The PC Process Has Teeth: Understanding Enforcement and Determinations

Nov 04, 2025·By Cori McGuire

Structure Is the Teeth: Containment, Implementation, and the Modern Parenting Coordinator

Parenting Coordination files may involve court findings or allegations of family violence. Where this occurs, British Columbia law makes clear that the Parenting Coordinator's role is not to determine whether family violence occurred, investigate historical allegations, re-litigate disputes, or make findings the court has not made. Those functions belong to the court.

Where a court order or agreement authorizes Parenting Coordination despite a history of family violence, the Parenting Coordinator's role remains narrow, implementation-focused, and forward-looking. The task is to assist with the implementation of existing parenting arrangements, maintain an effective decision-making process, and manage the Parenting Coordination process so it does not itself become another arena for conflict.

The question is not whether past events occurred. The question is whether the parenting arrangements that already exist can be implemented safely, predictably, and consistently for the benefit of the child.

Parenting Coordination is not adjudication. It is containment.

Containment Is Not an Administrative Function

Many people assume Parenting Coordination succeeds because the Parenting Coordinator is skilled at communication, education, conflict resolution, or persuasion. In reality, the most difficult files often expose the limits of those tools.

In high-conflict cases, parents frequently understand each other's positions perfectly well. The problem is not a lack of information. The problem is that implementation repeatedly breaks down.

A school decision cannot be made. A medical appointment cannot be scheduled. An extracurricular activity cannot be chosen. A vacation cannot be planned. A transfer cannot occur. An issue that should require two emails turns into fifty.

The implementation issue gradually disappears beneath arguments about process, fairness, motives, historical grievances, or allegations of bias.

Without structure, progress stops.

The Parenting Coordinator's most important function is often not facilitation. It is creating enough containment that the issue can be addressed at all. Structure becomes the intervention.

Designing a Process That Limits Harm

Family violence and high-conflict separation can create patterns that continue long after the parties stop living together. These patterns may not always appear as direct conflict. They may emerge as delay, obstruction, gatekeeping, strategic disengagement, procedural attacks, excessive reporting, or efforts to redirect attention away from the implementation issue requiring resolution.

The Parenting Coordinator does not need to label or diagnose these patterns to address them. Instead, the Parenting Coordinator assesses whether the existing interactions can be managed within a structured implementation process.

Where appropriate, this may include:

clearly defined communication rules;
issue-by-issue resolution;
defined timelines;
limits on the length of submissions;
structured consultation processes;
standardized formats for proposals and responses;
narrowed issue framing;
clearly identified decision points; and
determinations where authorized and necessary.

To an outside observer, these measures can appear restrictive. In reality, they are often what prevents the process from collapsing. The objective is not emotional resolution. The objective is forward movement.

Containment Is Not Tone Policing

One of the most persistent misconceptions about Parenting Coordination is that containment requires controlling people's emotions. It does not.

Parents may be frustrated. Parents may disagree with the Parenting Coordinator. Parents may believe a proposed outcome is wrong. Parents may complain about fairness, process, or jurisdiction. None of this necessarily interferes with implementation.

The Parenting Coordinator's role is not to compel agreement, approval, or gratitude. Nor is it to determine whether a parent is justified in feeling upset. The role is to distinguish between communications that advance implementation and communications that do not.

Process complaints may be acknowledged. Jurisdictional concerns may be considered. Fairness concerns may be reviewed. Once those concerns have been considered and addressed, however, the Parenting Coordinator is not required to repeatedly revisit the same issue in the absence of new information.

Containment does not suppress disagreement. Containment prevents the implementation process from becoming consumed by disagreement about the process itself.

Managing Power Imbalances Through Structure

Files involving family violence often involve significant power imbalances. One parent may dominate conversations, challenge every procedural decision, or use extensive communications to overwhelm the process. Another parent may become reactive, withdrawn, or reluctant to participate.

