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As the Child Specialist role continues to develop, it is timely to consider a primary function of the role, which is to meet with children to hear their experience of living in their whānau and to give them an opportunity to discuss any thoughts, feelings or experiences they may wish to share in the context of their care and the plans being made for them in Family Dispute Resolution.

The Fair Way team are available Monday to Friday across the Christmas and New Year period, except for public holidays.  Please note we will have reduced capacity as some of the team take a well-deserved break. 

Believe it or not we are only a few short weeks away from drawing 2024 to a close. It’s been an action packed 12 months at Fair Way and many of our team are looking forward to some well-deserved rest and relaxation over the holiday period, as I’m sure many of you are too! We will still have a small crew here to help if you need us, details of the days and hours that we will be available can be found below.

It is over six months since the newly established Child Specialist role began working in Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) and many are curious as to what impact the role has made and the outcomes achieved for whānau. While it is still early days, and FDR suppliers are utilising their Child Specialists in different ways, there are some key indicators giving us a read on the various successes and overall impact of the role so far.

But what happens when there is a Court referral to FDR, where a Judge has directed the parties to attend FDR pursuant to the Court’s jurisdiction under section 46F of the Care of Children Act 2004? This question has been asked of us a few times recently, and the answer is not straight forward. I have endeavoured to summarise a few of the key challenges with Lawyers for Child attending FDR mediation in this article.

Hard to believe that we are already beyond the halfway point for 2024! The months that have passed since our last edition have been very busy and our team are proud to have assisted so many Kiwis through to a resolution of their ACC dispute.

If you are a habitual Family Advocate reader you may have been following the changes to FDR mediation following the implementation of the Family Court (Supporting Children in Court) Legislation Act 2021 (“the Act”) which enables tamariki to have a stronger voice in Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) mediation.

We are all aware of increasing attention being paid to bullying in the workplace and Pink Shirt Day is another example of efforts to bring this dark issue and into the light (quite literally). More is written and spoken about the problem than ever before but there is very little evidence that the increased profile is making a difference.

Answers to your FAQs…

By Will Story for the Family Advocate, Autumn 2024