**A new approach to authentically engaging with children and youth. This course teaches family law professionals the skills of engaging and meeting with children in youth, in a way that allows the child/you the maximum space to describe their needs and concerns. The course is ideal for family law practitioners, family mediators, parenting coordinators, family court officers, independent children's lawyers, and child and family counsellors.

**

The course teaches an approach to meeting with a child/youth that is:

1. Non-evaluative
2. Meeting focused rather than interview focused
3. Activity-based over two meetings with children
4. Utilises six developmentally appropriate activities
5. Outlines a structured approach to ordering the messages from children

In this 30-hour on-line program, Lorri Yasenik PhD and Jon Graham LLB explore the skills necessary to authentically meet with post-separation children and youth and bring the voice of children to parents.

Starting from a position that all children over 5 years should be given the opportunity to participate in ADR processes that affect them, Lorri and Jon consider the question of how to authentically engage with children and youth, creating space for he messages from children can be brought back to parents in a way that is not only safe, but is also is authentic to the child.

For practitioners: the approach is highly structured and non evaluative For children/youth: the approach is unstructured, and non-directive, practice based, experiential, expressive and play based.

The question is not WHETHER children should be heard, but rather HOW TO ensure children’s voices are safely and effectively heard as part of an ADR process. A child-centred approach views the child as central to the family system and provides strategies for working with parents to include the child’s concerns. The challenge that practitioners face is how and when to include children AND how to increase the readiness of the parents to hear their children’s concerns.