The Parenting Coordinator does not resolve these dynamics through interpretation, therapy, insight-oriented intervention, or findings about motivation. Instead, neutrality is maintained through consistent application of structure.

The same timelines apply to both parties. The same submission limits apply to both parties. The same consultation requirements apply to both parties. The same implementation framework applies to both parties. Consistency is often more important than persuasion.

Where appropriate, joint communication may be replaced with separate exchanges, shuttle processes, or other structured formats designed to reduce escalation and maintain participation. These measures are not therapeutic accommodations. They are practical tools intended to preserve the functioning of the implementation process.

Capacity Guides Process Design

Parenting Coordination works best when it is designed around the parties' actual capacities rather than idealized expectations. The relevant questions are practical:

Can the parties comply with a structured process?
Can they follow timelines?
Can they stay within issue boundaries?
Can they participate in consultation?
Can they make child-focused decisions?

Where capacity is limited, the solution is not necessarily more education or more discussion. Often the solution is more structure.

Additional guidance, narrower issue framing, shorter deadlines, reduced opportunities for procedural drift, and more focused communication may all be appropriate responses within the limits of the appointment. The process adapts to reality rather than waiting for reality to change.

Clinical Support as a Parallel Process

Parenting Coordination is not therapy. The Parenting Coordinator does not treat trauma, resolve psychological injuries, or provide clinical care. At the same time, many high-conflict files involve parents whose trauma responses, anxiety, emotional dysregulation, or unresolved conflict history substantially affect implementation.

Where appropriate and authorized, counselling, parenting support, or other clinical services may be recommended as parallel interventions. Each professional remains within their own role.

The clinician addresses therapeutic needs. The Parenting Coordinator addresses implementation. The distinction matters because implementation can continue while therapeutic work occurs elsewhere.

Determinations as a Tool of Containment

The authority to make determinations is often misunderstood. Determinations are not intended to punish parents, reward cooperation, or settle historical grievances. They exist because implementation sometimes requires a decision.

When facilitation fails and delay threatens stability, the Parenting Coordinator may, where authorized, make a narrow determination implementing an existing court order or agreement. Such determinations:

address specific implementation disputes;
do not vary parenting arrangements;
do not re-adjudicate best interests;
do not determine historical allegations;
remain reviewable by the court; and
are limited to the authority conferred by the appointment.

In many cases, the determination itself is less important than the fact that the process can continue moving forward. The determination is the backstop. The structure is what makes the process work.

Structure Is the Teeth

In high-conflict cases, information is rarely the scarce resource. Parents often have endless information, explanations, grievances, and opinions. What is missing is a reliable mechanism for implementation.

Unlimited communication produces unlimited reporting. Unlimited debate produces unlimited delay. Unlimited process challenges eventually transform the process itself into the dispute.

This is why effective Parenting Coordinators actively manage timelines, communication formats, issue definition, consultation requirements, and proportionality. These are not administrative details. They are the mechanisms that allow parenting arrangements to function.

The process itself becomes the intervention. The structure becomes the teeth.

When Parenting Coordination Is Working

Success in Parenting Coordination is often misunderstood. The goal is not friendship. The goal is not co-parenting harmony. The goal is not emotional closure. The goal is not universal agreement.

The measure of success is far more practical.

Can decisions be made?
Can parenting arrangements function?
Can implementation occur?
Can children move through their daily lives without being repeatedly exposed to adult conflict?

If the answer is yes, then the process is working.

In many of the most difficult files, Parenting Coordination succeeds not because conflict disappears, but because structure allows the parenting arrangements to continue functioning despite the conflict. That is the true purpose of containment. It is not the absence of disagreement. It is the presence of a process strong enough to carry implementation forward anyway.

Written by Cori McGuire, a Parenting Coordinator with 28 years of family law experience in British Columbia. Cori has many other articles on the parenting coordination process including: When Family Violence Makes Parenting Coordination Non‑Viable, Parenting Coordination in Family Violence Cases, and Obstruction of the PC Process. Further reading by subject is found in our Resource Library.