In O'Dea, C. [1], the error was published on page 592 of the article You Are Not the Father: The Need to Terminate the Parental Rights of Rapists to Protect Victims and Children in volume 59, issue 3, references an article by Jennifer S. Hendricks as taking the view that genetic fathers should always have parental rights to their children if they wish to be involved in raising the child. The Hendricks

The COVID-19 pandemic created a unique catch-22 for families with ongoing parenting cases. By materially changing the circumstances of everyday life while simultaneously closing the courts, the virus placed parents in impossible situations. Sometimes, parents had to decide whether to adhere to parenting schedules and perhaps expose their children to illness or death, or to disobey court orders and

In 2020, residents in the state of Victoria, Australia endured months of government restrictions aimed at curbing multiple outbreaks of COVID-19. Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) services continued to assist separating couples to sort out their parenting and property matters, necessitating a rapid and wholesale shift to remote delivery via telephone and video conferencing. This paper reports on interviews

Many families in New York have disabled children who are chronically dependent on others for care. Yet, the State is in the minority of jurisdictions that fails to adequately recognize a parental duty to support a disabled adult child. New York law generally terminates a parent's legal duty to provide support once his or her child reaches the age of majority. This Note proposes adopting legislation

A lack of screening for intellectual and developmental disabilities (“I/DD”) in juvenile justice systems nationwide results in a lack of appropriate accommodations. As a result, juveniles with I/DD are at a heightened risk of recidivation and adult incarceration than non-disabled offenders. Additionally, juvenile incarceration harms an individual's health and educational and employment attainment.

Planning for this issue began in May 2020, during the initial crisis stage of lockdowns and vague calls for “pivots.” At that time, Barbara Glesner Fines anticipated need for a “Post-Covid” special issue of lessons learned, and we thought that a publication date of April 2022 was far enough in advance to provide this perspective. We now know that the editorial work of sending out a call for papers

One of the logical, yet seemingly unanticipated, effects of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the exodus of parents, primarily mothers, from the workplace. An October 2020 Pew study indicates that as many as 30% of parents reduced work hours or left the workforce all together, with a pronounced burden falling on working mothers. This paper examines one possible consequence of voluntary under- or unemployment

Family courts are increasingly interested in online parenting programs for divorcing and separating parents, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. To our knowledge, no previous study has evaluated the barriers to and facilitators of parent participation in these programs for family law cases. We interviewed 61 parents in the midst of family law cases regarding their perspectives. While many parents

The introduction of social distancing measures during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in family court hearings in England and Wales being conducted remotely, by video or telephone. Over a 15 months period, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory undertook three rapid consultations to identify how remote proceedings were working, according to families and to a wide range of professionals who work in

This article discusses the impact of pandemic restrictions on the family court system in Ethiopia. As lack of technological infrastructure made shifting to online services impossible, court services remained in-person. Public health measures required a drastic reduction in case hearings in order to allow social distancing. Both federal and regional state courts were partially closed from early March

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected families and children involved in Ontario's family justice system as well as family justice professionals in the province. In a span of two years, Ontario's family justice system has been fundamentally transformed, from a paper-based, in-person system to a paperless system in which many services, including judicial proceedings, continue to be largely delivered

In New York, low-income families, urban communities, and rural areas are suffering from a lack of childcare. This inadequacy leads to the formation of childcare deserts; areas where families do not have access to childcare. Because of the vague guidelines proposed by federal grants, New York has misused federal funds, which has led to the continuance of childcare deserts. This Note proposes specifying

The Crystal Judson Family Justice Center (CJFJC), like many advocacy programs for survivors of intimate partner violence, transformed its structure and operating procedures amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States was in Washington State, where CJFJC is located, and Governor Jay Inslee acted quickly with a strict stay-at-home order. This paper describes

COVID-19 exacerbated the crisis in access to legal services especially for victims of domestic violence for whom the pandemic made their situations even more precarious. In this article, the author shares his experience of building and implementing an automated solution to help pro-se litigants petition the court for emergency protection orders remotely and without the need to visit the courthouse

This study is a randomized controlled trial of an asynchronous, fully web-based program for divorced and separated parents, the electronic New Beginnings Program (eNBP). This program is an adaptation of a group, in-person program for divorced parents, the New Beginnings Program (NBP), which has been shown in randomized trials to reduce a wide range of offspring problems and improve a wide range of

