Information about Counselling in Relation to Family Separation

The Family Law Court revision in 2021 established the Lighthouse Project and Evatt List to facilitate early screening of risk in parenting matters.

In response to the safety of children, the Family Law Court may direct clients to 'anger management counselling', 'behaviour change', 'behavioural modification' or similar termed practices in response to domestic and family violence allegations. Adelaide Narrative Therapy counsellors take a broader, deeper, and more contextual view of domestic violence than the reductive implications of these terms (see note 1 below on terminology).

Adelaide Narrative Therapy counsellors accept clients where violence has been alleged in family separation matters. Counselling invites clients to take full personal responsibility for their actions and the effects of their actions on the child/ren and other parent, and considers ways in which the client would like to improve all relationships in their lives.

Conversations foreground the safety and wellbeing of the child/ren and all parties in the matter including ex-partners, and invite clients to evaluate their own actions in light of their ethics and values. Counselling conversations also support clients' development of personal agency, identity and accountability. The Family Law Court may consider accounts of these sessions via court reports written by the counsellor, when determining the parenting plan for the child/ren.

Adelaide Narrative counsellors anticipate that clients engage in counselling for their own ethical reflection and accountability, rather than as a 'tick and flick' exercise. The courts referral to our service is intentional and in turn the reports provide an indication of client's accountability to the sessions.

We take an Invitational Accountability approach to counselling in inviting clients to engage openly and ethically with actions of responsibility and accountability to children, other separated parents, and those hurt by family violence.

This approach explores questions that respectfully:

• Determine a client's readiness to engage in conversations that address both harm and responsibility (see note 2 below defining harm); • Engage with the client about their lives and context of Family Separation; • Invite ethical clarification: ie "what kind of parent have I been trying to become? What kind of co-parent would be most supportive of the children?"

We recognise that relationships evolve in complex and gendered ways and are shaped by social and economic contexts. Therefore, inquiry into a person's complex lived experience is conversational and narrative in form and account for adversity and trauma; ultimately we focus on helping the client developing personal agency and responsibility in their lives and relationships.

Reports delivered to the court will contain the substance of counselling conversations that indicate the clients understanding of their own actions, any concerns regarding harm raised by court documents, and considers ways the client approaches conversations about responsibility and accountability.

Counsellors are experienced in specialised family violence counselling, sexual abuse counselling and family and relationship counselling. We meet with clients who have been affected by violence and abuse and those who are using violence and abuse.

Counsellors have formal qualifications in social work, counselling, narrative therapy and psychology. We consider our years of professional experience in working with clients individually and in groups, being mentored (apprenticed) to teachers in the field, and in holding each other (both women and men counsellors) to account in rigorous specialised family violence counselling teams, as very good practice training for counselling in the field of family law counselling and violence accountability and ethics.

Invitational Narrative methodology has been researched by ANROWS (Australia's National Research Office for Women's Safety) and is available for downloading: Engaging men who use violence: Invitational Narrative Approaches. For further professional interest please refer to Alan Jenkins book 'Becoming Ethical: A parallel, political journey with men who have abused.'

Adelaide Narrative Therapy counsellors continue the work in the spirit of the NADA practice and Alan Jenkins and Rob Hall in accepting clients where domestic violence has been alleged in Family Court Separation matters. See Note 3 below.

We welcome all clients, not just court referrals, for relationship counselling and individual counselling for people who are wanting reflective conversations to review their lives, their relationships and to engage in a personal change project that helps develop integrity and personal responsibility.

Please email us for referral or encourage clients to book in themselves.

Adelaide Narrative Therapy Collective provides post-separation counselling, family therapy, parent-child therapy, individual counselling, and family law counselling. Our work frequently involves families who are engaged in proceedings before the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.

You will note that we do not describe this work as "reunification counselling" or "reunification therapy." In our view, those terms may inadvertently misrepresent the nature and possible outcomes of the therapeutic process by implying that reunification is the intended or expected result. Therapeutic work in post-separation family matters cannot ethically or clinically guarantee any particular outcome. Rather, the purpose of the counselling is to provide a structured, child-centred and clinically informed process that supports family members to engage with the issues before them, assists the Court where appropriate, and responds to the evolving needs, readiness and wellbeing of the children and participating family members.

Our model of practice is intentionally team-based. To minimise both perceived and actual bias, and to preserve the therapeutic integrity of the work, different practitioners undertake different therapeutic roles wherever possible. Typically, one practitioner works individually with the child/ren or young person, while separate practitioners work individually with each parent. This allows each family member to develop an independent therapeutic relationship and provides space for their perspectives and experiences to be explored without role conflict. Where clinically appropriate, these separate therapeutic pathways may later come together in parent-child or family therapy, informed by the progress, readiness and therapeutic needs of those involved rather than by a predetermined outcome.