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Children's access to justice has emerged as an important topic in the children's rights domain. While there has been increasing attention paid to child-friendly justice internationally, there has been relatively little research in this area. This book, with contributions from researchers and practitioners, explores the meaning, practice and challen...

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, includ...

Detailed, voluntary parenting plans are being increasing used in many jurisdictions. In conjunction with legislative reforms that came into effect in Canada in 2021 and specifically provide for parenting plans in place of traditional custody and access orders, the Ontario Chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC-O) tasked...

An increasing number of cases of parental separation involve high conflict and claims that a parent is alienating a child. This study analyzes reported family law cases involving claims of parental alienation in Quebec between 2017 and 2020 (n = 164). Bivariate analyzes were undertaken to establish correlations between family characteristics (child...

As part of a larger prospective longitudinal research project to track parents as they navigate the family court system in Canada’s two largest provinces, this paper reports on the mixed methodology results at Time 1 as parents came into contact with the family courts. Data was collected by using in-person surveys at seven family court sites in Ont...

The vast majority of parental separations and divorces are resolved without resulting in a trial in family court, but the cases that proceed to trial have both higher financial and emotional costs for families. A better understanding of the factors associated with the use of a trial to resolve family disputes can assist the family justice system to...

There have been significant advances in understandings and practice related parent–child contact problems (PCCPs), with a growing consensus about some issues and continuing controversy about others. It is widely acknowledged that PCCP cases are most fruitfully understood from a multi‐factorial perspective. While some cases may be totally the “fault...

This article examines various methods for involving children in family and child welfare proceedings, surveys varying approaches in different Canadian jurisdictions to the appointment of counsel for children in these cases, and explores the controversies about the role of counsel for children. While child representation is becoming common, in most...

Many services and interventions focus on assisting separated families experiencing high conflict. Yet, little research has focussed on identifying and distinguishing levels of this conflict. This research tested reliability and validity of an index assessing 15 dimensions of conflict typical of high conflict in separation. Seventy-seven mothers and...

The present study examined differences in children's true and false narratives as a function of parental coaching by comparing the verbal markers associated with deception. Children (N = 65, 4-7 years old) played the same game with an adult stranger over three consecutive days. Parents coached their children to falsely allege that they had played a...

There is a complex interplay between federal and provincial parenting statutes in Canada. Although most statutes continue to use the traditional concepts of “custody” and “access,” in practice most lawyers and judges use more child-focused terminology for parenting plans. There is a lack of reliable data on postseparation parenting in Canada, thoug...

There is increasing use of Views of the Child Reports as a means of involving children in the resolution of parenting disputes in Canada, but there are significant differences in how these Reports are prepared. This article reports on a study of an Ontario pilot project which provided non-evaluative reports for parenting disputes prepared by social...

This is the first quantitative study to examine Canada’s only Integrated Domestic Violence Court. The methodology used a quasi-experimental design with parallel groups with baseline equivalence. Results demonstrate that when support services are provided to victims of domestic violence during family separation, children benefit from greater involve...

There is significant controversy about the use of experts in child-related disputes in family and child protection proceedings in Canada. The 2015 Lang Review of the Motherisk Laboratory at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children concluded that experts retained by child protection agencies were introducing unreliable expert testimony about parental dr...

The present study examined children's recall accuracy for a repeated event over multiple interviews. Participants took part in three play sessions and were then questioned in three separate interviews a week later. The sample included 87 children between 4 to 10 years of age. Repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted to examine total accuracy and acc...

This article reports on two related studies about varying pathways to the resolution of family disputes and the effects of family justice reforms in Ontario: a survey of family court professionals (n = 118) and an analysis of 1,000 closed court files of family cases involving children. Both studies reveal that the vast majority of cases are resolve...

Non-evaluative Views of the Child Reports prepared by legal or mental health professionals are an increasingly popular means of involving children in the resolution of parenting disputes in parts of Canada, but there are no widely accepted standards and significant differences exist in how children are interviewed and how these reports are prepared...

