Effective Use of Parenting Coordination: Considerations for Legal and Mental Health Professionals

• Author: Matthew Sullivan,Annette Burns
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12509
• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Date: 01 July 2020

EFFECTIVE USE OF PARENTING COORDINATION:

CONSIDERATIONS FOR LEGAL AND MENTAL HEALTH

PROFESSIONALS

Matthew Sullivan and Annette Burns

Parenting Coordination (PC) is a dispute resolution and case management role to assist high conflict coparents (Coates et al.,

Family Court Review, 2004; 42, 246–262; Sullivan, Journal of Child Custody,2008; 5, 3–24; Carter & Lally, Parenting Coor-

dination in Post-Separation Disputes, 2014; Fidler, Canadian Family Law Quarterly, 2012; 31, 237–273). A revision of the

original practice 2005 guidelines for parenting coordination was just published by the Association of Families and Concilia-

tion Courts in 2019, providing an update for the family justice community about developments in the parenting coordinator

(PC) role in the last 14 years. This article focuses on how family law professionals can support effective parenting coordina-

tion practice in their jurisdiction. Support begins with understanding the PC role as the most intensive intervention available

at this time for high conflict coparents, and guidance about what types of cases are appropriate for referral and which are not.

A description of the essential components of appointment orders, parenting coordination procedures, and court review are

provided as well to best structure the parenting coordination process for success. Finally, the article addresses how jurisdic-

tions can support the development and maintenance of this unique role.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

Parenting Coordination is the most intensive intervention for coparents who have intractable conflict as they imple-

ment shared parenting.

The article describes the essential functions of the Parenting Coordination role to assist family law professionals to

make appropriate appointments in their jurisdiction.

Several procedural structures are presented that should be considered when appointing a Parenting Coordinator.

Recommendations are provided that the Court, the bar and mental health experts to support the development of Par-

enting Coordination in their jurisdiction.

Keywords: Coparenting After Divorce; High Conflict Divorce; Parenting Coordination; Parenting Coordinator.

I. WHAT IS PARENTING COORDINATION?

In the spectrum of coparenting

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interventions available to the family court, parenting coordination

is the most intensive intervention available to assist parents who share parenting time and decision-

making to do so more functionally. One can think about coparenting interventions as occurring on a

continuum of those that are effective with cases that have less problematic and more transitional inter-

parental conflict and dysfunction to those that are effective with cases that have entrenched and intrac-

table conflict. For cases with mild to moderate conflict, parent and coparent educational programs,

which are becoming increasingly available on-line, can provide evidence-based psychoeducation to

Corresponding: sullypsych@hushmail.com

Author’snote

Matthew J. Sullivan, Ph.D. Private Practice, Palo Alto, CA., President of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

(AFCC).

Annette Burns, J.D., Private Practice Phoenix, AZ., Former President of the Association of Family and Conciliation

Courts (AFCC).

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 58 No. 3, July 2020 730–746

© 2020 Association of Family and Conciliation Courts

parents who can benefit from such information (Moran, Weinstock, & Butler, 2019). These interven-

tions can help parents gain insight into problematic coparenting dynamics and their damaging impact

on their children and acquire skills to develop more collaborative and cooperative partnerships. If this

early educational intervention, which is recommended and may be required for coparents who have

become court-involved, is not effective, coparent counseling, which is a confidential therapeutic inter-

vention, may be recommended or ordered by the court to assist parents who have been assessed as

having more serious, persistent conflict. When these less intensive interventions fail, mediation, either

confidential or non-confidential, may be an effective dispute resolution intervention. If mediation is

confidential and results in impasse, parents often return to the court to have their dispute addressed by

a magistrate or judge. Some parents, even with a non-confidential mediator in place,

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(whose recom-

mendations are communicated to the court when the parties do not agree), continue to relitigate even

the non-legal issues regarding their children. When this occurs, parenting coordination may be the

only effective intervention to manage and resolve coparenting conflict (Johnston, 1994; Fieldstone &

Bohac, 2009; Deutsch, Misca, & Ajoku, 2018).

This article will describe in more depth the characteristics of this small subset of cases where

coparenting conflict does not resolve and help family court professionals understand why the par-

enting coordination intervention is a better fit for these parents than other coparenting interventions

or continued litigation. The article will then address how other professionals in the court system can

increase the effectiveness of PC’s in their jurisdiction.

II. WHAT IS INTRACTABLE COPARENTING CONFLICT?

Intractable coparenting conflict can be defined as, “protracted family conflict that can ultimately

lead to children being harmed, assets dissipated, and ongoing relationships harmed or destroyed.”

(Burgess & Burgess, 2015 p. 453). The development of intractable conflict between coparents has a

predictable course, as does its management and resolution at different phases. Figure 1 illustrates

the escalation of conflict, it’s impasse (stalemate) and its de-escalation. Parenting coordination has

different utility at different phases of intractable conflict. Moving coparents to the right side of the

bell curve opens the possibility of peacebuilding and reconciliation.

A. LATENT CONFLICT

The coparents’feelings of connectedness may have been eroded by long-standing conflicts over

differences in a combination of matters such as communication, anger management, parenting style,

Figure 1 Phases of intractable conflict development and resolution. Source: Beyond Intractability.

Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium. University of Colorado,

Boulder. Posted November 2003. Burgess, Heidi and Guy M. Burgess. “What are Intractable

Conflicts?”http://www.beyondintractabiity.org/essay/meaning-intractability.

Sullivan and Burns/EFFECTIVE USE OF PARENTING COORDINATION 731