Paternal Responsibility and Parenting After Divorce:

1. Paternal Responsibility and Parenting After Divorce: The Search for a Just and Equitable Approach to Child Custody Determination

2. A four-pillar framework… • Harm reduction • Treatment • Prevention • Enforcement

3. Key findings… • Discontinuity between pre-and post-separation father-child relationships • Children need both parents, equally • Separated fathers’ responsibility is to provide active care, love, nurture, and protection • The responsibility of social institutions is to equally support fathers and mothers as parents • The main issue for separated fathers is gender bias and inequality in the legal system, and the lack of an equal shared parenting standard

4. A four-pillar framework… • Harm reduction • Treatment • Prevention • Enforcement

5. Harm Reduction • Rebuttable legal presumption of shared parental responsibility in disputed child custody cases

6. Treatment • Parenting plans • Therapeutic family mediation • More intensive support in high conflict cases

7. Prevention • Shared parenting education

8. Enforcement • Judicially-determined arrangements in cases where family violence is a factor

9. Child and family policies supporting parental involvement… • Child custody • Child care • Child protection

10. Paternal Responsibility and Parenting After Divorce Thank you for your attention.