Legal profession “scare-mongering”over the voice of children

Legal Profession “Scare-mongering” regarding the voice of children being silenced, says Family Court Consumer Advocate & Social Service Outcomes Researcher.

The faux-outrage by the Legal profession regarding the voice of children being silenced is simply thinly-disguised scare-mongering, and a last desperate attempt at patch protection, says Steve Taylor, Counsellor, Family Court Consumer Advocate, and Social Services Outcomes Researcher.

“The recent release of the proposed reforms for the New Zealand Family Court, tabled by Minister of Justice Judith Collins, are finally heading in the direction of sound international Family Court outcome evidence, however more weight needs to be given to the service user feedback component of the Family Court Review” says Steve Taylor, the Director of 24-7 Ltd, Counsellor and Social Services Outcomes Researcher. “What we don’t need is the legal profession trying to get in the way of the evidence that the new reforms are based on”.

“In 2009/10 the Family Court dealt with approximately 58,000 families, 66,976 applications, and 14,895 requests for counselling (Ministry of Justice).

The voice of children within the Family Court system has had legislative reinforcement in Section 6 of the 2004 Care of Children Act, but New Zealand research confirms that the voice of the child has almost never meaningfully been heard, by any representative of the Family Court system, and that such ignorance of the Care of Children Act is most often deliberate, and practiced in the interests of Lawyers winning a case, as opposed to seeking the best outcome for children”.

As recently as 1 month ago, I was involved in advocating in a Family Court case whereby the Court appointed Psychologist, on learning that a Judge had convened a meeting with the child to seek the child’s opinion on the matters affecting the child, recommended to the Judge that the Judge ignore any and all opinion and feedback of the child in the case. This recommendation was supported for Lawyer for Child, and Counsel for the Applicant.

In another case this year, a Lawyer for Child submitted a report to the Court which contained 6 significant information errors, but because Lawyer for Child may not be cross-examined, there is no current cross-check on the veracity of the reports written by Lawyer for Child”. The subsequent outcome for the family was a disaster, and may be reviewed here. Lawyer for Child & Court appointed Psychologists actually most often work to restrict, not empower the voice of children in the Family Court process, and the dumping of these legal aid “ticket-clippers” simply can’t come soon enough”.

Lawyer for Child Lawyers receive just 2 days training for such a specialised role, in which only 30 minutes is devoted to child development, hardly adequate training for the position.

Court-appointed Psychologists regularly fail to triangulate their information, follow no peer-reviewed template for writing Family Court reports, and are permitted an illegitimate carte-blanch authority in the Family Court. The Social Service Outcomes Evidence affirms that Psychologists are no more competent or qualified to provide services or achieve positive outcomes for clients than are Social Workers, Psychotherapists, Counsellors, or indeed any other profession.

“It may interest the legal profession to know that service users are the most important stakeholders in the Family Court – more important than Judges, Lawyers, Psychologists, Counsellors, & Social Workers, because all of the aforementioned are simply guests within the process – the family system remains long after a case is closed, and long after the professionals have left the building. It is the voice of the service user, not a particular lobby or special interest group, that should be heeded above all others”.

In a recent Ministry of Justice Family Court Review Survey of Family Court Consumers:

• 38% of respondents had a case still proceeding in the Family Court;

• 79% of respondents had to attend the Family Court to settle a dispute.

• 53% of respondents required a Court order in order to settle a dispute.

• 61% of respondent’s lawyers had advised them to take Court action in the first instance.

• 47% of respondents felt that their Lawyers were not helpful to them in their dispute.

• 84% of respondents felt that Counselling was not helpful to them in their dispute.

• 35% of respondents nominated none of the Family Court services as being helpful to them in their dispute (including Counselling, Mediation, Parenting through Separation, and negotiation between lawyers).

• 46% of respondents found no relevance for a final Parenting Order.

• 54% of respondents rated their Lawyer for Child as “not competent”

• 51% of respondents rated their Counsellor as competent, while only 32% of respondents rated their Court-appointed Psychologist as competent (If Counselling is to face the axe in these reforms, then by this result, Court appointed Psychologists should be facing the axe even quicker than Counsellors, who are deemed by service users to be more competent than Court-appointed Psychologists).

• 43% of respondents nominated none of the available Family Court professionals as being helpful to them in their dispute (including Judges; their own Lawyer; Lawyer for Child; the Court appointed Psychologist (who rated “”); Counsellors; or Mediators).

• 74% of respondents nominated preferences to dispute resolution away from the Family Court.

• 82% of respondents nominated the Family Court process as having had a negative impact on their children.

• 72% of respondents were very dissatisfied with the time it took the Family Court to settle their dispute.

“The long-overdue and welcome side-lining of Lawyers in family disputes; the introduction of family dispute resolution away from and apart from the Family Court; the dumping of ineffective counselling interventions; and the necessary reining in of Lawyer for Child and Specialist service providers will all go a long way to reducing service costs, whilst improving service user experience, says Mr Taylor.

The voice of children thus has the best chance of being heard as far away from the Family Court as is possible, and I would encourage the New Zealand public and media to not be swayed by the moral panic emanating from self-interested Family Court advocates” says Mr Taylor.

Quotes:

The law of child relocation in America is a mess. It is not much better anywhere else. It has been dressed up in shibboleths and word formulations that make it look like we, as family court judges, know what we are doing – we don’t. The law pretends that we can determine with some high degree of predictive accuracy whether a move by a child with one parent away from the other parent will be in a child’s best interest – we can’t. The truth is this: there is no evidence that our decisions in these types of cases result in an outcome that is any better for the child than if the parents did rock-paper-scissors.

Family Court Judge Duggan, W.D. (2007). Rock-paper-scissors: Playing the odds with the law of child Relocation. Family Court Review, 45(2), 193-213.

“I was in the police for 11 years and never during that time saw such horrible injustice, I created an international group of companies and was very successful before this system destroyed me, and I was before the start of all this a peaceful, happy kind man. All I ever asked of my partner at the time we BOTH agreed to go our separate ways, was DONT EVER STOP ME seeing my daughter - to which she agreed.......but then the system got hold of her and that was exactly what she and the lawyers did to leverage a property settlement. I have often used this analogy of the Family court system......if you called them in to fix a leak in your house, you would, after spending a fortune, end up with more leaks and probably get washed away in the flood, and drown...... NINE YEARS of NOTHING - NOT ONE THING actually helped us or gave us some hope that things would get better - nothing.

“Andre”, a service Consumer of the New Zealand Family Court.

ENDS

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