What are courts doing to heal and strengthen marriages?

This site is dedicated to gathering the latest information on efforts by the courts and the legal profession to heal and strengthen marriages. I don't yet know of many such efforts, but I know they are needed, and in order to advocate for them we need to know what people out there are already doing.

If you know of any such program or effort -- at any stage of development -- please post a comment on this site to tell me -- and the rest of the word -- about it. Check the comment section to see what others have written.

If you want to write to me privately, my e-mail is crouch@patriot.net. However, that address is heavily spammed and heavily spam-filtered, so your message might get lost. You can always get in touch with me by posting a comment on this site or calling me at 703-528-6700.

Please do not use this site for political debates such as gay-marriage issues, etc.

-- John Crouch
-- A pro-marriage divorce lawyer in Arlington, Virginia

Comments

[Dr. Lee Jagers]

Happy to hear what you are doing. Check out a recent post I made on my blog (dedicated to the integration of psychology and theology as well as social issues). http://leejagers.wordpress.com/2006/07/18/divorce-law-change-in-louisiana/ I also teach a class on Counseling and the Law at Dallas Theological Seminary in which I challenge the students to consider what the law can do to strengthen marriages. I'll be interested in following your work and staying in touch.
Regards,
Lee Jagers

[Deb Strubel]

Leah Ward Sears, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, established a new commission--The Commission on Children, Marriage, and Family Law. The commission is composed of about 40 state leaders to help strengthen marriage and families. Press release is here: http://www.gasupreme.us/familylaw.pdf.

An attorney in Tennessee asked for our help to establish a similar commission in his state, so we are working there as well.

Please visit the Institute for American Values website for our reports and publications on family law.

[Jeffery Morgan]

In Ohio, specifically Montgomery County, we have had success with Court and Marriage initiatives in the following: Attorney’s have been trained in mediation process. This coincides with Dissolution-no fault divorce. The process encourages couples to process their desire to divorce. If divorce is final, they are guided in a distribution of property and custody. The focus is non-adversarial.

There are pilots of pre-marriage counseling. I think this needs to be mandatory.

In Ohio, the domestic court system needs education on family preservation: factoring the whole family system’s needs in decision making. We know there is a correlation between father alienation and lack of child support, parental involvement.

Juvenile Court needs to be educated on the need to mandate EBP family stabilization practices for at risk kids.

Lastly, Juvenile court’s Truancy Court is successful in identifying and intervening with at risk families.

Jeff Morgan