Secretary
Stephanie Melvin - BC

Executive Committee
Mary Damianakis - QC

Message from the President

We are at our Annual Conference and AGM today, November 10^th. This will be my last President’s Message and I write it filled with appreciation. I was asked to take on this role at a very challenging time for FMC and, though I was somewhat anxious/hesitant, I am pleased that I accepted the challenge. My work with you has been an honour and has kept me inspired and committed to our continuous vision of helping families restructure and believe in themselves in a way that helps them grow and transform to more life-giving places. I am more because I was here, and for that, and many other cherished experiences along the way, I am truly grateful.
 
I am extremely proud of the accomplishments of Family Mediation Canada over the past year. The Child Protection Certification program will be introduced at the upcoming Conference and AGM by our Chair of the Child Protection Committee, Margaret S. Sweet. As with our other certification streams, training opportunities and continued evaluation and consultation will be sought as the program unfolds. Calls for expression of interest in both the positions of CP Registrar, and CP Assessor, have been sent. 
 
A sampling of other happenings:

• We continue to rollout relevant educational offerings for our members to keep current and for those who are building hours toward certification. The most recent were delivered by Marie-Jose Poirier and Amanda Stuart from Justice Canada who presented a 2-part webinar series on Changes to the Divorce Act. This complemented well an earlier training with Judge Nancy Flatters on the same topic. We will post the Justice Canada webinars on the FMC website and are hoping to have them available in the growing French section in the new year.
• The Registrar and Assessor Learning & Discussion sessions were completed in September. FMC is very appreciative of our present certification team who are there to serve you. 
• To stay current, we are reviewing a couple of updates to the Code of Conduct.
• On International Day of Older Persons, October 1, 2021, FMC had representation on the Canadian Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse panel presentation. It was a panel consisting of mediators from across Canada to discuss Elder Mediation, Restorative Justice and Elder Abuse.
• The Government Relations Committee has been working diligently promoting FMC’s certification standards with ongoing discussions around screening requirements, cross pollination, and addressing the challenges presented to families as they navigate the court system. 
• Plans for the FMC Training Faculty are ongoing. We are also developing a list of “Master Mediators” who hold FMC Certification and are offering practicums. 
• The FMC website has undergone significant improvements and updates with more planned for the near future. Patrick Zakaria, Board Member from Quebec, is overseeing the development of a section of the site designated for French speaking members.
• The Daniel Hamoline Bursary in the amount of $1000 will be presented at the AGM today. Daniel L. Hamoline, Q.C., was a distinguished and valued family mediator with a personal and professional commitment to high standards for mediators. He had a special interest in understanding how domestic violence impacts family mediation and was an avid supporter of Family Mediation Canada.  
• Member meetings – FMC is committed to developing member meeting opportunities in each province to ensure input from interested members across the country. Based on the feedback from our last survey, we have been striving to implement suggested changes. 

Regulation has been a hotter than usual topic over the last couple of months. The importance of regulation in ensuring a consistent standard of expertise for mediators has always been of the utmost importance to FMC. Members frequently hear about “mediators” who practice with minimal training and express their concern about harm, unintentional though it may be. Virtually anyone can attend a program or training and then advertise themselves as a “mediator”. “Trainers” can also roll out training without any evidence of professional standards. Although FMC is a not-for-profit organization, it does offer the only national standard, developed over a 34-year period, with a robust, time tested, continuously evaluated, certification model that is available to members in good standing. It also has a complaints process. This, along with requests for assistance and support from other countries to grow their national standards, continues to inform and motivate. A key element of the FMC certification process is that assessment measures are applied at several stages in the process and on an annual basis.  
 
Regardless of where we are in our life, we all have the capacity to change and grow, to move beyond complacency, to be reliable and to make a difference. I want to say thank you for your ongoing support, friendship and to the many exemplars of what it is to serve faithfully and with humility and loyalty, making a huge difference. Dr. Michael Saini, our newsletter editor, Lisa Arora, a brilliant and dedicated member who supported us in our training offerings and in our strategic planning, Lorenzo De Franco, whose knowledge, patience, hard work, time and leadership has truly contributed to our growth and brought us to a stronger place and Cynthia Spratt Goodmundson who actions what a “friend of FMC” truly is with her unwavering commitment of membership and support of FMC’s mission. 
 
These are but a few of many examples. Your Board and FMC administrator, Sue Bedier, are extraordinary in demonstrating their loyalty and dedication. What a gift to experience our treasured people in action. Although passing on the gavel as President of this incredible organization, I am committed to the ongoing success of FMC, and I will continue to help in whatever ways I can going forward.

My wish for each of you is good health, a heart filled with gratitude, and a peaceful mind.
 
Judy M. Beranger

 There is a heightened awareness that children’s views and preferences must be taken into consideration when making decisions regarding their living arrangements. Article 12 of the United Nation’s Convention of the Rights of the Child, a treaty that Canada has signed and ratified, specifies that children capable of forming their own views have the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting them and that the child’s voice should be given due weight according to the child’s age and maturity. 
 

UNCRC Messages about Children

Tips for Engaging Children’s Narratives 

Four most important elements for interviewing children:

Lloyd, K., & Emerson, L. (2017). (Re)examining the relationship between children’s subjective wellbeing and their perceptions of participation rights. Child Indicators Research, 10(3), 591-608. 
It has been suggested that the children’s wellbeing and their rights are intertwined. This paper seeks to explore the nature of the relationship between wellbeing and participation rights, using a recently developed ‘rights-based’ measure of children’s participation in school and community, the Children’s Participation Rights Questionnaire (CPRQ), and an established measure of subjective wellbeing – KIDSCREEN-10. The findings showed a statistically significant positive correlation between children’s overall scores on the KIDSCREEN-10 test measuring subjective wellbeing, and their perceptions that their participation rights are respected in both school and community settings. Further, the results indicated that it is the social relations/autonomy questions on KIDSCREEN-10 which are most strongly related to children’s perceptions that their participation rights are respected. In light of the findings from this study, it is suggested that what lies at the heart of the relationship between child wellbeing and children’s participation rights is the social/relational aspects of both participation and wellbeing. 

Turoy‐Smith, K. M., & Powell, M. B. (2017). Interviewing of children for family law matters: A review. Australian Psychologist, 52(3), 165-173.                                                               

This study is a literature review of publications concerning the purpose and practice of child interviews in family law matters. Specifically, this review is structured around the following questions: (a) what is sought from interviews with children for family law matters; (b) what capacity do children have to provide reliable information; and (c) how should children and how are children currently being interviewed in the family law context. Research on the interviewing of children for family law matters is still in its infancy, with the majority of the work concentrated on providing guidelines, principles, and suggestions for interviews without an evaluation of whether these guidelines or suggestions are being utilised or whether they are effective. This review concludes that no one has extensively examined how child interviews for parenting disputes are being conducted. 

Handbook of Children in the Legal System

Edited By 

Ginger C. Calloway

S. Margaret Lee
Copyright Year 2022
 

In a time when children have been largely silenced during this global pandemic, Drs. Ginger Calloway and Margaret Lee have given careful, thoughtful and compassionate voice to children involved in our legal systems.  As internationally known scholars with impeccable reputations in the legal community, this edited both of legal and mental health scholars provide a key resource for learning about the various legal systems that impact children, including juvenile justice, dependency, family law, immigration and criminal.  Written by practitioners for practitioners, this book is both comprehensive and easy to read with several case studies to expand on concepts and to showcase the voices of children.  This book is a must read for both mental health and legal professionals working with children in the legal system and for students interested in children and the law.