Abstract:

Family law services assisting clients with post-separation parenting arrangements can play a key role in encouraging collaborative communication between separating parents. Increasingly, this communication takes place by digital means. Although digital tools provide parents with greater choice as to how and when they communicate, these tools can also be used in ways which exacerbate conflict or facilitate abuse.

In order to connect with today’s separating parents — and so that our services may continue to be “valued now and into the future” — we need to understand which communication technologies are used by our clientele, why some technologies might be favoured over others, and how the use of technology can shape co-parenting communication.

This presentation provides results from an exploratory mixed methods study of the use and misuse of ‘everyday’ communication technologies among parents accessing post-separation services in Victoria. A survey of 118 clients was followed by interviews with 12 participants. We found that post-separation clients readily differentiated between common technologies in terms of the extent to which were they helpful or unhelpful for co-parenting, and adapted their general habits of use for the purposes of co-parenting. The experience of technology misuse was widespread in our sample, though infrequent for most.

An improved understanding of client experiences will help post-separation services incorporate explicit discussion of technology use in the negotiation of parenting arrangements. This understanding will assist practitioners to encourage co-operative habits in the use of communication technologies and discourage behaviours that are potentially harmful to individuals, to the post-separation relationship, and to shared children.