In the article by Greenberg et al. (2021), the term randomized controlled trial was inadvertently phrased as “randomly controlled trial” in six places in the article. “Randomized controlled trial” should replace “randomly controlled trial” in the following locations: (1) Abstract, line 3; (2) Page 1, second paragraph, first sentence; (3) Page 2, second sentence; (4) Page 2, fourth paragraph, second

This essay asserts the primacy of children's interests as a constitutional check on the religious liberty interests of government contractors that express in ways adverse to the best interests of foster children harmed by discriminatory foster care screening processes. The piece begins with an examination of child welfare realities characterized by increasing numbers of foster children and shrinking

A majority of separating parents seeking family mediation report intimate partner violence (IPV). Whether mediation is appropriate for such parties is controversial. Modified mediation approaches may enhance party safety by keeping them physically separated (e.g., shuttle and videoconferencing mediation). Unfortunately, little research exists regarding whether parties reporting IPV attend mediation

Throughout the United States, sexual education classes are often conducted with a narrow focus. While some states focus primarily on abstinence, others aim to teach a wider array of topics. The commonality among the curricula is that LGBTQ+ students are excluded from the conversation. Failing to include the LGBTQ+ community in sexual education enables the continuation of discrimination in nuclear school

This symposium article examines important lessons that can be taken from the multiple ways in which children's interests, and in particular ideas about “harm to children,” are framed in the recent Fulton v. City of Philadelphia controversy. A close reading of the briefs filed after the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in the case reveals that both sides paid very different attention to LGBTQ youth

Fulton v. City of Philadelphia presented a by-now familiar constitutional claim: recognizing civil marriage equality—the right of persons to marry regardless of gender—inevitably and sharply conflicts with the religious liberty of persons and religious institutions who sincerely believe that marriage is the union of one man and one woman. While the Supreme Court's 9-0 unanimous judgment in favor of

As part of the special issue on foster care and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), this essay provides a brief history of the role of race and religion in the foster care system. It critiques the case for failing to address the foster care system itself, and argues that Fulton essentially endorses a system that may make it impossible for state officials to ensure that the children will thrive in

Attachment and bond are two words often used in child custody evaluations and in family courts. Many professionals misuse these terms. Professionals often use phrases such as “strong attachment,” “healthy bond,” and “well-attached,” all phrases which are not in the scientific literature. Attachment has a specific definition in the scientific literature. Furthermore, other than the Strange Situation

Are empirical data and results of research by social scientists relevant to court decisions in foster care cases, and if so, how? How should they be brought to the court's attention? These questions arose in the context of Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), a recent U.S. Supreme Court case that posed the question of whether a religiously based foster care agency could refuse to provide service

In 2018, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the State of South Carolina agreed to waive their requirements of religious non-discrimination by state-funded, licensed child placement agencies. The state had discovered that its largest provider, Miracle Hill, approved the applications of only those who shared its Evangelical Protestant faith. After Miracle Hill refused on religious grounds

As part of the special issue on the foster care system, this essay challenges the assumption that all the children who are in foster care should be in foster care. The essay first describes the familiar—and still persuasive—argument that foster care does not serve the interests of most children and families. It then brings a new lens to bear on this argument by describing the work of the American Law

Recently, the controversy pertaining to whether faith-based institutions, which receive federal funding, can discriminate based on sexual orientation has received the United States Supreme Court's attention. However, before the Supreme Court decided to review this issue, the Every Child Deserve a Family Act was proposed to Congress. This bill would prohibit any child welfare agency, which receives

Over the past 20 years, a number of evidence-based and evidence-informed mental health treatment models, interventions, and best practices have emerged for use with a wide range of client populations, with many different mental health conditions and diagnoses. Unfortunately, many family court-involved children and families do not have access to mental health programs and services that have been identified

This article looks at how four distinct programs contributed to the family law evidence-base supporting the desirability, effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of family dispute resolution programs. The central program discussed is the Family Resolutions Specialty Court (FRSC), an alternative court-based means of settling child-related legal disputes. FRSC is based on research evidence, but it also

Reunification therapy is specialized family therapy to address parent–child relational disruption (i.e. child resistance to or refusal of parent contact), typically during or following a high-conflict divorce or custody dispute. The literature discussing reunification therapy interventions with families involving racial diversity, SES, religiosity, and other socio-cultural aspects is limited to non-existent