This article reports on the results of two research studies carried out by the authors that address the questions of how and how well judges assess the honesty and reliability of children's testimony. One study tested the accuracy of judges and other professionals in assessing the honesty of children giving mock testimony. Judges performed at only...

Separating parents often turn to the courts to assist in resolving disputes about custody and access of their children as well as child support, spousal support and division of property. With increased depending on the courts to assist in resolving these matters, a number of court-based initiatives have been introduced to assist parties to access s...

Children’s (N = 48) and adults’ (N = 28) truthful and deceptive statements were compared using a linguistics-based computer software program. Children (4 to 7 years of age) and adults (18 to 25 years of age) participated in a mock courtroom experiment, in which they were asked to recount either a true or fabricated event. Testimonies were then anal...

As children can be victims or witnesses to crimes and may be required to testify about their experiences in court, the ability to differentiate between children's true and fabricated accounts of victimization is an important issue. This study used automated linguistic analysis software to detect linguistic patterns in order to differentiate between...

There is controversy about the role that lawyers for children should play in family proceedings, but little empirical research about what they actually do. This article reports on a study (n = 166) of the experiences and perspectives of lawyers in two Canadian provinces with different policies for the role of children's counsel. Official policies s...

This study investigated different verbal expressive markers of children recounting both true and false events. Seventy-eight children (M age = 7.58 years) interacted with a research assistant on 3 consecutive days. All children played a game that included a touching component in which the research assistant placed stickers on the child's body. Pare...

Children's lawyers in two Canadian provinces with different policies about the role of children's counsel in family cases were surveyed to explore and compare their experiences and attitudes about their role as counsel and about children meeting with a judge. The majority of lawyers acted as gatekeeepers, often preventing children from having a ful...

Children's lawyers in two Canadian provinces with different policies about the role of children's counsel in family cases were surveyed to explore and compare their experiences and attitudes about their role as counsel and about children meeting with a judge. The majority of lawyers acted as gatekeeepers, often preventing children from having a ful...

To advance the scientific knowledge base of alienation and deal more effectively with alienation cases, there must be reliable and valid methods for assessing and measuring the presence of alienation, which could include standardized measures, structured interviews, rating scales, or some other scientifically based protocol that has been tested for...

As children are often called upon to provide testimony in court proceedings, determining the veracity of their statements is an important issue. In the course of investigation by police and social workers, children are often repeatedly interviewed about their experiences, though the impact of this repetition on children's true and false statements...

This study examined adults' ability to detect deception of children who provided true and fabricated descriptions of stressful and non-stressful events. Observers viewed video clips of children telling four different stories (true non-stressful, true stressful, false non-stressful, false stressful). The story conditions were presented by either fou...

This chapter gives an empirical examination of alienation. Any experienced professional working within the family court is aware of the tensions and controversies associated with this concept. Definitions and assumptions linked to the term alienation are often varied and are sometimes inaccurately applied in matters that have tremendous importance...

There is increasing recognition in law and social science research of the importance of having children participate in post-separation decision making, though there is not a clear consensus on how this should be done. This article reviews the social science literature about children's participation in the family justice process and presents results...

This paper reviews common law and statutory developments in the treatment of children as witnesses in Canada’s criminal justice system, where children who are victims of abuse testify with increasing frequency. Historically, children were regarded as inherently unreliable witnesses, and there were no provisions to accommodate their needs and vulner...

Social science research and the Convention on the Rights of the Child support children's participation in family law disputes, though there is not a clear consensus on how this should be done. Judicial interviews of children in custody and access cases are one method of involving children, and ascertaining their views and preferences, though the pr...

Social science research and the courts have begun to recognize the special challenges posed by “high-conflict” separations for children and the justice system. The use of “high conflict” terminology by social science researchers and the courts has increased dramatically over the past decade. This is an important development, but the term is often u...

This article provides an overview of the key concepts, themes, issues, and possible mental health and legal interventions related to children's postseparation resistance to having contact with one parent. We maintain that the too often strongly gendered polemic on alienation and abuse is polarizing and needs to be replaced with a more nuanced and b...

