Please click the following link for the Web site version:
http://afccnet.org/members/eNewsletter/2007apr_eNEWS.html
44th Annual Conference - Capital Hilton Sold Out
Alternate Hotel Reservations
The Capital Hilton is sold out on several nights during AFCC's 44th Annual Conference, May 30-June 2, 2007 in Washington, D.C. Prior to booking alternate hotel reservations, please check with the Capital Hilton for cancellations by calling (800) 445-8667 or (202) 393-1000. AFCC has made arrangements for alternate accommodations at the Hilton Garden Inn Downtown and the Hilton Washington Embassy Row at a special rate of $175 per night. Please identify yourself with AFCC to receive the special group rate. For more information, please follow the link below to the AFCC Conferences page and click "Alternate Hotel Reservations."
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Columbus Regional Training Conference
Call for Presenters Deadline Approaching
The Call for Presenters deadline for AFCC's Regional Training Conference, September 27-29, 2007 in Columbus, Ohio is almost here. If you are interested in participating as a presenter, please submit a proposal before April 23, 2007. The conference is cosponsored by the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) and will showcase three full days of program tracks designed for judges, mediators, custody evaluators, lawyers and parenting coordinators.
Call for Presenters (PDF)
AFCC Chicago Trainings in June
AFCC is offering two outstanding training programs for professionals who work with high conflict families. The program takes place at the Loyola Law Center in Chicago, Illinois. Joan B. Kelly, Ph.D., will present Parenting Coordination: Helping High Conflict Parents Resolve Disputes, June 18-19, 2007 and Christine A. Coates, M.Ed., J.D. will present Advanced Issues for Family Mediators: Beyond the Forty-Hour Training, June 20-21, 2007. Each training program is eligible for 12 CE hours for psychologists and both trainings are pending approval by the Illinois MCLE Board for 12 CLE credits. AFCC members receive a $65 discount per training.
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AFCC Board of Directors
The AFCC Nominating Committee hereby provides notice to the membership that the following members have been nominated to serve a three-year term on the Board of Directors beginning July 1, 2007:
View nominations...
CAADRS Offers Sample ADR Rules Online
One of the most important tasks a court must undertake in the creation of an ADR program is to write rules for it that are clear, unambiguous and thorough. To help courts with this process, the Center for Analysis of Alternative Dispute Resolution Systems (CAADRS) with the support of a JAMS Foundation grant, has identified good rules governing ADR programs in the courts. The rules come from state and federal courts for programs for civil, family, child dependency, probate, bankruptcy, and appellate cases. They cover mediation, arbitration, early neutral evaluation, summary jury trials, and other processes. The rules are to be used as samples only and can be accessed on the CAADRS Web site by clicking the link below.
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RESEARCH UPDATE
Parents Affected By Divorce
Courtesy of J.M. Craig Press, Inc.
There is ample data to support the conclusion that divorce has adverse effects on adults. The next generation of research will examine these effects in more detail. This is one of the first articles we have seen that does so. The authors hypothesized that while divorce harms parental psychological well being, the ill effects may be greater when they have young children. Interviews were conducted with nearly 5,000 married couples; they were interviewed a second time, and some had divorced. For all participants, the authors measured psychological well-being in a variety of ways, economic resources, and the ages of the children.
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FEATURED ARTICLES
Negotiating Custody with High Conflict Couples
by Anita Vestal and Linda Munro, courtesy of Mediate.com
Divorce litigation, especially when there is contested custody, is rarely a straightforward negotiation process. Issues of divorce and custody can be negotiated out of court when certain conditions are present to move the couple to resolution of the issues. Mediated settlements are increasingly popular with both divorcing spouses and the judicial system. However, couples who cannot communicate with one another, and who have engaged in behavior that is threatening, coercive, manipulative and deceptive are usually not in a position to negotiate a settlement with each other. This essay suggests a model that allows a couple to attempt to negotiate a custody agreement taking into consideration the needs of the children and spouses for safety, expediency and firmness in the decision-making process.
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Should Single Parents Stay That Way?
by Amy Lunday, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
In an age when cohabitation and divorce are common, single parents concerned about the developmental health of their children may want to choose new partners slowly and deliberately, new research from the Johns Hopkins University suggests. The reason for taking your time? The more transitions children go through in their living situation, the more likely they are to act out, Johns Hopkins sociologists Paula Fomby and Andrew Cherlin report. They also found that the effect of family upheaval on children varies by race.
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Drops from Down Under
by Hon. Graham Mullane, New South Wales, Australia
This issue of Drops from Down Under features an update on the Australian Family Law Act, which is designed to encourage shared care of children by their separated parents. Additional topics include the court ruling of a father inflicting physical discipline on his son, relocation proceedings and Hague Convention applications, customary law in the Australian Aboriginal communities, same-sex couples, gaol sentences and more.
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Report from England and Wales
by James Pirrie, London, England and Andrew Greensmith, Preston, England
Size-wise, England and Wales is a bit smaller than Oregon, except one third of our area is Scotland, which is a quite different jurisdiction, thus, we end up being quite a lot smaller than Oregon. However, in terms of population we are at 55 million, more numerous even than California.Having spent a few centuries shamelessly exporting anything and everything to countries that may not have wanted to hear from us (and quite a few that were very sure indeed that they did not), we are now perhaps two decades into a more receptive mode-at least so far as our family law industry is concerned. Since the mid-80s, our heroes have, by and large, been your heroes: on our bookshelves will be the same names as on yours: Ahrons, Benjamin, Haynes, Kelly, Meyer, Mnookin, Monk and Whitney. We have borrowed as shamelessly for our ADR movement as our marketing industry had done before us.
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AFCC eNEWS is a bi-monthly e-newsletter published by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC). AFCC eNEWS provides professionals with time sensitive and up-to-date topics including case law updates, research innovations and international news.
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