by Metiria Turei
I’m pretty concerned at the announcement of a major review of the Family Court.
While I acknowledge that the court is not perfect, I’m sceptical that this review will be about identifying areas where it can be improved. It seems to be much more about identifying areas from which to cut.
Any review of the Family Court must ensure that certain services to protect children and non-negotiable. To quote Caroline Hannan from the family law section of the Law Society, all children who find themselves the subject of court proceedings are vulnerable.
The Greens have argued in the past that every child affected by Family Court action should have guaranteed access to counselling services. We need to be open to ways in which we can better look after children, not just ways to cut costs. Guaranteed counselling for kids is a good example of where things could be improved.
It’s also vital that the court continues to offer “lawyer for child” services, where a lawyer is appointed to represent the best interests of a child in a family dispute. Often, the best interests of the child will be different from the best interests of either parent, and it’s very important that this independent advocacy service is available. The suggestion that parents should start paying for this service would undermine the important independent advocacy role, and could lead to adverse outcomes for vulnerable kids.
In any review of the Family Court, there must be some bottom lines. Continued access to counselling, mediation, and support services should be non-negotiable, because they are absolutely key to ensuring that family court decisions and settlements are fair and durable.
Published in Justice & Democracy by Metiria Turei on Wed, April 20th, 2011
Tags: children, Family Court, justice
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Metiria: yes.
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Meteria, I totally agree. While I experienced a divorce under different rules to the current legislation (which changed just after we settled, grr…), I was reasonably happy with the service provided to myself and my ex-husband by the Family Court Relationships service.
But as the years went by & my children developed some critical, questioning capacity of their own, we sought counselling to handle some of the conflicts they were experiencing. We were more than adequately served by free counselling through Catholic Social Services, recommended by friends and endorsed by a teacher at my son’s school. I am very grateful to the wonderful man who spent a lot of time helping my son & dealing with broken appointments when my ex-husband couldn’t bother to take his son to apppointments.
We also had sessions of family counselling which were enlightening as to the way that the children related to the counsellor in the presence of their father. Sometimes they said things that they may not have felt permission to say without the explicit, safe space in which to do so, created within the counselling environment.
We took strategies away from those sessions that have been useful over a long space of years, and gained some understanding of how to express one’s feelings without causing harm to others, or to oneself.
My great concern is that so many families don’t get access to the counselling services that we used, simply because there are not enough good counsellors to go around, and the services are centralised around cities, so that provincial areas go without unless people can afford to take their children to a main centre to see counsellors. This is also a problem in accessing counselling services for adults, of course.
It would be great if the Justice system could incorporate counselling for children into the framework that already exists; there are a lot of other improvements that could be made to the services already being delivered, too. Deborah Coddington on Pundit website has made some good points today, as well.
http://pundit.co.nz/content/kiddies-in-court
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Forgive my simple approach – but if it’s not about the kids – why have the Court at all?
Katie; Great Post though I always wince when I read that Services quite properly the responsibility of Governments, are being left to Churches, Volunteers and Donors to supply.
eg; The larger question of ‘Why Pay Insurance?’ when something happens and the Govt. says – “Well you guys are gonna have to pay for this”.
ie;We have four concurrent Taxation systems running in NZ (legally fraud if you or I charged even twice for the same thing)
Yet We’re still broke?
Someone is selling the same horse to 4 different people – and there is no horse to sell anyway?
I’m always interested to see how much white-collar crims can get away with – but the Fiscal Downgrade of the US has ceased making this a spectator sport.
Returning to the thread – ime getting two willing partners into an healing counselling conversation is comparitively rare – so kudos to your partner for participating.
But it’s really about the kids – they will live out their parents relationship for simple want of alternatives – thus our whole society recycles it’s dysfunction.
Absolutely and irreduceably Correct Metiria
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Some areas we simply cannot cut funding to… There will be consequences and when we’re dealing with situations where we must get it right, limiting services is not a solution. With our woeful child abuse statistics and one in five children living in poverty, the Family Court and adjoining services could help to ensure that these disadvantaged children get the assistance they require. There will be a cost to cutting costs, it might not be immediately apparent, but it will eventuate and be detrimental to our society.
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Fair enough Todd – but why use the word ‘we’ when our points of view differ?
Getting people into counselling – when they are in a state of denial (ie; ‘I’m right, the world is wrong’) is impossible – and these are the ones who need it most.
In NZ they eventually fall into the arms of an overworked Police Force who are dealing with (trying to) Medical Issues. I think it unworkable.
I am biased in favour of Counselling, because that’s my most recent area of training.
I’ve seen it undo the small problems before they turn into the 6o’clock news.
I’ve seen a good counsellor change, reform and save lives – was drawn into that work by the sheer reality of healing.
But that was in Ozzie – here in NZ I kept (whilst I was still a volunteer worker) attending Tangi’s which needn’t have happened but for a bit of simple counselling.
Young People caught in a destructive cycle – many destroy others, many more destroy themselves – ime it’s a lack of Hope – ie; there is no counselling there.(Isolation)
So for me the question is – How can we not afford it?
Cos the measurement is for every death – 16 lives are taken down with the event.
For mine NZ shows signs of real social demolition – in that sense I think we are a poor country.
Trapped between a lack of professional help – and a breakdown of the community values that ultimately sustain us all.
Re-reading your post it seems to me we agree – just look at the same thing from different points of view.
I look at the Quality of help that is on offer, and find it terribly wanting.
Can I suggest that NZ’s most expensive export is our best professionals?
regards
Mark
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Trevor.
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Not another review. Action is needed now and everyone must report abuse of children and anyone else or get fined!
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