Summary of Activities for
the Child-centred Family Justice Fund
2003-2005

Child-centred Family Justice Fund

As a key component of the Strategy, the Fund supports the development, implementation, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of family justice services. These services include mediation, parent education and a range of court-based information and community support services to assist parents making decisions about their children's care and to help them work out child-focused parenting arrangements.

Principles

The selection of projects and services supported under the Fund are guided by the following principles, as identified by Justice Canada in consultation with provincial and territorial officials:

Based on these principles, the Fund supports programs and services in the following three areas:

Family Justice Initiatives (FJI):
This stream, which accounts for over 90% of Fund resources under the Strategy, supports provincial and territorial family justice programs and services that assist parents dealing with parenting arrangements, child support, and support enforcement (e.g., parenting agreements and orders, contact orders, custody orders and access rights). The amount of money available to each jurisdiction has been determined by a distribution formula established in consultation with the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Coordinating Committee of Senior Officials- Family Justice (CCSO-Family Justice). The transfer of funds is accomplished through contribution agreements negotiated with each province and territory.
Pilot Projects:
About one-half of the funds not assigned to Family Justice Initiatives are available for pilot projects proposed by provincial and territorial governments to develop, implement, deliver, monitor and evaluate innovative family justice services.
Public Legal Education and Information (PLEI) and Professional Training:
The balance of the funds is made available to non-governmental organizations, by way of grants or contributions, to undertake projects that inform Canadians, including the legal community, about parenting arrangements, child support guidelines, and support enforcement measures. Proposals for funding of such projects must be supported by the appropriate provincial or territorial government.

Funding for the Family Justice Initiatives component was $15.1 million in the first year of the Strategy and $15 million in the second year. These amounts were allocated across the provinces and territories based on the funding formula agreed to by federal-provincial-territorial deputy ministers of justice. Funding for the Pilot Projects and the Public Legal Education and Information (PLEI) and Professional Training (PT) components was virtually eliminated in the first year of the Strategy due to the Government-wide Reallocation Exercise. However, the funding was reinstated in 2004/05 and the provinces and territories and various PLEI and PT organizations made successful applications to use all of the funding available ($500,000 in each of the two components)

Each of the activities and projects proposed by the jurisdictions must fall within at least one of the seven Primary Areas of Activity (PAAs), which were developed in consultation with the provinces and territories. The PAAs are as follows:

The seven PAAs are reflected in three broad family justice activities–integration (PAAs 1, 2, 3 and 7), enforcement (PAAs 4 and 5)and research (PAA 6).

This report outlines the activities of the first two years of the Fund. These activities have set a solid foundation that will continue to be enhanced in order to achieve the goals of the Strategy. Particularly, contribution funding is expected to lead to:

These direct outcomes will, in turn:

Many of the services funded during the first two years of the Strategy (2003/2004 and 2004/2005) are outlined below, beginning with those in the Family Justice Initiatives, which comprise the highest proportion of funds. It is important to note that these services do not constitute a comprehensive list of the family justice services that exist in a province or jurisdiction, but lists examples of the types of services supported by the Fund.