Legal Support for Family Dispute Cases
We work alongside family consultants to support you through the divorce process. The family consultant can meet with you individually, or with you and your ex together, or become involved to assist the whole family. In some cases, you might find it helpful to work with your ex and two family consultants, working together in a 4-way meeting as well as individually. Family consultants often have a counselling background and they can help couples to come to terms with the breakdown of the relationship. However, they tend to utilize coaching skills as they help those involved to tackle specific difficult choices. They can, for example, help parents to create a parenting plan that sets out the arrangements that they want to put in place for their children, or work with them to develop ways of resolving disputes about the children’s care.
BAWA is providing all kind of social help to those who are seriously involve in family disputes of any kind of nature such as dispute with husband or any family member of family friend etc. When you take the decision to separate from a spouse or partner there are often a great many decisions that need to be made. These could be about legal and financial matters, but they are often made within the context of emotionally challenging situations. Decisions about matters relating to your children can be especially emotive. You may need to agree on the time the children should spend with each parent, or there may be wider issues around where you will live and which school your children should attend. These are all big decisions, made all the more complicated if you are not in the best frame of mind for making important choices, and if you struggle to talk to each other without it ending in an argument. In this blog, we are particularly focusing on the family consultant and how they can assist clients with this difficult transition.
BAWA have a role to play as part of the team in any form of dispute resolution process, such as collaborative practice or mediation, but also through arbitration or even traditional litigation. Family consultants can support one or both of you during the entire legal process, or through a particular stage or event. Sometimes attempts to find a resolution can be held back by one or both people struggling to manage their feelings about the situation; family consultants can help get over an impasse, by offering strategies to cope with the emotional challenges. This may involve helping you to look at past patterns of behavior to understand your own responses, or it may involve a more coaching based approach that is focused on the future. When a couple separates, it is not unusual for one person to be further along the road to a new life than the other. One person may have been contemplating the end of the marriage for some time, whilst for the other it is a shock. If you are still adjusting to the end of the relationship, it can feel impossible to think about the future. A family consultant can help put both of you in a place where you feel able to make decisions about what should happen next. This can also enable you both to make the most of the various methods of dispute resolution that are available.
BAWA deal in all family legal Aid who’s are affected the following areas:
- Divorce will be affected (the legal process of formally ending a marriage or civil partnership)
- Resolving issues regarding children through the family courts whether or not you are married will also be affected, including residence disputes (where a child should live) contact disputes (how much time a child should spend seeing each parent)
- Issues such as whether a child can be taken out of the country, either to live or on holiday or which school a child should go to
- Prohibitive steps applications - restrictions and impositions on what a parent can do with a child and also parental responsibility disputes.
- Family finance issues are also going to be affected so you will not be able to get legal aid to decide things such as whether the family home should be sold and what share each person should have of the family assets. All financial issues like sharing pensions, child Support Agency payments and financial support for children generally will all be affected by the cuts to the legal aid system.
- Family mediation to resolve disputes about children and finance on a relationship breakdown;
- Applications for a non-molestation order or occupation order;
- Representation for children who are made party to private family proceedings;
- Applications for forced marriage protection orders;
- Proceedings brought by the local authority for a care order or supervision order;
- Cases where your child has been or is about to be taken out of the UK without your consent;