Originally published: . Volume 11, No. 3. Source pages: 15.
Great Need for Psychologists as Mediators Louisiana Chapter of Assn Family & Conciliation Courts to Hold 10th Annual Conference in This Week in New Orleans
The Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, Louisiana Chapter (AFCC-LA) will celebrate its tenth anniversary with a two-day training on parenting coordination and mediation skills, March 6-7, 2020, to be held at the Canal Street Sheraton in New Orleans.
The theme, “Calming the Waters: Parenting Coordination and Mediation Skills” aims to help professionals who want to add competencies in this practice area. The event includes six hours of training on Friday for parenting coordination and six hours on Saturday for Mediation Skills Training.
AFCC-LA Chapter President Leslie Todd, LCSW, has said there is a great need in Louisiana for more mediators and coordinators. This conference aims to provide needed training for those professionals who are thinking of building this competence.
“Sadly, I don’t believe there is a single psychologist in Louisiana who provides mediation or parenting coordination, although this is common in other states," Todd has said. "Those interested in family systems could offer these much- needed services to help families with divorce, visitation, relocation, and even eldercare.”
She hopes that Louisiana psychologists will be encouraged to hear nationally- known psychologist Dr. Robin M. Deutsch, a pioneer and advocate of parenting coordination, at the March 6-7 event.
Robin Deutsch, PhD, is a Diplomate in Couple and Family Psychology and Professor of Clinical Psychology at William James College. She is founder and Director of the Center of Excellence for Children, Families and the Law at William James College.
Family Courts, which have evolved from a more adversarial system, Todd has explained, are in need of more psychologists and other mental health professionals who can help families define their structures and address their conflicting interests in more self- empowering and productive ways.
The March 6 presentation aims to help meet this need. Dr. Deutsch has performed a wide variety of forensic evaluations and testified in juvenile, family, district and federal courts involving divorce and visitation disputes. She teaches extensively to judges, lawyers, mediators, and mental health groups in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. She has published extensively on issues related to attachment, alienation, co-parenting after divorce, high conflict divorce, parenting plans, and parenting coordination. She is the co-author of 7 Things Your Teenager Won’t Tell You: and How to Talk about Them Anyway (Ballantine, 2005, 2011) and co-editor of Overcoming Parent-Child Contact Problems: Family-Based Interventions for Resistance, Rejection, and Alienation (Oxford, 2016).
Also presenting will be Dr. Ann Ordway, core faculty in the Counselor Education Department at the University of Phoenix. She holds a Juris Doctor degree and a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision.
Also presenting is Mark Myers, JD. Myers has been providing ADR services for more than 20 years as a member of the Association of Attorney Mediators, the Association for Conflict Resolution, and the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts. His degree is from Tulane.
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