We no longer provide the Building Family Bridges™ Workshop and the adjunct After Care Protocol in Australia. We previously provided these services for Family Law in Australia to remediate child psychological abuse and severely alienated parent-child relationships.
The principal reasons are:
Adverse Changes to the Australian Family Law Act 1975
- Recent changes in the Family Law Act 1975 removed the relevance of family relationships and shared parenting in children’s best interests. I have made representations about the dire implications of these changes at Family Law Amendment Bill 2023: An Anti-Family and Anti-Child Law.
- Family Law in Australia has become increasingly reluctant to reverse parental care and responsibility to the targeted/rejected non-residential parent. This approach leaves children exposed to further abuse despite evidence supporting such a structural change to the family system. It also provides legal justification for “bad parenting in the child’s best interests”.
- Family Law in Australia often does not engage the AfterCare Protocol or other appropriate remediation for the parent with whom the children previously resided. These parents then exploit well-documented structural flaws in Family Law to interfere with the children’s relationship with their previously rejected parent, thereby potentially undoing the remediation.
Inadequate Family Assessments and a Lack of Therapeutic Jurisprudence
- Some family consultants, single experts and Independent Children’s Lawyers continue to demonstrate a lack of understanding about alienated parent-child relationships. They remain captured by politicised notions that lead them to accept children’s distorted realities without question. They incorrectly construe that these children cannot cope with a necessary reversal of parental care and responsibility. I have written about this situation previously, and it remains largely unchanged, with few but notable exceptions. Parental Alienation: What Doesn’t Family Law and Family Violence Know?
- In our view, Family Law and the experts on whom they rely misjudge the severity of these cases. They continue to make inappropriate recommendations for therapy, even when they fail to meet their goals. Such an approach further entrenches child abuse instead of remediating it.
- Remediations for severe and extremely alienated parent-child relationships work best in a therapeutic jurisprudent approach. In such an environment, children’s living arrangements are finalised, while the time the previously residential parent spends with their children is contingent on meeting therapeutic objectives. Family Law has not fully implemented such an approach. They do not provide compelling incentives for the previously residential parent to change their behaviour while supporting them when they do not.
A Lone Dissenting Voice on Parental Alienation
We have often found ourselves in a position of being the lone dissenting voice. We offer an evidence-based assessment at odds with the prevailing expert view on which the Family Court relies. Recent cases suggest the Family Court is still prepared to justify abusive and harmful parenting as being in the child’s best interest. They disregard evidence to the contrary. We do not think any reasonable parent would agree with such ideas. Targeted/rejected parents seeking to rescue their children from abuse have to bear the legal costs of the structural biases against them. This approach does not reflect our ethos.
Over the last decade, there have been good outcomes with the Building Family Bridges™ socio-educative methodology, which addresses the adverse structural effects of alienation. In these cases, continuing with therapy entrenches child abuse. Unfortunately, we are not confident that Family Law in Australia will continue in this direction.
Improving Alienated Children’s Lives with the Building Family Bridges™ Workshop in Australia
In 2014, I was part of a foundation team from Western Australia invited to attend the training in the USA to bring the Building Family Bridges™ workshop to Australia. Since then, we have worked hard to establish best practice evidence-based models for the remediation of child psychological abuse by alienation. We have demonstrated what is possible.
Our team, dedicated Children’s Contact Services, and some legal counsel have positively influenced the Family Law jurisdiction in Australia. We have improved children’s lives. Thank you.
Future Developments
We have never had the monopoly on remediating severely alienated parent-child relationships. Some new developments in Australia may provide different options.
For more information please refer to https://www.buildingfamilybridges.com.
Similar Posts:
- Family Law Amendment Bill 2023: An Anti-Family and Anti-Child Law
- Parental Alienation:Evidence Based Reunification Available in Australia
- Hope for Reconnection and Reunification after Parental Alienation
- Parental Alienation – Faster Than The Speed of Love
- Parental Alienation in the Australian Media!
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