BAWA provides comprehensive support for those involved in family disputes, including conflicts with spouses or family members. When separating from a partner, many challenging decisions about legal, financial, and emotional matters need to be made, especially concerning children’s arrangements. These decisions are often complicated by emotional stress and communication difficulties.
Family consultants at BAWA play a crucial role in dispute resolution processes such as mediation, arbitration, or litigation. They support clients by helping manage emotional challenges and offering strategies to overcome impasses. Family consultants, often with a counseling background, assist individually, with both parties together, or with the whole family. They can facilitate 4-way meetings involving both parties and two consultants. They help couples come to terms with relationship breakdowns and make specific decisions, such as creating parenting plans and resolving disputes about children’s care. This enables clients to effectively use various dispute resolution methods and move forward with their lives.
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.