Bev Churchill, KC

Parenting Coordination is a child focused process to resolve family disputes involving children.

A Parenting Coordinator (“PC”) is an experienced family law lawyer, registered counselor or psychologist who has specialized training to guide and assist parents to identify the needs of their children and to assist in the resolution of disputes between their parents.  Typically, a PC is retained to assist with the details involved with their parenting plan or schedule. This may be an interim or final parenting plan or schedule.  It is important to select a PC who is on the Roster of the B.C. Parenting Coordination Roster Society  as each Roster member has the initial specialized training as well as the ongoing professional development training and experience to remain on the Roster.

A PC may be appointed pursuant to the terms of a Court Order or the parents may agree to retain a PC.  In each situation, the parents are required to enter into the terms of the Parenting Coordination Agreement prescribed and updated from time to time by the B.C. Parenting Coordination Roster Society. This Agreement outlines the roles and responsibilities of the parents and the PC.

After the parents have signed the Parenting Coordination Agreement, each parent will meet separately with the PC for a pre-parenting coordination interview.  When a dispute arises between the parents, either one or both parents may contact the PC.  The PC will work with the parents to try to achieve a consensual resolution of the dispute.   In circumstances where a consensual resolution cannot be achieved, the PC will make a “determination” as authorized in the Parenting Coordination Agreement. In other words, the PC will use their arbitration training and skills to decide the outcome of the dispute.

Parenting Coordination is not intended to replace other consensual dispute resolution processes such as negotiations, mediation or the Collaborative process Instead, Parenting Coordination offers parents a specialized child focused process with the consistency of a single qualified professional who has the skills and experience to resolve the dispute.  From my perspective, the idea is for the PC to work their way out of a job over the term of the PC process to assist the parents to be able to resolve their own disputes rather than to be forever dependent on a third-party decision maker. It is a process designed to avoid the more expensive and often conflict entrenching adversarial processes where rely on the third-party decision maker who may be a different person for each dispute that arises.

*See Information Sheet: Focus of this Parenting Coordinator