A good family court order or agreement about the arrangements for the children can facilitate a workable relationship between a woman and her ex-partner and lessen opportunities for post-separation abuse. The more details that are set out with precision in the order, the less room for misinterpretation, misunderstanding or manipulation,
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Unfortunately, many abusers are not yet ready to give up their power and control after the couple separates so the abuse continues. This is often referred to as post-separation abuse. Women may have to deal with ongoing issues for months or even years after their formal family law case is over,
The new Child, Youth and Family Services Act shifts Ontario from a needs-based child protection system to one that is rights-based and allows all those who work with and serve children to place those children at the centre of decisions regarding their care.
The key changes included raising the age of protection from 16 to 18,
Visit our more up-to-date list of webinars
Luke’s Place partners with CLEO to deliver family law information webinars on issues faced by women who have been subjected to violence in their relationship. The webinars are pre-recorded and will be posted to this website and CLEOConnect.ca the afternoon of the date listed.
In the late 1980s, a new phrase started to pop up in American and then Canadian family courts: parental alienation syndrome (PAS). Originally coined by American psychiatrist Richard Gardner, the term was used to describe situations where one parent intentionally interfered with the children’s relationships with the other. (It might be more accurate to say that it described situations where one parent claimed the other parent was doing this.)
Gardner’s research was highly problematic for many reasons;
The Family Responsibility Office (FRO) is a program of the Ministry of Community and Social Services that collects and distributes court-ordered child and spousal support payments. If the person paying support fails to do so, FRO can enforce the court order in a number of ways.
Its authority flows from the Family Responsibility and Support Arrears Enforcement Act.
“But if you try sometime you find/You get what you need.”
Many women leaving abusive relationships would take exception to even the modest optimism expressed by the Rolling Stones in this 1969 hit. Nonetheless, this is very much the tone of family court these days, in particular mediation.
When I began practicing law in the mid-1990s,
This is the second installment of a two-part series
There are many ways a family can organize access even when one parent lives some distance away from the kids. Factors that need to be considered include:
Distance
The children’s ages
Finances
Extent of contact before the move
History of violence and ongoing safety issues
Generally,
This is the first installment of a two-part series
We are living in an increasingly globalized world, so it is not surprising that families move – often long distances – more than they used to. While this can pose challenges when the parents live together – finding new schools for the children,
Canada’s landscape has been strewn with domestic violence homicides this past year. And, it must be remembered, the number of women killed is only the tip of the iceberg of the number of women subjected to abuse in their relationships.
Many of those women, whether still in an abusive relationship, on their way out of it or already establishing themselves separate from their abuser,
