The International Centre for Children and Family Law

Call Directions Website

The International Centre for Children and Family Law A collaboration to promote the creation of meaningful opportunities for children and young people. Our work involves work with parents and children.

Lorri Yasenik and Jon Graham have worked with separating families each for around 30 years. Parental separation will often be a crisis for all people especially children, whose voice is often not heard. While parents have to remain decision makers with respect to the best interests of their children, our research shows the children want a voice; to be heard in the decision making that will affect their future. The only question is what is the best way to achieve this.

Some skills you can learn on the job. Managing a high-conflict parenting case without becoming the referee isn't one of ...
10/11/2026

Some skills you can learn on the job. Managing a high-conflict parenting case without becoming the referee isn't one of them.

Our Parenting Coordination program builds the case management skills for exactly that: a 42-hour structured framework with repeatable methods for managing power imbalances and sustaining parental communication, with the child kept at the centre throughout.

Registrations are open now for the intake starting 28 October

🟡 Parenting Coordination | A Child-Centred Frame Begins 28 October 2026
Register here: https://iccfl.training/events/parenting-coordination-from-a-child-centred-frame-id-26-13/

A girl walks into a room where adults are fighting about her future. She's rarely asked what she thinks and feels. Even ...
10/11/2026

A girl walks into a room where adults are fighting about her future. She's rarely asked what she thinks and feels. Even less often, she's asked how she wants to say it.

International Day of the Girl Child, 11 October, is about the right to be heard on her own terms. Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child gives children the right to express their views. Article 13 goes further: children communicate through art, play, and metaphor as often as they do through words.

For practitioners, that's the whole job. Build the space. Let her lead the way she tells it.

🔗 Find out more about our evidence-based approach: https://iccfl.training/

Practitioners are asking this more often. When a child's gender identity becomes a point of parental dispute, the profes...
10/09/2026

Practitioners are asking this more often. When a child's gender identity becomes a point of parental dispute, the professional's role is not to hand down a verdict.

The job is to move the system from verdict-driven conflict to a child-centred conversation. That means looking at how the conflict itself is shaping what the child expresses, and separating what the child is actually communicating from what the parents are fighting about.

Jon is leading a 75 minute conversation on 21 October, unpacking emerging practice frameworks for these complex files.

🩵 Research Into Practice | When Identity Becomes the Dispute | 21 October | 12:00 pm
Register: https://iccfl.training/events/research-into-practice-when-identity-becomes-the-dispute/

What matters most to you when choosing professional development?For a lot of practitioners in this space, it comes down ...
10/07/2026

What matters most to you when choosing professional development?

For a lot of practitioners in this space, it comes down to two things. Who's delivering the training. And whether it actually changes what you do on Monday morning.

"I thoroughly enjoyed the use of different learning modalities. Jon and Lorri also have extensive experience in family law and Family Dispute Resolution and I would highly recommend the course."
Morgen G, Senior Practitioner, Family Dispute Resolution

Our blended model combines self-paced content, live tutorials, and practice sessions, so the skills translate straight to your frontline work.

What do you look for in training? Tell us in the comments.

When people hear child-inclusive practice, they often picture a formal interview room and direct questioning. Child-cent...
10/04/2026

When people hear child-inclusive practice, they often picture a formal interview room and direct questioning. Child-centred practice moves away from that model completely. It builds a non-evaluative space instead.

Children often communicate their lived experience through play and metaphor, not just spoken answers. Our manualised approach uses expressive materials, including miniatures and Bear Cards, so children can lead their own expression. The practitioner holds the professional structure and safety while the child chooses their own pace and metaphor.

That structure is what makes it possible to bring a child's voice forward safely, even inside complex family law matters.

🟢 Meeting With Children | A Child-Centred Approach
Our next MWC cohort is open for registration for Dec 8 2026.
Register here: https://iccfl.training/events/meeting-with-children-a-child-centred-approach-id-27-01/

Some cases do not need more case management: they need a different structure entirely.If you are seeing the same dispute...
10/03/2026

Some cases do not need more case management: they need a different structure entirely.

If you are seeing the same dispute resurface every few weeks, or if parents cannot agree on what their own plan actually says. When every piece of communication routes through you because there is no other channel left, that is not a sign you are managing the case badly. It is a sign the case has outgrown standard case management and needs a formal coordination framework instead.

Parenting Coordination gives you exactly that: a structured, repeatable approach for high-conflict cases, built to reduce the crisis-to-crisis pattern rather than just respond to it. It is a 42-hour program that counts toward your annual CPD.

It is also worth knowing where the sector is heading. The Metcalfe Review has flagged real change coming to how family services are resourced and structured through 2026-2028. Building this capability now puts your practice ahead of where things are going, not scrambling to catch up later.

🟡 Parenting Coordination | A Child-Centred Frame Begins 28 October

Book now: https://iccfl.training/events/parenting-coordination-from-a-child-centred-frame-id-26-13/

Research Into Practice is ICCFL's monthly Community of Practice, designed to keep family law professionals current witho...
10/02/2026

Research Into Practice is ICCFL's monthly Community of Practice, designed to keep family law professionals current without requiring anyone to read every journal article themselves. These informal and conversational sessions are often described as a book club for practitioners.

The format is simple. Seven days before each session, participants receive a short reading list, usually comprising one or two recent articles from publications like the Family Court Review. Participants receive full access to these materials through ICCFL's membership with the Australian Copyright Agency. The group then meets live on Zoom for a 75-minute conversation facilitated by Jon Graham.

Each session is deliberately capped at under 12 people so it remains a genuine professional discussion rather than a lecture.

Our next session:
🩵 Research Into Practice: When Identity Becomes the Dispute | 21 October 2026 | 12:00 pm (Australia/Sydney) | Zoom

Register: https://iccfl.training/events/research-into-practice-when-identity-becomes-the-dispute/

September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, also known as Orange Shirt Day. It honours the ...
09/30/2026

September 30 is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation in Canada, also known as Orange Shirt Day. It honours the survivors of the residential school system and remembers the children who never came home.
The history behind this day is a stark reminder of what happens when children are separated from family, culture, and voice. These are the exact harms our work exists to help prevent, though at a scale most of us will never have to reckon with directly. Today is a time for listening and reflection rather than for us to speak over.

Ask a child to describe their family, and you will often get a shrug, a one-word answer, or nothing at all. Ask them to ...
09/24/2026

Ask a child to describe their family, and you will often get a shrug, a one-word answer, or nothing at all. Ask them to show you, using objects and figures, and something different happens.

A Family Play Genogram lets a child map their own world. They can show who is close or distant and where the tension sits, without needing the vocabulary an adult might use to explain the same thing. The arrangement itself is the account. The practitioner's job is to notice it rather than translating it into something more familiar.

This is what it looks like when a child's voice does not rely on being spoken.

Wednesday 30th September 12pm on Zoom. Grandparents, older adults, and their role in high-conflict family systems: a con...
09/22/2026

Wednesday 30th September 12pm on Zoom. Grandparents, older adults, and their role in high-conflict family systems: a conversation most CPD calendars skip entirely.

Research Into Practice is ICCFL's monthly Community of Practice, a Lunch & Learn conversation kept deliberately small and capped under 12 people. This ensures it stays a real discussion rather than a lecture. A short reading list goes out in advance, followed by our 75 minute live conversation on Zoom, providing 2.5 hours of professional development in total.

This session looks at when grandparent involvement protects a child's best interests and when it becomes another arena for conflict. We will also examine growing questions around elder justice and autonomy as families change shape. Participants receive access to the published research discussed through ICCFL’s Copyright Agency membership.

With places limited, we recommend booking early to secure your spot in the conversation. Bring your lunch and join us on Zoom.

🩵 30 September | 12:00 pm (Australia/Sydney) | Zoom Register: https://iccfl.training/?post_type=mec-events&p=12928

Address

1318 15th Avenue SW
Calgary, AB
T3C0X7

Telephone

+61405459535

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The International Centre for Children and Family Law posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category