Well-written article in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on strategies for divorced parents to work out a holiday visitation schedule that minimizes the stress on the children.  See the article here.

Thank you to the Sherman & Jeffries blog on Alabama family law for alerting me to the article.

There have been several significant court decisions for BC family law that have altered the perception as to whom should be considered a 'parent' under BC legislation. The traditional view of 'birth mother married to genetic father producing a then legitimate child' is becoming less the norm in our society. Beyond adoption, which has almost always had its own separate set of legal rules, we must include into the parental mix several new categories such as step-parents or similar loco parentis situations, same-sex couples, genetic parents and surrogate birth parents. This article will review two decisions of the British Columbia Supreme Court where the parent of a child was denied legal status by the BC Government.

Lorne MacLean, a BC family law lawyer and BC Divorce law lawyer feels strongly about educating the public about BC child custody under the BC child custody portions of the Family Relations Act and the BC child custody sections of the Divorce Act that also govern BC child custody.

Custody, guardianship and access rights/arrangements can come about by statute, agreement or Court order.

Shared custody is increasingly becoming a hot topic, especially in light of the contemplated changes to the Federal Child Support Guidelines being considered by the Federal Government. Currently, there are several methods by which the quantum of child support is determined for shared custody situations. These were recently and succinctly identified by Dinyar Marzban at a CBA family update session.

In our recent July 21, 2005 article on separation agreements  and BC child custody and BC child guardianship and BC child access  we opined that the test to vary a BC separation agreement's custody terms was now higher than the test to vary a custody order under the Gordon v. Goertz test. The Alberta decision of Hearn applied the Miglin test for variation of a custody agreement and a similar test was applied by Martinson J in L.E.G v. A.G. but a recent BC Court of Appeal decision reflects a more traditional approach to custody arrangements made in separation agreements and applies a much lower test to vary.  In the 2005 case of Henderson, the BCCA held as follows:

WEBCAMS: NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR BC CHILD CUSTODY AND BC CHILD ACCESS

Whether separated parents live in the same city or on opposite ends of the country, there is often a provision made either in BC child custody court orders or by agreement for telephone calls or other forms of communication by parents in between child access visits. This kind of in-between access is meant to ensure that the other parent can maintain meaningful communications with the child and to foster continuity of the parent-child relationship.

This BC Child Custody Parenting Plan comes from an excellent website by Gary Direnfeld at www.yoursocialworker.com Please check out his website and use his worksheet below to come up with a plan you feel best meets the needs of your children.

Years ago, joint custody was held by Courts to be workable only if both separated parties were wholly cooperative with each other. Judges often held that the mere fact parties were appearing in front of the Court was an indication they could not cooperate enough to obtain a joint custody Order. Thankfully, those days of a “Catch 22” scenario for parties seeking joint custody are long over as courts in British Columbia have dealt with the emerging concept of "parallel parenting."

Where parties are claiming custody of or access to children, either or both of the parties may apply to court for an interim order for custody or access. An interim order is one that is made after the proceedings have been started but before the trial.

The court must consider what is in the best interests of the child in making an interim order for custody or access. There has been a tendency for courts to presume that the status quo that existed at the time of the interim application should be preserved until the trial, and that preserving the status quo is in the best interests of the child. The exception to this is where there are particular reasons why the existing custody and access arrangements should not continue.

A relatively brief but poignant decision on the issue of child custody was recently released from the B.C. Court of Appeal. Campbell v. Campbell 2003 BCCA 672, a decision authored by Newbury J.A., speaks to the issue of parental manipulation and truth distortion in custody cases and the Court's increasing lack of toleration for parental behaviour that is not in the best interests of the child.

The Miglin test has been held to apply to BC Spousal support cases and just recently in the BC Family Law case of Hartshorne, a Miglin like test has been held to be applicable to BC property agreement cases as well.

Interestingly, the Miglin test has been applied to cases involving disputes and variations of custody and access agreements entered into by separated parents which come before the Court in the first instance.