The competency inquiry has traditionally been a critical initial challenge for child witnesses, most of who are called to testify about their own victimization or as witnesses of family violence. In most common law countries children can only testify if they can correctly answer questions about such abstract concepts as the “oath,” the “promise” an...

The dominant philosophy in family court emphasizes cooperative solutions between separating parents who are encouraged to put their conflicts behind them. For the majority of separating families, this collaborative approach will best serve their children. However, cases involving domestic violence require a paradigm shift, with a greater focus on m...

The Youth Criminal Justice Act (2003) was enacted with the intent of decreasing the use of courts and restricting the use of custody for adolescent offenders, while improving the effectiveness of the responses to serious violent youth offenders. This paper assesses the impact of the act in its first five years. It reviews salient provisions of the...

This comment discusses the historical development of social attitudes, social science research, and approaches in the justice system towards allegations of spousal and child abuse. Until relatively recently, victims of child abuse and spousal violence were largely ignored by the justice system, mental health professionals and social science researc...

We examined whether individuals' ability to detect deception remained stable over time. In two sessions, held one week apart, university students viewed video clips of individuals and attempted to differentiate between the lie-tellers and truth-tellers. Overall, participants had difficulty detecting all types of deception. When viewing children ans...

Premised on the understanding that domestic violence is a broad concept that encompasses a wide range of behaviors from isolated events to a pattern of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that controls the victim, this article addresses the need for a differentiated approach to developing parenting plans after separation when domestic violence is...

Canadian law imposes an obligation on parents who are separated or divorced to provide support for adult children. This paper examines the legislation applicable in Ontario, both federal and provincial, which imposes an obligation to support adult children, and reviews leading cases interpreting this legislation. Unlike most areas of child support...

This paper traces the history of the "legal family" in Canada, the development of the laws governing marriage and the recognition of other familial relationships, and discusses some of the challenges presently facing lawmakers, both legislators and judges, in this area. One theme of this paper is that marriage and the family are not static institut...

Canada's juvenile justice system was profoundly changed when the Youth Criminal Justice Act [YCJA], came into force on April 1, 2003. This statute was intended to reduce Canada's high rates of use of court and custody for adolescent offenders, based on the belief that community-based responses are more effective and more appropriate for dealing wit...

In 2005-2007, the Supreme Court rendered four family law decisions, more than in any other two-year period in the past decade. Two of them dealt with child support and two with spousal support. In these four decisions, the Court sent some important signals and rhetorical messages to the profession and to litigants. However, in some respects the dec...

Canada has a broad and functional approach to the legal definition of the family, and gives significant legal recognition to social parents, who may seek custody or access, and will often have child support obligations. This paper deals with the controversies concerning the obligations of those who "stand in the place of a parent" under the definit...

If allegations of sexual abuse of a child are made after parents separate, the challenges of resolving custody and visitation issues are greatly increased, with the abuse allegations overshadowing other considerations. These are high conflict cases, and settlement may be very difficult (or inappropriate) to arrange. The involvement of a number of a...

Despite the frequent involvement of a range of experts in family law cases, controversy persists over the role of expert witnesses in these cases. Judges have a "gatekeeping" function in deciding whether to order an assessment or admit expert evidence. In making these decisions, judges should be guided by the type of cost-benefit analysis that the...

This study investigated adults' judgments of the honesty of children's coached true and fabricated mock testimony. Adults saw video clips of children testifying in a mock court about a true or fabricated event in their lives. They were asked to make an assessment of the truthfulness of the testimony, and respond to questions about their perception...

Canada has a one of the broadest sets of obligations and conferral of rights upon those who stand in the place of a parent. This paper discusses the policy controversies concering the question of who is a parent, particularly in the context of child support obligations imposed under Canadian law. A major focus is on the obligations of step-fathers...

There have been profound changes in Canada's juvenile justice system during the century that it has been in existence, most recently when the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA)1 YCJA., S.C. 2002, c. 1. In force from 1 April 2003.came into force in April 2003. A major rationale for enacting the statute was to reduce Canada's high rate of custody for...

