January 2015

• Author: Andrew I. Schepard,Robert E. Emery
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12125

EDITORIAL NOTES

JANUARY 2015

This issue begins a new volume of Family Court Review.

NOTE FROM THE STUDENT MANAGING EDITOR

As is traditional each January, Michael Slade, the student managing editor who is the head of the

student staff, introduces the new staff to readers. We thus begin this volume by highlighting the

Hofstra Law student staff. They continue to make invaluable contributions to the growth and devel-

opment of this journal through their student Notes and editorial work. FCR could simply not be

published without their hard work and dedication.

INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNINGAND THE DENVER UNIVERSITY RESOURCE

CENTER FOR SEPARATING AND DIVORCING FAMILIES

Many in the AFCC community have long believed that future lawyers should be trained together

with future mental health professionals to provide holistic services that support parents and children

through separation and divorce. Integrating disciplines for training and emphasizing alternatives to

litigation such as mediation is, for example, a major theme of the Family Law Education Reform

Project and the law school course development that followed it.

The University of Denver has realized that interdisciplinary vision by creating a groundbreaking

Resource Center for Separating and Divorcing Families. The Center is sponsored by the Universi-

ty’s Law School, Department of Psychology, and School of Social Work. Its design is the product

of The Honoring Families Initiative (HFI) of the Institute for the Advancement of the American

Legal System (IAALS), a civil justice reform think tank that has close relationships with the

University.

The Resource Center:

• Provides multidisciplinary services (mediation, agreement drafting, therapy, education, finan-

cial planning) for separating and divorcing families;

• Serves as a training center for law students and mental health students;

• Is a locus of research and development on best practices for separating and divorcing families.

More information about IAALS, HFI, and the Center can be found at http://www.du.edu/rcsdf/.

Many AFCC members and FCR Editorial Board members played a role in developing the model

for the Center. Marsha Kline Pruett and one of us (Andy) consulted extensively with the University

of Denver, IAALS, and HFI in the process.

The Center is undergoing a rigorous empirical evaluation of the impact of its services on parents

and children and the impact of its interdisciplinary teaching and environment on law and mental health

students. Numbers, graphs, and empirical rigor are the tools that we rely on for accurate assessment.

After visiting with the Center students, however, Marsha and Andy suggested that they should publish

something more qualitative and personal: the perspective of students in different disciplines on what

they experienced and what they have achieved.

FAMILY COURT REVIEW, Vol. 53 No. 1, January 2015 1–5

© 2015 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts