It just started as a pilot in December in British Columbia under the Society for Children and Youth. It's called the Child and Youth Legal Centre. Again, law, politics and family violence are not my area of research.
Any child in British Columbia can access a lawyer confidentially, out of view of any parent, via Skype throughout the province, for anything from questions about mediation to requests for language rights or gender rights. It's any type of support for children. That's prioritized right now.
My children accessed that program. They were able to get their rights. They were able to have the views report reviewed with them, and they offered to attend in-court via video. After three court dates in the past year alone, it stopped. The only difference in the last one.... Medical and health team members were always there, and letters were always there, but it was the introduction of the child lawyer that stopped everything.
I cannot overstate the importance of bringing in someone to defend the child to change the dynamics. That person is not there for either parent, for anyone's bias, other than to meet the needs of the child. It is so fundamentally critical. It can unclog your courts, and these programs need to be supported.
There is a clause that they could retain monies from the parents. They could petition for reimbursement, but it's free as a default. I honestly believe it needs to be.... It's not going far enough. It also needs to bring in the views of health practitioners. If a family has a family doctor, that doctor knows all of the medical and health issues of everyone in that family. When you have a divorce, if there is something going on, it forces a parent to disclose private medical information about the competency of a parent, for example. How is that going to help? It would be the opinions of medical professionals coming in who could say—