Last summer, Luke’s Place heard from frontline workers across Ontario about their experiences supporting survivors in family court and helping them find a lawyer. A total of 104 frontline workers responded to our online survey, and 24 workers participated in our focus groups. What we heard from nearly all these workers was how challenging it is for survivors to find a family law lawyer to represent them.
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Understanding how survivors experience the family law system is essential to improving access to safety and justice.
Over the past three years, Luke’s Place has partnered with Dr. Mavis Morton from the University of Guelph to conduct a province-wide research project exploring the family law experiences of women and gender-diverse survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) with intersecting identities.
Coercive control is now included in the definition of family violence in both the federal Divorce Act and Ontario’s Children’s Law Reform Act.
This important step makes clear the significance of non-physical abuse in intimate relationships. Many women describe this type of abuse as being worse than physical abuse because it is hard to make people understand how serious it is.
Identifying the presence of intimate partner violence (IPV) in a new family law file has never been easy for lawyers, but help has arrived in an important new tool recently released by Justice Canada.
The HELP Toolkit: Identifying and Responding to Family Violence for Family Law Legal Advisors became available in early January,
Not every survivor of family violence walks into her lawyer’s office with a broken arm or black eye. Even when there is physical abuse, few clients readily open up about this with their lawyer. Identifying the subtler forms of abuse is even more challenging. Coercive controlling behaviours, including emotional and psychological abuse and financial control,
The problem
When a woman leaves an abusive relationship, family court outcomes can play a key role in improving the safety and quality of her life and that of her children.
However, the family law system can also increase risk with — as examples — processes that allow abusive individuals to manipulate the system or confront the woman or court decisions that require ongoing contact between the ex-partners.
A new report published by the Department of Justice Canada describes what many of us already know about family violence and family law processes:
In a family law context, violence, abuse and neglect within families can have wide ranging, long-term effects. Family and criminal courts may offer contrary rulings that confuse and frustrate matters and may put family members at risk.
Our new report on family violence screening tools for lawyers and other family law practitioners is now available from the Department of Justice Canada.
Family law lawyers are often the first point of contact for those entering the family justice system. They need to be aware of any abuse history as early as possible so that decisions made reflect the best interests of the children,
Since 2003, Ontario’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee consistently finds that a history of domestic violence and pending or recent separation are the first and second highest risk factors for lethality in domestic homicides.
Yet there is no universal family violence screening tool for Canadian family law practitioners.
Family law lawyers are often the first point of contact for those entering the family justice system.
Update: This report on family violence screening is now available on the Department of Justice website.
We are excited to announce that Luke’s Place has recently completed a research project with funding from the federal Department of Justice that looks at family violence screening tools for family law practitioners.