What scientific evidence should we consider in providing services to families? This has become a heated debate, potentially impacting both social policy and intervention planning for families. Overreach has been common in this debate and can seriously harm families. While recognizing the valuable information that randomly-controlled trials may provide, the authors identify situations in which other

Separation is a high-risk time in families and for many it marks the onset or escalation of family safety and wellbeing risks like Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). Best practice for identifying such risks in court or community mediation services is systematic inquiry about safety risks with structured tools to overcome under-reporting of risks. However, turning best practice recommendations into routine

Promoting the well-being and best interests of children in separated and divorcing families is a shared value among family court professionals and prevention scientists who develop and evaluate intervention programs. This article chronicles the development, evaluation, and implementation of two programs—the New Beginnings Program (NBP), a parenting intervention for separated/divorcing parents, and

This article addresses the training of mediators participating in a randomized controlled trial (“RCT”) that examined the outcomes of family law cases with children in which parents reported high or concerning levels of intimate partner violence (“cases reporting high IPV”). In the RCT, we studied two specialized forms of mediation designed to protect the safety of IPV survivors (shuttle or videoconferencing)

As is the case in most fields, the research-to-practice gap in family law is wide. The field of implementation science has emerged to attenuate these research-to-practice gaps. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of implementation science because drawing from efforts to reduce research-to-practice gaps in health care and other related fields can help the family court ameliorate its own

Brief commentary on practical use of social science research in judicial practice.

Juvenile drug treatment courts (JDTCs), in large part, are a product of the therapeutic jurisprudence movement. When they were established in 1993 in the U.S., JDTCs were initially modeled after adult drug treatment courts but insufficiently addressed unique characteristics of adolescence. In 2003, recommended practices, known as the 16 Strategies, for JDTCs working with adolescent offenders with substance

Although many separating Australian couples make their own arrangements for property division, evidence suggests over 40% nominate either Family Dispute Resolution (FDR), lawyers or courts as their main pathway to settlement. Whereas it is compulsory to attempt FDR in parenting matters, this is not so for property matters. This paper examines client perspectives on property dispute resolution methods

Amendments to the Canadian Divorce Act have required that family violence, specifically coercive controlling behaviour, be considered when making best interest determinations for children. This paper (1) outlines how this concealed, patterned, and harmful behaviour presents in family law disputes and (2) sets out considerations for parenting arrangements. It identifies the perils of subjective impressions

Parental Alienation: Science and Law is a book that brings together known supporters of parental alienation theory to review the definitions, prevalence, consequences and interventions for treating cases where parental alienation has been identified as the dominant cause of parent-child contact problems. The book provides a review of published literature that favors parental alienation theory and highlights

This book review of Evolution of a Field: Personal Histories in Conflict Resolution, co-edited by Howard Gadlin and Nancy A. Welsh, presents an overview, with snippets of personal and autobiographical material, of this penetrating collection that comprises the “personal stories” of 23 leading practitioners and scholars in the field of conflict resolution. The editors asked the authors to reflectively

As the internet continues to evolve, perpetrators responsible for disseminating child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”) online have learned to adapt. These illicit photos and videos continue to circulate at an uncontrollable rate due to technology companies' lack of action in regulating their platforms. Despite efforts to increase resources and implement necessary measures to curb this issue, approaches

The fight for women's rights is far from over—especially the fight to maintain a woman's constitutional right to choose. From criminal abortion laws to feticide laws whose motives are disguised as domestic violence protections rather than prosecution of pregnant women, states have tried to restrict this fundamental right and a woman's right to abortion free from prosecution remains threatened. This

Loot box mechanics have become a mainstay in many video games targeted toward young audiences. These loot boxes are reminiscent of gambling, like casino slot machines. The player may use real-world currency to purchase a virtual item that dispenses randomized in-game items. Video game publishers employ numerous methods to make these loot boxes enticing to a young audience. Loot boxes have been linked

Therapeutic jurisprudence, referred to as TJ, has its origins in mental health law and now applies internationally to every area of law, including family law. This article briefly defines TJ, discusses its relevance to family law, and introduces FCR readers to the eight special issue articles. The publications describe TJ's connection to family law in various contexts and from several countries, including

The article is adapted from a “workplan” speech delivered by the Presiding Judge of the Family Justice Courts of Singapore. It suggests why family disputes must be resolved in way that is distinctly different from other civil disputes and sets out how Therapeutic Justice will be adopted in the Family Justice Courts. Therapeutic Justice in a multi-disciplinary justice system is not a new concept, but

