Parenting Coordination

[@LoreRogers]

With respect to serving as a parenting coordinator in cases where there has been (and may continue to be) intimate partner violence and coercive control, this may be helpful: “In those cases of domestic violence where one parent seeks to obtain and maintain power and control over the other, the role of the PC changes to an almost purely enforcement function. Here, the PC is likely to be dealing with a court order, the more detailed the better, rather than a mutually agreed upon parenting plan; the role is to ensure compliance with the details of the order and to test each request for variance from its terms with an eye to protecting the custodial parent’s autonomy to make decisions based on the children’s best interests and guarding against manipulation by the abusing parent. ADR techniques in such cases may have the effect of maintaining or increasing the imbalance of power and the victim’s risk of harm. Accordingly, each jurisdiction should have in place a process to screen out and/or develop specialized PC protocols and procedures in this type of DV case. Likewise, PCs should routinely screen prospective cases for DV and decline to accept such cases if they do not have specialized expertise and procedures to effectively manage DV cases involving an imbalance of power, control and coercion.” Guidelines for Parenting Coordination -AFCC Task Force on Parenting Coordination, 2005