ‘custody commissioner’ in Hawaii, and ‘family court advisor’ in Arizona.” Parenting Coordination: Implementation Issues: April 30, 2003 AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, 41 Fam. Ct. Rev. 533, 533 n. 3 (2003) [hereinafter Task Force].

25. 25

    Researcher, former associate editor of FCR.

26. 26

    Peter Salem, Reflection of Leadership: The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, 51 Fam. Ct. Rev. 10–19 (2013).

27. 27

    AFCC, Understanding the Parenting Coordination Process (2011), available at http://www.afccnet.org/ResourceCenter/ResourcesforFamilies/ProductID/10.

28. 28

    ABA Fam. L. Sec. & Johnson Found., High Conflict Custody Cases: Reforming the System for Children-Conference Report and Action Plan, 34 Fam. L.Q. 589 (2000).

29. 29

    Id.

30. 30

    Id. at 590–591.

31. 31

    Id. at 596.

32. 32

    Id.

33. 33

    Task Force, supra note 224, at 541.

34. 34

    Id. at 543–544.

35. 35

    Id. at 547.

36. 36

    Initially, the Task Force was named the AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination and Special Masters, but Special Masters was dropped from the name in favor of using the more generic term Parenting Coordination. Id. at 533.

37. 37

    Id. at 533.

38. 38

    Id.

39. 39

    Guidelines for Parenting Coordination, Afccnet.org, http://www.afccnet.org/Portals/0/PublicDocuments/Guidelines/AFCCGuidelinesforParentingcoordinationnew.pdf. (last visited Sept. 13, 2012).

40. 40

    Id. at 3.

41. 41

    Id.

42. 42

    AFCC, Mission, Vision, and Values, Afccnet.org (2012), http://www.afccnet.org/About/MissionVisionValues.

43. 43

    According to Andrew Schepard, one of the first court-affiliated educational programs was founded in Kansas in 1978. Andrew Schepard, Children, Courts and Custody 68 (2004).

44. 44

    See id. at ch. IV: Parents Are Forever III.

45. 45

    For example, the 2008 Congress plenaries were entitled “Domestic Violence Differentiation: The Impact on Parent Education Program” and “Stripped Down or Fully Loaded: Can Courts Deliver Parenting Programs that Change the Impact of Divorce on Children?” The 2006 opening plenary featured “The Research on Children of Separation and Divorce.”

46. 46

    Solveig Erickson & Nancy Ver Steegh, Mandating Divorce Education Classes: What Do the Parents Say?, 28 Wm. Mitchell L. Rev. 889, 895–96 (2001).

47. 47

    See Peter Salem et al., Taking Stock of Parent Education in the Family Courts: Envisioning a Public Health Approach, 51 Fam. Ct. Rev. 135–151 (2013) (noting that parent education programs are still operating in forty-six states).

48. 48

    E-mail from Nora Sydow, Staff Researcher, National Center for State Courts, to Sharon Press, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Dispute Resolution Institute at Hamline University School of Law (May 1, 2012) (on file with author).

49. 49

    Id.

50. 50

    Peter Salem, The Emergence of Triage in Family Court Services: The Beginning of the End for Mandatory Mediation?, 47 Fam. Ct. Rev. 371 (2009).

51. 51

    Id. at 376.

52. 52

    Id. at 379.

53. 53

    Id. at 377.

Biography

• Sharon Press serves as the director of the Dispute Resolution Institute and associate professor of law at Hamline University. Previously, she served for eighteen years as director of the Florida Dispute Resolution Center where she was responsible for the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs associated with the state courts. She is the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the Mary Parker Follett Award for Excellence and Innovation in Dispute Resolution presented by the Association for Conflict Resolution (ACR) and CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution's Special Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field and Future of Dispute Resolution. She is a Florida Supreme Court–certified county and family mediator. She coauthored the textbook Mediation Theory and Practice with Alfini, Sternlight, and Stulberg. Her scholarship has focused on mediation ethics and institutionalization of ADR. She served on the committee that redrafted the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators (2005) and as vice-chair for ACR's Pre-Dispute Arbitration Task Force. She has worked with numerous U.S. states contemplating the use of court-connected mediation. Internationally, she has done work in Argentina, Haiti, Hungary, Jordan, Spain, Uruguay, and the Caribbean.