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As family lawyers across Canada experience one of their busiest weeks of the year following the holidays, the University of Calgary is set to make a groundbreaking shift in family justice. A historic $26.8-million philanthropic gift from the Alberta Law Foundation will fund two new research chairs and a Centre for Transformation at the University of Calgary, focused on improving outcomes for families involved in the family justice system. The initiative will prioritize long-term well-being, reduce trauma for children and youth and provide crucial support for families navigating the family justice system.
Family law cases account for 35 per cent of all civil cases in Canada, with significant time and resources dedicated to parenting time and child support disputes. This initiative will help to reduce trauma by focusing on less adversarial approaches. Childhood trauma, or Adverse Childhood Experiences, have been shown to strongly correlate with long-term mental and physical health challenges.
The new research chairs and the Centre for Transformation will work closely with the community-based Re-Imagining the Family Justice System (RFJS) initiative, whose Grande Prairie efforts have already demonstrated that new approaches to family justice can achieve promising outcomes.
Read the story published by the University of Calgary.
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