Unified Solutions
Parenting Coordination After Collaborative Law in BC
Collaborative Law Resolves Today's Disputes. Parenting Coordination Helps Manage Tomorrow's.
The Real Challenge Is Just Beginning
Many families invest significant time, effort, and resources in the collaborative family law process. They work hard to create parenting plans, resolve parenting schedules, establish decision-making responsibilities, address financial issues, and build a framework for moving forward after separation.
When the agreement is signed, everyone hopes the conflict is behind them.
Often, however, the real challenge is just beginning. Children grow. Schools change. Activities evolve. Technology changes. Family circumstances change. New relationships develop. Life continues.
The question is not whether future disagreements will arise. The question is how those disagreements will be managed when they do.
Parenting Coordination provides a structured implementation process designed to help families carry out the agreements they worked so hard to achieve.
Agreements Don't Implement Themselves
Collaborative Agreements Do Not Implement Themselves
One of the greatest strengths of collaborative law is that it allows families to create customized solutions that fit their unique circumstances. At the same time, no agreement can anticipate every future situation. A parenting plan may establish parenting time, parental responsibilities, consultation obligations, holiday schedules, and dispute resolution procedures. However, it cannot predict every future disagreement. Most parenting disputes arise not because the agreement was poorly drafted. They arise because separated parents must continue making decisions together long after the lawyers have completed their work. The challenge is often not the agreement. The challenge is implementation. Issues include:
School decisions
Extracurricular activities
Travel
Medical issues
Technology and smartphones
Schedule changes
Consultation obligations
The countless practical issues that arise as children grow
A Natural Extension
Parenting Coordination Is a Natural Extension of Collaborative Practice
Collaborative law is built upon problem-solving, respectful communication, transparency, and reducing unnecessary conflict. Parenting Coordination builds upon those same principles. A Parenting Coordinator does not replace the collaborative process. A Parenting Coordinator helps preserve the success of the collaborative process by providing a structured mechanism for managing future implementation disputes. When disagreements arise, parents already have an established pathway for addressing them. Rather than immediately returning to lawyers, parents can access a process specifically designed to help them implement existing agreements and parenting arrangements. For many families, Parenting Coordination becomes the bridge between a successful settlement and long-term parenting stability.
Why Families Wait Too Long
Why Families Often Wait Too Long
Many parents assume they will never need assistance after signing their agreement. Sometimes they are correct. Often they are not. By the time parents seek professional help, a relatively straightforward issue may have become buried beneath months of frustration, accusations, misunderstandings, procedural disputes, and competing versions of past events. The original issue may have been simple — a holiday schedule, a hockey registration, a school choice, an ADHD assessment, a vacation request, or a disagreement regarding consultation. The conflict surrounding the issue often becomes much larger than the issue itself. When Parenting Coordination has already been contemplated within the agreement, families have a structured process available before minor disagreements become major disputes.
How It Works
Parenting Coordination Focuses on Implementation
My role as a Parenting Coordinator is not to create new parenting arrangements. My role is to help implement the parenting arrangements that already exist. Where parents are able to reach agreement, I assist them in doing so. Where consultation breaks down and authority has been delegated through a court order, Parenting Coordination Agreement, or Family Law Act agreement, I will issue non-binding recommendations in the best interests of your child. If the issue remains unresolved, I may make limited determinations within the scope of that delegated authority. The focus remains implementation. Parenting Coordination is designed to help families move forward.
Structure Over Education
Structure Often Matters More Than Education
After nearly three decades of family law practice and many years working with high-conflict families, I have learned that most parents already know what effective communication looks like. Many have attended counselling. Many have read books. Many have completed parenting courses. Many can explain exactly how cooperative co-parenting should work. I offer a vast library of over 80 articles and refer related information at no extra charge. The problem is often not a lack of knowledge. The problem is often a lack of structure. Parenting Coordination provides structured consultation processes, communication protocols, issue-management procedures, and decision-making pathways designed to keep parenting issues moving forward. The goal is not perfect communication. The goal is a process that continues to function even when communication is imperfect.
Helping Families Move Beyond the Separation Story
Separation often leaves parents carrying understandable feelings of betrayal, rejection, disappointment, anger, grief, or unfairness. Those experiences are real. However, many parents become trapped in repeatedly revisiting the story of what happened rather than focusing on the parenting decisions that need to be made today. Parenting Coordination does not require forgiveness. It does not determine whose story is right. Instead, it provides a structured process that repeatedly redirects attention toward consultation, problem-solving, decision-making, and the children's needs. The goal is not to erase the past. The goal is to prevent the past from controlling every future parenting decision.
Continuity
A Parenting Coordinator Provides Continuity
Lawyers are generally retained for specific issues. A Parenting Coordinator works with the family system over time. That continuity matters. A Parenting Coordinator becomes familiar with the parenting plan, the children's circumstances, recurring implementation issues, prior resolutions, and the family's established decision-making framework. Instead of repeatedly educating new professionals about the history of the dispute, parents continue working within a consistent structure focused on implementation and forward progress.
For Collaborative Lawyers
One of the most valuable questions collaborative professionals can ask during settlement negotiations is: "How will future parenting disputes be managed?"
A well-drafted parenting plan addresses today's issues. An excellent parenting plan also addresses tomorrow's.
Including a Parenting Coordinator appointment clause within a collaborative agreement can provide families with a practical, implementation-focused mechanism for resolving future disputes without immediately returning to litigation. For many families, that single planning decision can preserve the success of the collaborative process for years to come.
Plan Ahead. Considering Parenting Coordination in Your Collaborative Agreement
If you are negotiating a collaborative family law agreement, parenting agreement, or separation agreement, consider addressing Parenting Coordination before future disputes arise. The goal is not to anticipate failure. The goal is to plan responsibly for the reality that parenting continues long after the agreement is signed.
Children will continue to grow. Circumstances will continue to change. Parenting decisions will continue to arise. A structured implementation process can help families manage those changes without becoming trapped in ongoing conflict.
Sample Appointment Clauses
For collaborative lawyers, collaborative professionals, and families interested in incorporating Parenting Coordination into their agreements, please visit my For the Judge page for sample Parenting Coordinator appointment clauses and additional information regarding the Parenting Coordination process in British Columbia. A successful collaborative agreement resolves today's issues. A successful implementation process helps families navigate tomorrow's.
Contact Cori L. McGuire
Reach out to discuss if your case is suitable for parenting coordination and get a sample agreement with the clauses required to name the parenting coordinator and delegate the role in BC.