Difficult Conversations with your Client, your Opposing Counsel, and the Judge About the Estranged or Alienated Child

In the difficult conversations between professionals amongst themselves and their clients and the opposing side, there comes a time that for the sake of the children, we all have to take a step back and look at the big picture.  There is just such a need in the area of Estrangement and Alienation, where most want to spend time laying blame, when the real need is to spend our precious time focusing on the children because these cases are on the rise and they are taking away precious resources of the families in dealing with the problems once they become difficult issues.  In this presentation a focus will be made on how to use a team approach in an effort to succeed in the difficult conversations with all sides in order to prevent the resistance of the child from persisting and to enable change while children are young enough to make change effective.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to describe the issues pertaining to the estranged and alienated child with their clients, opposing attorneys, colleagues and Judges in order to avoid the poor outcomes for the children while changes are possible and take up the large percentages of the Court’s time and parents’ resources.
• Participants will demonstrate knowledge of working with the Whole Family, utilizing a systems perspective and implementing a Team Approach; and apply practical approaches given that that time is the enemy in dealing with these complex parental conflict cases which involve children’s distress and resistance.
• Participants will demonstrate knowledge of the Vicente from both the perspective of the rejected parent and the aligned parent and what the professionals’ roles and responsibilities are in these cases.
• Participants will demonstrate knowledge of the current psychological perspectives of working with alienated and estranged children and the complex dynamics within their families.
• Participants will be able to identify what the parents’ roles are in the children’s therapy.
• Participants will demonstrate knowledge of the benefits and differences of reunification, family, systemic therapy and interventions for these estrangement, resistance and alienation cases.