For some time now, the family courts in Singapore have recognised that in the area of family disputes, a more conciliatory and less adversarial approach is required to achieve better outcomes for families. Hence, since the mid-1990s, mediation and counselling programs have been incrementally introduced into the family justice process, culminating in compulsory court mediation and counselling for divorcing

Ireland is reforming its family court practices. This article presents research, funded by the Irish Research Council, which examines the Family Division of the Circuit Court, Maryland, USA (Baltimore City/ County). It explores the theoretical framework (therapeutic jurisprudence) underpinning the Family Division of the Circuit Court, the holistic processes and conflict resolution techniques adopted

Therapeutic Jurisprudence (“TJ”) is the study of the psychological impact of the law. One way that TJ can be applied is by examining the way legal actors such as lawyers, judges, court appointed specialists and court registrars, go about their work. In Aotearoa New Zealand's Family Justice System (“FJS”) there have been long standing concerns about the FJS is not meeting the needs of participants in

There is a robust body of evidence that tells us that the juvenile brain is not fully developed by age 18, and this evidence should and does raise important questions about the sentencing of juveniles in criminal cases. This evidence, though, must be considered in the context of public opinion (about certain juvenile crimes that have been subject to saturation publicity) in the context of judges' decisionmaking

This qualitative study brings together the voices of parents and their representatives, including attorneys, social workers and parent advocates, to understand the lived experiences of child welfare involved parents as they navigate Family Court, and how to improve it. The findings suggest that these courts are difficult to navigate for both parents and their representatives, and are often experienced

Israeli legislation adopted a unique model of children's participation in conflicts adjudicated in family courts. The article looks at this model and at the findings of one evaluation study and one follow-up study through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence. It considers aspects of therapeutic jurisprudence manifest in the model and in these studies' findings as well as the potential entailed by

Realist evaluation asks what works best for whom under what circumstances and why. Therapeutic jurisprudence seeks to explore how the therapeutic design and application of the law can support therapeutic and anti-therapeutic outcomes. This article presents a proposed evaluation framework utilizing realist evaluation in a therapeutic jurisprudence context for family court interventions. Three key topics

In child custody litigation, protecting child safety during access with a parent with substance use disorder (SUD) presents a vexing challenge for the court, parents, and parents’ counsel. Standardization of monitoring protocols for this population is lacking. Monitoring protocols utilized in clinical settings and child welfare agencies are not necessarily applicable to child custody litigation.

This article discusses the development of the concept of parenting plans and the different approaches to providing materials that can help parents and professionals to make individualized, future-oriented plans for children post-separation. More than a quarter century after American states began to enact laws to encourage the use of parenting plans, Canada amended its legislation to abandon the proprietary

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act repealed deductions for alimony payments required by post-2018 divorce agreements and court orders. From hindering the receiver of alimony from obtaining enough funds to become self-supporting and disincentivizing the payor from paying more considerable sums of alimony, the current law overlooks and burdens alimony's very purpose. This Note proposes repealing the TCJA's alimony

Twenty-seven of fifty states require a criminal conviction to terminate the parental rights of a rapist. If a rape results in pregnancy and a woman chooses to carry that pregnancy to term, she may be subjected to fight her rapist in court over the parental rights of the child. In 2015, Congress passed the Rape Survivor Child Custody Act to incentivize states to lower this standard to “clear and convincing

‘I don't know what I'm doing’ - a phrase often uttered by pro se litigants. The number of pro se litigants appearing in family court proceedings is on an upward trend. Steps must be taken to assist pro se litigants navigate the muddy waters of the family court system. The concept of trained paraprofessionals to assist pro se litigants in court has garnered interest in recent years. Incorporating these

The IRS offers an Innocent Spouse Protection provision allowing innocent spouses protection from the consequences of their partner's tax fraud if they filed a joint return. However, this protection fails to protect the most vulnerable innocent spouses – domestic abuse victims. The IRS has tried to help domestic abuse victims in tax fraud situations; however, their attempts have been unsuccessful

In Ibrahim et al. (2021), the following errors were published. In the author byline, the first and second author were mistakenly interchanged. The correct order of authors is listed below. Mariam Hanna Ibrahim, Linda J. Luecken, Shannon L. Jewell, Jennifer A. Somers, Sharlene A. Wolchik, and Irwin N. Sandler. On Figure 1, the caption was incomplete in the published article. The correct caption should