DATE:
    December 2-3, 2010 (9:00 am – 4:30 pm)

LOCATION:
    TBD - in either northern San Rafael or in southern Novato (Hamilton), CA

(17-20 miles north of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge)

FEE:     $495 (Early Registration: $435 if paid by 10/21/10; $465 if paid by 11/4/10).

CE CREDITS:    

MCLE & BBS (12 hrs.); MCEP (13 hrs - to be submitted for review to MCEPAA for approval, Provider #NOR045).

DESCRIPTION:
Parents with continuing disputes and litigation about their children following divorce present a difficult problem for courts, lawyers and mental health professionals, and increase their children’s risk of adjustment problems. For parenting coordinators, Special Masters, mediators, custody evaluators, lawyers, divorce counselors, therapists and other professionals who work with high-conflict families.

Participants in this two-day workshop will:

• Understand the most recent empirical and clinical research on high conflict parents and their children and what makes these parents so difficult;
  
• Understand the hybrid nature of the parenting coordinator (Special Master) role that includes parent education, mediation, and where authorized, arbitration, and how the parenting coordinator process helps reduce parent conflict and address children’s needs;
  
• Understand the distinctions between serving as a Special Master and therapy, custody evaluation, child representation or representing parents;
  
• Learn about parenting coordinator objectives, types of disputes settled, best practices, models, and critical elements in court orders or parent consent agreements;
  
• Understand the technical, ethical, clinical, and personal issues in serving as a parenting coordinator (Special Master);
  
• Learn from case examples, group exercises, and practice dispute analysis and decision-making.
  

About the Instructor:

Dr. Joan B. Kelly, a research, forensic, and clinical psychologist, was Director of the Northern California Mediation Center for 19 years. Her research, writing, and practice have focused on children’s adjustment to divorce, custody and access issues, using child development research in parenting plans, divorce mediation, and Parenting Coordination. She has more than 85 publications, and a classic book, Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. Joan is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, was recently appointed to an APA ask Force to develop guidelines for Parenting Coordinator practice, and previously served on a similar AFCC task force. She is a frequent presenter and speaker in the United States, Canada, and abroad.