Pflegekinderhilfe in der Sozialen Arbeit

Foster child support is an expanding field of work: In youth welfare offices and the foster child services of independent institutions, in guardianship, expert assessments and family courts, specialists have to deal with the key questions relating to foster child support. In addition, there are the people affected: foster children, parents and foster parents, siblings and other family members. This book provides a well-founded introduction to this subject area and links important practical issues to international research findings. It analyses current developments in this respect in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and illustrates the variety of forms of care relationships with case studies. In this way, the importance of professional services and the courses of action open to them become clear.

A Gentle Breeze on the Wheels of Fair Justice for Women in Bangladesh: An Empirical Evaluation of Family Courts’ Mediation Underpinning Rawls’ Theory of Justice

not available Dhaka University Law Journal, Vol. 31, 2020 P.63-84

U.S. Family Law Along the Slippery Slope: the limits of a sexual rights strategy for polyamorous parents

Families in the United States are rapidly changing, and the normative familial model of two married, monogamous, heterosexual parents with children no longer reflects the majority of U.S. families. Nonetheless, state incentive-based policies and discriminatory family laws continue to enforce heteronormative monogamy. Recent changes to the U.S. legal landscape have produced limited formal recognition and protections for same-sex couples and LGBTQ parents, and even these narrow rights are withheld from other diverse familial configurations including families with polyamorous parents. This article uses the concept of sexual citizenship to frame the analysis of U.S. family courts’ normative construction of family, identifying striking parallels between family courts’ historical and contemporary prejudicial treatment of LGBTQ parents and the institution’s similar delegitimization and denigration of polyamorous parents today. This paper reviews polyamorous parents’ efforts towards achieving legal and societal legitimatization, finding significant parallels with legal strategies LGBTQ parents utilized to seek legal recognition and protection prior to federal recognition of same-sex marriage. This paper highlights the inadequacies of such a formal sexual citizenship approach, finding that a limited strategy of accumulating specific sexual rights fails to address non-monogamy’s more radical cultural presence as well as the (non-legal) informal aspects of belonging needed to improve the livability of polyamorous parents’ and their children’s lives. This paper concludes with recommendations for improving the treatment of non-traditional families including LGBTQ, polyamorous, and other blended families, both within and outside the legal institution.

Judicial Khula; theory and practice

Khula is the most practically used component in the judiciary of Pakistan and this requires completely Islamic Jurisprudence but unfortunately, Neither bar nor bench has special competency on this issue, on top of that Dar Ul Ifta is a different system in Pakistan that is not recognized ultimately common peoples face problems. The question arises to examine the theory of Khula in Islamic law along with Pakistani judicial practice in this relevant matter and furthermore to point out contemporary issues with its solutions so comparative study between khula and its practice is mainly focused in this research. This paper is not just an analytical study of the topic, but it is comparing both theoretical and practical aspects of Kula so that reforms could be oriented toward emerging issues. This work has drawn the conduct for the legal fraternity in concern matter furthermore, this writing has shown a way to the public for adopting a just & fair process for canceling the contract of marriage and more importantly the replacement of Civil judges with Muftian-E-Kiram in family courts will overcome the problems in family cases.

The experience of domestic violence survivors in the US family courts: gender bias in the court

There is a significant body of research on gender bias against women in the family courts. During the Covid-19 pandemic, battered women's vulnerability to domestic violence increased on a global level as women experienced a significant increase in the severity of abuse. The problems of gender bias and the treatment of battered women and their children have a long history of human rights' abuses. In particular, battered mothers have been the focus of gender-biased theories of parental alienation, used as a defence against claims of abuse and child maltreatment, despite a lack of empirical validity and acceptance. Additionally, the family courts in the United States are closed to the public and as a result there is a lack of transparency and accountability. A large-scale national study revealed that many supporting mental health professionals who provide custody evaluations lack a formal graduate education in domestic violence and child maltreatment. Furthermore, legislative presumptions that favour joint legal custody in custody decisions and requirements of co-parenting, fail to take into consideration the long-term public health risks of such chronic traumatic exposure. Finally, this article will address needed systemic reforms that include increased transparency, longterm court-monitoring, and supporting mental health professionals with formal graduate education in trauma, child development, and abuse, to promote resilience in vulnerable families.

Online Courts: Re-Assessing Inequality in the ‘Remote’ Courtroom

This paper explores the repercussions of the virtual hearings within the context of socioeconomic inequality in the justice system. Following the imposition of ‘lockdown’ conditions in the UK in March 2020, the Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS) rapidly introduced an online court system resulting in thousands of hearings being swiftly transferred onto audio or video-calling platforms. This study is based on interviews with six barristers and solicitors practising in the criminal and family courts, focusing on what the online court experience can reveal about the disparity in socioeconomic status between those judging and those being judged. Conducting a thematic analysis of the interview data, I argue that the disruption to the courtroom dynamics caused by online hearings highlights tacit functions of the lawyer’s role in supporting their clients to navigate the daunting court experience and comply with courtroom customs. I ultimately conclude that concerns regarding the loss of solemnity of proceedings reveal assumptions of both the traditional and virtual court environment and suggest that further research is needed before committing to permanent technology reforms.

The Grillo Effect at Thirty

Trina Grillo’s 1991 sounding of alarm bells concerning the impact on women of participating in mediation came as momentum was growing in a nationwide effort to incorporate informal dispute resolution mechanisms in family courts. Her critique was not the first, following on well-known warnings of the effect of an unchecked march toward “alternatives” on economically disadvantaged and racial minority disputants, civil rights enforcement, and society’s general need for court-articulated public norms. Nor was she the first to raise concerns about the vulnerability of women as participants in mediation. So why is her article so noteworthy?...