More information
Description
The project proposal addresses the issues of solving family conflicts about the manner of exercising custody rights. They turn into prolonged court proceedings, where there is no alternative solution and insufficient protection of the best interests of the child. At the same time, the legal and social world in Bulgaria does not include taking into account the best interests of the child in the diverse family structures in modern Bulgaria. The project aims at setting up Centre for Alternative Solution of Family Conflicts (CASFC), using a multidisciplinary approach to finding holistic solutions, reflecting the interests of the individual members of the family unit, including the specific interests of families from vulnerable groups. The Centre will bring together mediators, lawyers, psychologists, child development experts, who will work together with the couples in conflict. The legal framework about the best interests of the child in diverse families will be studied in depth and materials for the families, including from vulnerable groups, will be developed and disseminated based on it. Pedagogues, social workers, lawyers and mediators will be trained to develop a new model of solving parental conflict as well as provide free mediation and psychological counselling for parents at the Centre, which prove the efficiency of the model. The project will help establish an innovative and thorough manner for finding solutions to family conflicts, addressing them fully out of court and thus help achieve sustainable solutions in this fragile environment of family relations. Partnership between the Institute for Mediation and Conflict Management (IMEUS) and Professional Association of Mediators in Bulgaria (PAMB), whose lawyers were at the core of the project titled Children in the Focus of the Judiciary Reform, is needed to take advantage of the experience and synergy gained.
Summary of project results
The project aimed at establishing a specialized Centre for Alternative Resolution of Family Disputes.
The applied methods include multidisciplinary approach towards a certain conflict, identification, focus and safeguarding the best interests of children affected, as well as reflecting the interests of families from vulnerable groups. The activities chosen for attaining the goal also created the necessary prerequisites for success. Respectively, the first step was to draft a report-analysis of the best interests of children in modern family structures, as well as of foreign social integration practices. The organized interactive events were key to receiving precious feedback, as well as to the engagement of representatives to relevant institutions with the topic at hand. An extensive education and information campaign was carried out, which included the preparation and recording of video clips, as well as creation of images and text materials in respect to different aspects and advantages of ADR, as well as the negative effects a parental conflict has on the child. All this is published online on the social media and distributed among several websites. Within the project framework a specialized training was carried out, which was aimed at mediators, lawyers, psychologists, pedagogues and social workers in respect to the family mediation, having its accent on the diversity of family structures and the best interests of the child. In addition, a round table was organized with representatives of vulnerable groups, members of the public, as well as interested experts. The successful completion of the above-mentioned activities helped immensely towards building and initiating operation of the first multidisciplinary Centre for Alternative Resolution of Family Disputes, considering the interests of children. The mediation, psychological and legal services offered are provided offline and online. Access to the platform, as well as to all materials created within the Project’s framework, is available via www.semeistva.com.
The active participation of all Project partners, the visualization and publicity measures taken for distribution of results achieved, as well as the received applications from interested users of services provided via the platform, are all clear indicators for the current and future sustainability of the Project in its entirety.
Official page of the created platform: https://www.semeistva.com
FB profile with current and past events: https://m.facebook.com/pg/ChildrenOnFocus/posts/
Partners’ webpages: www.imeus.bg; www.pamb.info; https://bilitis.org
Links to recorded videos (in Bulgarian language):
“How is a family mediation procedure carried out?” - https://youtu.be/r9yB9olvXdo
“Family mediation in action” - https://youtu.be/4bO7nE8s6-A
“The child hears everything” - https://youtu.be/NWifIXlwbuU