Archive for March 2018
How can I accurately assess risks my client is facing from her former partner?
Your role as a woman’s advocate will require you to engage in safety planning with the women you support. Safety planning is, in some ways, the other side of risk assessment: the more information you have about the women’s risk, the better you and she can plan for her safety. But effective safety planning means…
Read moreEnough mourning: We need action!
Fifteen women, their mothers and their children have been killed in Ontario by intimate partners or family members since January 2018. This is more than the yearly average. Holly Hamilton, 29, Hamilton Baljit Thandi, 32, Brampton Avtar Kaur, 60, Brampton Elaine Bellevue, 61, Mississauga Jan Singh, 70, Oakville Barbara Kovic, 76, Etobicoke Raya Turunen, 88,…
Read moreWhat should I do if a woman tells me she plans to violate the custody order because she has serious concerns for the safety of the child?
When facing legal and ethical challenges, there are a variety of strategies that will help service providers manage the situation. Here are some other situations that could raise similar legal and ethical challenges: A client or former client calls to tell you she has already left the jurisdiction with her child in contravention of a…
Read moreRecent case: Parental alienation
L.(N.) v M. (R.R.) 2016 ONSC 809: In this case, the police refused to enforce a court order to deliver a child, now over the age of 16, to his father, when the child was refusing to have contact with the father. The Chief of Police was made a party to the motion. In coming…
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