Family Law Prof Blog

International Recovery of Child Support

From Jeanne M. Hannah writing for Updates in Family Law:

Melissa Kucinski, an American Bar Association colleague who practices in Washington, D.C., advises today that on this day, August 30, 2016, President Obama signed the instrument of ratification for the Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance.

The official statement by NSC Spokesperson Ned Price on The Hague Convention on International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance may be read at this link. While the United States has child support enforcement well in hand, the same has not been true in other countries. This Convention is intended to remedy non-support cases where the payer of support resides in a foreign country and fails to provide court-ordered child support. The Convention's purpose is to assist custodial parents in enforcement proceedings in their state courts for collection of financial support due from parents residing outside of the United States.

Read more here.

Programme aims to help people affected by 'parental alienation'

From The Guardian:

Parental alienation – a phenomenon where one parent poisons their child against the other parent – has become such a feature of the most difficult family breakdowns that Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is to offer targeted support for those affected following a government-funded intensive therapeutic pilot programme.

Distinct from the all-too-common acrimony between divorcing parents, the syndrome is an internationally recognised phenomenon. In America and Canada, “parenting coordinators” are ordered and supervised by the courts to help restore relationships between parents and children identified as “alienated”. In Mexico and Brazil, alienating a child from a parent is a criminal act.

Psychiatrist Richard Gardner developed the concept 20 years ago, defining it as “a disorder that arises primarily in the context of child custody disputes. Its primary manifestation is the child’s campaign of denigration against a parent, a campaign that has no justification. It results from the combination of a programming (brainwashing) parent’s indoctrinations and the child’s own contributions to the vilification of the target parent.”

Read more here.

Legal technicians provide family law assistance

From the News Tribune:

VANCOUVER, WASH. - Navigating the family law system can be an overwhelming and emotional process, especially for people who have no choice but to represent themselves in court.

The number of pro se litigants has steadily increased across the country, with between 60 to 90 percent of family law cases involving at least one party with no legal representation, according to information released by the American Bar Association in 2013.

"People are kind of in a society of do-it-yourself. Some people may be able to afford an attorney, but others can't. We are seeing more and more people representing themselves," Clark County Chief Deputy Clerk Baine Wilson said.

Local and state agencies recognize a strong need for assistance and have begun offering alternatives to help guide the public through the process, reported The Columbian.

Read more here.

Child Support Resources

• Federal Office of Child Support Enforcement
• Child Support Guidelines Online