About

Full title

Advancing Continuous Improvements in the Family Justice System: The Collective Impact of a Well-being Focus in Family Law

Who's involved

Co-Leads: Brea Lowenberger, CREATE Justice and Dr. Judy Jaunzems-Fernuk, College of Law Well-Being Coordinator Instructor/researcher in the College of Education; and mental health practitioner in private practice in SK.

Project liaison to the SK A2J Network & strategic advisor to the project: Leah Howie

Project Advisory Committee: Anna Singer, Jamesy Patrick, Jayne Mallin, Kim Newsham, KC, Lawren Trotchie, Melissa Nelson, Pam Kovacs 

Impact

This project intends to have impact, directly informing the following:

  1. Continuous system changes in individual programming and collectively across the Saskatchewan family justice sector.
  2. A more user-friendly public interface for supporting families in transition and in resolving family disputes.
  3. Ongoing development of competencies in family law education across the continuum (i.e. for self-represented litigants/clients, legal professionals [lawyers, limited license practitioners, law students, and foreign trained lawyers], judges, educators, and government/court staff).

The project supports capacity building – i.e. administering and reporting on several focus groups. Over a one-year period, the project will undertake an “action research methodology” to complete the project.

The Canadian Hub for Applied Social Research (CHASR) at USask will work with CREATE Justice on the initial steps of a collective impact evaluation project. The purpose of the project is to gather information from key groups involved in the field of family justice that will inform best practices, effective methods, and key considerations for measuring collective impact of family justice initiatives in Saskatchewan.

The results will guide future evaluative efforts of initiatives in Saskatchewan that aim to improve health, wellbeing, and resilience of families that interact with the family justice system.

We are grateful for a Canadian Bar Association Law For the Futures Fund grant that has helped make this initiative possible.

Get involved

Are you interested in contributing to continuous improvements and reforms of the family justice system in Saskatchewan?

Email createjustice@usask.ca with how you would like to contribute to change.

Project news