 |
| |
| |
| | |
| 1. Celebrate when you have the children
Kids don’t care about dates and times. They only care about spending time with you and hopefully getting an Easter egg or two. Make it fun when they are with you and let them enjoy their time with the other parent too.
2. Be respectful of everyone’s beliefs and rituals
Different families celebrate on different days and in different ways. Be open and understanding of what matters to your coparent and hopefully the same respect is shown in return.
3. Keep talking
Communication is key. Talk to your coparent about what is important to them and what plans they might have. Hopefully you can find a way to let your children celebrate with all of the important people in their lives.
4. You can’t go wrong with chocolate
When all else fails, treat yourself and the ones you love with some lovely little Easter eggs. Remember, don’t eat them all at one.
The team at Divorce Done Differently wishes you all a wonderful Easter! |
| | | |
| | |
| PARENTING COORDINATION
We have 2 highly skilled Parenting Coordinators at Divorce Done Differently.
Shelby has over 20 years experience in assisting families through conflict and was one of the first parenting coordinators trained in Australia.
In March of this year, Shelby was a keynote speaker at the Reflections in Law Conference on Parenting Coordination. |
| | | |
| | |
| The Rafton Artbitration and Mediation Practice (RAMP) leader, Maurice Edwards, said of Shelby
"Shelby Timmins is one of Australia's leading parenting coordinators....We are very grateful to Shelby for presenting at our conference and sharing her extensive knowledge and experience in this new and developing area of dispute resolution."
To learn more about Parenting Coordination click below.
|
| | | |
| | |
| As I approach my 1st anniversary with Divorce Done differently it seems an opportune time to reflect on the year that has been and what I have learned.
I came to Divorce Done Differently as a litigator in the Family Law space for some 20 years and an accredited Family Law Specialist for 8 of those years. Working in the family law space almost exclusively for most of my career I have long been conscious that as family lawyers we meet our clients at a point of their lives where they are emotionally spent, are often fearful of what the future holds, and they are regularly in a place of deep distress and/or anger. They are also often nursing the broken dreams of what they thought the future should look like and questions about what went wrong. They are at a cross road. As family lawyers we are then tasked to help navigate these vulnerable and hurt clients through the Family Law process and assist them to make parenting and financial decisions which require them to draw on logic, pragmatism, and an impossible balancing of emotional, familial and commercial considerations. It is nothing if not challenging to work as a family lawyer.
In the role of mediator the challenge is doubled. This is in large part because you are required to place yourself not on the side of one party or the other but squarely in the middle. You are front and centre of not just one parties, but both parties distress, pain, anger and frustration. You also get to be front and centre of both parties grace, kindness, forgiveness and at times incredible child focus. You see it all.
I have been grateful to be given the opportunity of mediating parenting and property matters and of sitting in the middle and assisting the parties and their often brilliant and skilled lawyers to reach resolutions that bring relief and closure. I always believed that though separating families often appear very different from the outside there are incredible similarities between the experiences of all families managing separation. My work as mediator has made me more confident that this is the case. With this in mind the most important lessons that I have learned to date are as follows:
- All people have a need for their story to be heard and acknowledged. When space is created for people to be truly heard then they often have greater capacity to be reasonable and are generally more conciliatory and willing to negotiate in good faith and reach outcomes that best serve the family unit;
- It is unlikely that there is one correct version of what happened during the course of a relationship, particularly when the marriage is long or punctuated by periods of distress. Perspective is powerful and colours the way that parties in family law proceedings think about past events. It is therefore essential that the focus of any mediation or resolution is forward focused;
- Almost everyone whose family is separating is experiencing some level of fear – fear about their financial future, fear about how their relationship with the children will look and whether the children will be ok, fear about how once intimate partners will negotiate the day to day challenges of parenting after separation. Fear can be expressed in a number of ways all of which are counter productive to a successful mediation – shutting down or freezing, running away and sometimes fear can express itself as anger or aggression. Management of both parties fear is essential for any negotiation to be successful;
- Whilst creating space for the parties to air their dispute is an important part of mediation, the mediator is specifically charged with the responsibility of working with the parties and/or their legal teams toward a resolution of the dispute. This is the goal and the focus of mediations. I am keenly mindful that when mediation is not successful litigation is the consequence. The stakes are high because what I know for sure is that court is not only expensive but more importantly it is stressful, time consuming and there are very few people who end long and contested ligation with the view that engaging in the legal process was a positive experience for the parties or their children. I remain more dedicated than ever to assisting as many people as possible from avoiding the pitfall that is contested litigation.
- Having the assistance at a mediation of prepared lawyers who are committed to resolution of their client’s dispute, is worth its weight in gold.
I have been so grateful for the opportunity to join the Divorce Done Differently team and to work with such great clients in the important space of family law resolution. I am looking forward to the next chapter and to leaning in to Parenting Coordination in my second year at DDD. |
| | | |
| | |
| THE COACH IN COLLABORATIVE PRACTICE ADVANCED COURSE
If you would like more information on The Coach in Collaborative Practice Advanced Course, please click below.
|
| | | |
|
