“The following excerpts from Steps to Justice: Your Guide to Law in Ontario provides a useful overview of the Parenting Coordination process:
Parenting coordination is an alternative dispute resolution, also called family dispute resolution process. Parents can meet with a parenting coordinator for help with following the parts of their court order, family arbitration award, or separation agreement that are about parenting.
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A parenting coordinator is a person who helps parents resolve day-to-day conflicts about their parenting arrangements or parenting orders.
A parenting coordinator doesn’t decide major things like decision-making responsibility or parenting time. These used to be called custody and access. But a parenting coordinator can decide minor issues like:
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- small changes to a parenting access plan such as vacations and holidays
- scheduling activities and arranging for pick up and drop off to activities like ballet, hockey, or tutoring
- children’s travel and passport arrangements
- how your children’s clothing and school items are moved between your and your partner’s homes
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A parenting coordinator helps you speak with each other to try and agree on your parenting issues. If you can’t agree, they can decide for you. Their decision is based on information they get from the parents, professionals such as doctors, teachers, counsellors, etc., and, if needed, your child.
The process is similar to mediation-arbitration. But the parenting coordinator cannot make major decisions. Their job is to help you follow the parts of your court order, family arbitration award, or separation agreement that are about parenting.
Parenting coordinators are trained to:
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- understand the needs of children
- help each parent discuss their parenting issues
- help parents to manage and keep children out of conflicts
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Some of the reasons to use parenting coordination are:
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- You get professional help that you may need even after you have a court order, family arbitration award, or separation agreement on parenting issues. Children’s needs and issues often change as they get older. A parenting coordinator can help parents who find it hard to communicate with each other and want to set up a process for how they will resolve future issues.
- It can be faster than going to court once you have agreed on all of the process details and signed a parenting coordination agreement.
- It can be cheaper than going to court to resolve minor parenting issues.
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Community Legal Education Ontario, “What is Parenting Coordination?” (1 March, 2021),
online: https://stepstojustice.ca/questions/family-law/what-parenting-coordination/?gclid=.”