There have been profound changes in Canada’s juvenile justice system during the century that it has been in existence, most recently when the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA)1 came into force in April 2003. A major rationale for enacting the statute was to reduce Canada’s high rate of custody for adolescent offenders, based on the belief that comm...

The 1998 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-98) is the first national study to document the rate of intentionally false allegations of abuse and neglect investigated by child welfare services in Canada. This paper provides a detailed summary of the characteristics associated with intentionally false reports of child a...

Tippins and Wittmann (2005) provide an important analysis of the limitations of child custody evaluations, but they are wrong to propose that court-appointed evaluators should be precluded from making recommendations about best interests decisions. While some of the evidence of evaluators may fail to meet the high standard of reliability expected f...

Adults' ability to detect children's deception was examined. Police officers, customs officers, and university students attempted to differentiate between children who lied or told the truth about a transgression. When children were simply questioned about the event (Experiment 1), the adult groups could not distinguish between lie-tellers and trut...

Children's lie-telling behavior to conceal the transgression of a parent was examined in 2 experiments. In Experiment 1 (N = 137), parents broke a puppet and told their children (3-11-year-olds) not to tell anyone. Children answered questions about the event. Children's moral understanding of truth- and lie-telling was assessed by a second intervie...

There is controversy in Canada about the use of assessments by mental health professionals to assist in the resolution of postseparation disputes between parents about their children. Although the principles developed by the Supreme Court of Canada to govern the admission of expert evidence in criminal law cases provides guidance for judges in fami...

The Youth Criminal justice Act was enacted to reduce the use of court and incarceration for young offenders who commit less serious crimes, while making it easier to imposes adult sanctions on those youths who commit the most serious violent offences. Preliminary reports indicate that the act has resulted in significant increases in community-based...

The issue of how to recognize different types of intimate adult relationships remains a source of controversy in Canada. In this paper, the author surveys the evolution of the current debate surrounding four types of intimate adult relationships that fall outside the traditional definition of marriage: common-law marriage, same-sex partnerships, po...

In Canada, custody and access decisions continue to be made on the basis of the highly discretionary “best interests of the child” test, with only one province having legislation that requires judges to take account of spousal abuse in making decisions about children. This article reports on a study of Canadian family law cases from 1997–2000 that...

Historically, the legal definition of the family was based on heterosexual marriage and links to biological children. Prompted by changing social values and the Charter of Rights, Canadian legislatures and courts have dramatically extended the range of relationships having familial rights and obligations. Canada recognizes the legal status of psych...

Child witnesses must undergo a competence examination in which they must show appropriate conceptual understanding of lying and truth-telling, and promise to tell the truth. Three experiments (Ns = 123, 103, 177) were conducted to address the assumptions underlying the court competence examination that (1) children who understand lying and its mora...

Historically the law regarded children as inherently unreliable and made it difficult for them to testify. Since 1975 awareness of child abuse has increased and research has established that children can be reliable witnesses. Governments began to recognize the needs and capacities of children and enacted legal reforms to facilitate prosecutions fo...

In the past decade judges have started to recognize the destructive effects of spousal violence on children, but too many judges and justice system professionals still fail to take adequate account of spousal abuse when dealing with child related issues. Courts need to take a “differentiated” approach to spousal abuse, one that recognizes its diffe...

Recent legislative reforms in Canada have made it easier for courts to receive the testimony of children and for children to endure the experience of testifying. However, both lawyers and judges, unaware of the fundamentals of child development, often fail to question children effectively. Subjecting children to confusing and developmentally inappr...

Until the late 1980s, the Canadian legal system viewed children as inherently unreliable and made little effort to accommodate them. Legislation enacted in 1988 (S.C. 1987 c. 24) permits children to testify without being sworn if they have the "ability to communicate" on "promising to tell the truth." A child may testify from behind a screen or via...

Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals are frequently involved as expert witnesses in court proceedings related to children and adolescents. Their testimony may be based on a therapeutic relationship, but frequently arises because of an assessment conducted specifically for the court process. This two part paper discusses some of the i...