News In Focus
29 May 2008
US expert to talk to MSPs about divorce solutions
Parent education classes and family mediation should replace the current potentially damaging adversarial system of marriage and relationship breakups, according to a US divorce expert who will be talking to MSPs today.
US divorce coach and parent educator Christina McGhee will speak to politicians at the Scottish Parliament, along with specialists from legal firms HBJ Gateley Wareing and Lindsays.
Ms McGhee is the leading exponent of parental coaching in the US, and presented a Channel 4 series entitled How to Divorce Without Screwing up your Kids. She is also undertaking mediators’ and solicitors’ training on her current trip.
She supports the aims of Relationships Scotland, previously Family Mediation Scotland, and the Scottish Collaborative Family Law Group, made up of lawyers who aim to make divorce and separation more amicable.
Parent education
Some 50,000 children are affected by divorce and separation every year in Scotland. Relationships Scotland offers parent education classes, and would like to see Scotland’s law-makers make attendance the norm for parents who are separating.
Increasingly, research shows that the fallout from parental acrimony can lead to behavioural problems in children, lower levels of educational attainment and higher levels of smoking, drinking and drug use.
Ms McGhee said: “We believe that parent education works best when it is enshrined in law, and that ultimately the best option is that parents who are separating should be made to attend these classes to ensure that they are aware of how best to handle the welfare of their children during this traumatic time.”
Cath Karlin, who heads the family law team at HBJ Gateley Wareing and is past convener of the Scottish Collaborative Family Law Group, added: “We know from experiences in other parts of the world that this approach does work, and that couples and their children benefit from it. As lawyers we would like to see this approach piloted and tested, normalising it and giving parents the opportunity to see for themselves the positives that it brings and allow lawyers to make use of it with confidence.”