For the week of December 9 thru December 15, 1998  

Judge wants divorce mediation program for high-conflict cases

County Commissioners begin to search for money


By KEVIN WISER
Express Staff Writer

High conflict divorces tear families apart, and can ruin lives.

Parents are left bitter and hateful from the fight over who gets what. It’s often the children, the helpless ones, who suffer most, permanently emotionally scared.

Lengthy and traumatic custody trials prolong the agony and intensify the damage. Mothers and fathers divide their possessions. Children are torn, wondering who their parent will be.

Criminals often trace their lives of crime roots back to a broken family. The vicious circle turns back on itself and society as a whole, then goes around all over again, repeating itself through the lives of the next generation.

A Blaine County judge and a counselor want to do something to try and stop the cycle.

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Photographer Willy Cook and I walk into the courthouse, wondering if we’ll make it through the metal detector, no guns or anything like that, just Willy’s camera equipment and my laptop. We get through, go to the plexiglass window and ask to see the judge.

I forget to introduce myself properly. Sometimes I lack in formalities.

The clerk on the other side says curtly we can’t see the judge. She eyes us like a couple of hoodlums, not that I blamed her-- Willy and I can look pretty rough.

I tell her who we are and that we have an appointment with the judge. She tells us to wait.

Magistrate Judge Robert Elgee appears from down the hall a few minutes later, greets us kindly and shakes our hands. He leads us down the hall, through a coded security door and into his humble chambers. The judge is a busy man, yet happy to accommodate us and genuinely kind.

I know right off that this is a people’s judge, a man who cares.

His desk is cluttered with legal papers and stacks of books. A ceiling tile is missing from a corner, insulation sticks out. A bucket on the floor below catches the water when it rains.

There’s a teddy bear sitting atop the book shelf, waiting there to comfort children if the need arises.

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The judge says that in high conflict divorces the interests of the child are what it’s all about, the most important thing. Because the children are the helpless ones.

Judge Elgee and counselor Kris Stoffer, from the Center For Family Solutions in Hailey, have proposed a family court services program for Blaine County.

The goal of the program is to reduce the number of high conflict divorce cases going through the system by providing an alternative to litigation.

According to Stoffer "the program is primarily about custody issues and saving families involved in divorce from having to endure the lengthy court process and damaging trials, and to make the process easier and less traumatic on children."

According to the proposal presented to the Blaine County Commissioners Monday, one of the objectives of the program is to provide education and information about the resources available to divorcing families that can help them through the process.

Those resources include counseling and educational classes regarding current and cutting-edge research about divorce, the developmental stages of children, parenting agreements, and the needs of divorcing parents.

"I want to be a resource for families involved in divorce, a mediator to hopefully solve the dispute before it goes to trial, to help parents come to an agreement regarding a parenting plan," Stoffer said.

Another objective of the plan is to increase a judge’s knowledge about these resources and to assist him or her in making the right decision concerning parenting plans and child custody.

According to Judge Elgee, "a judge can’t always make the right decision, know what’s really going on from what he sees in court."

A mediator could observe the situation out of court, how things really are, how the parents act and treat each other, and how they treat the children.

A mediator could advise the judge and give him valuable insights in how to handle the case."

Stoffer referred to the objectives and resources involved in this program as a creative solution to divorce that do not incorporate traditional mediation methods. A pilot program similar to the one proposed by Elgee and Stoffer exists in Ada County.

According to Stoffer, "when they(Ada County) can direct people towards mediators, two-thirds of the cases come to agreement out of court, avoiding the duration of typical court process and lengthy trials, and fighting over the custody of children."

Perhaps the most disturbing concern surrounding the issue of high conflict divorce is the potential for domestic violence.

According to Elgee, "high conflict divorces have a higher percentage and greater potential to lead to domestic violence, resulting in harm to the child not only physically but emotionally, leading to problems for the child later on in life."

"If we can help parents now, solve problems now, everyone is better off in the future, parents, kids, everyone," Elgee said.

The County Commissioners response to the proposed program was favorable.

"I think this is an outstanding program to help children cope with divorce," said Commissioner Mary Ann Mix. "I’m behind it one hundred percent as are the other commissioners."

Although the board approved of the objectives of the program, there are no funds available. Funding for the project may have to wait until the next budget year.

"I’m pursuing every avenue I can to find money to fund this project, Mix said. "I want to do anything I can to help children of divorced parents" No estimates exist on the potential financial savings the project could produce through reduced court costs.

Perhaps the benefits will not be measured in dollars and cents, but in the lives of the children it may save from ruin.

 

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