Law Times

Law Times • November 5, 2012 SickKids looking to have impact on family law FOCUS M BY JUDY VAN RHIJN For Law Times ost science of infant brain develop- ment, but a family law effort that has germinated at the Hospital for wouldn't consider the need to educate themselves family lawyers in the seeks to change that. While most people would Sick Children in Toronto agree that family breakup can af- fect a child' been no policy of actually assess- ing a child' at any stage of the proceedings. At the same time, living arrange- ments don't typically account for the need for remedial attention. Chaya Kulkarni, director of s welfare, there has s developmental level infant mental health at SickKids, gives the example of a child who wasn't even two years old at the time of the breakup. "He has al- ready had 10 foster placements and there are five access visits ev- ery week with five different people. Nobody has actually said how the child is doing developmentally. A group of leading child wel- " fare and early childhood devel- opment organizations south of the border has already addressed those concerns with a policy agen- da calling for action on behalf of maltreated infants and toddlers in May 2011. It said: "Child welfare policy and practice rarely view infants and toddlers through a de- velopmental lens. Although there are notable exceptions, generally few initiatives, policies or practices recognize the special vulnerability of these young children to devel- opmental harm or systematically seek to ameliorate it. Thus, some actions, such as multiple moves in foster care placements, infrequent contact with parents, and failure to provide developmental assess- ments, may escalate the damage. In fact, research shows that " more than 50 per cent of chil- dren who have suffered some form of neglect will experience a global and social delay. At a time when development is happen- ing at an amazing pace, failure to provide early intervention can be a serious waste of that time. present, caseworkers and lawyers are "looking at each other" for the evidence necessary to improve a child' Kulkarni gets the feeling that at tion workers say that the lawyers keep asking for more informa- tion but neither of them know how to contextualize the research in a particular case. Judges, law- yers, and child welfare agencies agree that the system isn't work- ing for infants and toddlers." It was the need to address this s situation. "Child protec- problem that sparked the infant mental health and family law ef- fort. It' laboration that aims to bring the science of early childhood devel- opment into child welfare and family law practice through edu- cation and advocacy. Nancy Bull- ard of the Children' s an interdisciplinary col- Toronto and Archana Medhekar, a private practitioner focusing on family law, represent the legal pro- fession on the committee. "The problem of children s Aid Society of Concerns related to the intersection of infant mental health and family law have prompted the Hospital for Sick Children to take action on the issue. doesn't matter how much infor- mation you have if you don't op- erationalize it," says Kulkarni. "We have created a model Photo: Glenn Kauth with which to do development screens on this age group so we understand their needs." She notes data on infants is very scarce. "If we don't ask about the data, no one collects it." The work also includes con- versations aimed at coming up with support plans and iden- tifying a developmental goal. "Whoever is caring for the child can support that development," says Kulkarni. "Someone having an access visit can discover what the best kinds of experience are for the child. screening the child every few months until development gets back on the correct track or there' The model provides for " "The needs of this group are not being met by any sector of society, LT says Kulkarni. "We need to raise awareness among policymakers, funders, and hospitals." NEWLY REVISED & UPDATED FOR 2012 suffering abuse and neglect at a very early age is that it needs to be viewed from various angles," says Medhekar. "There is the doctor and the child welfare response team, then there is the children' lawyers like us. This initiative puts everyone on the same page. She notes problems in the s lawyers and " age range of zero to three years' old may be chronic. "Creating sensitization about the issue and giving defined results using the tools that this project is creating allows us to connect them to the resources they need and make them ready to take on more challenges in life. knowledge building. The prepa- ration of online training modules for child protection workers is well underway with a pilot proj- ect commencing in February. "We need to take the wealth of scien- tific knowledge about promoting healthy brain development and contextualize it so that partici- pants in the family court system can make clinically informed de- cisions about maltreated young children," says Kulkarni. The second pillar is skill. "It The first pillar of the project is " Don't spend valuable time and resources updating your precedents when DIVORCEmate has already done the work for you! 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