Page 76 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 5 P a ge | 74

ITEM 4. Child’s Level of Differentiation from Parent Positions
This item is related to the child’s ability to hold his/her own views and experiences of
others regardless of the views presented by the parents. The child that can
differentiate from his/her parents is a strong child who does not collapse his/her
personal experience of being with each of his/her parents. This means that even if a
father says negative things about the child’s mother, the child can still report positive
things about the mother based on his/her experience with his/her mother. Examples
of this include:
 I have fun at my mum’s. We do lots of things together
 I love going bike-riding with dad. My dad has a fire pit in his backyard

ITEM 5. Child’s Role in Family
The possible roles children play in family are: peacemaker, communicator, parentified
child, caretaker, manager, decision-maker, identified problem, etc.

ITEM 6. Child’s Level of Distress
The level of emotional/psychological or physical upset noted during a child meeting.

ITEM 7. Child’s Temperament

A preferred way of approaching things/people – typically noted by the age of 3
months. The child’s style based on child literature related to temperament.

ITEM 8. Level of Understanding of the Process
The child understands your role and the ADR process.

ITEM 9. Child’s Level of External Support
Child has sufficient emotional/psychological support available to him/her). This may
include siblings, grandparents, teachers, faith-based leaders, peers, etc.

CHILD AND YOUTH CONCERNS SCALE

The Child and Youth Concerns Scale (CYCS) is comprised of 8 main areas of
concern noted by children of post separation and divorce. The areas chosen
are based on research related to what children say and/ or express is
important to them and on what those who interview/ meet with children say is
important to them. One or more areas listed below may be of concern for the
child. Please check each area that applies and rate the concern on the 5-point
scale indicating the degree of the concern. The CYCS is meant to assist those
working with children and youth to decipher what is important to a particular
child in order to provide helpful feedback to parents and other relevant third
parties.

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