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although others are only available in the classroom.

With years of experience volunteering for crisis centres, in restor-
ative justice mediation, as well as working in not-for-profit organizations,
Christina Bahr was sure she had the qualifications and desire to be a family
justice counsellor. She achieved her goal in 2006 when she completed her six
months of training, in the Surrey Family Justice Centre, before moving to a
permanent position in the Abbotsford office where she currently works.

“Tt was an interesting training program. I took the JI courses at the
same time I was shadowing and eventually participating in family media-
tions with other counsellors. I watched them do mediations and later they
co-mediated sessions with me. Then we would assess the mediations.

“We are dealing with people who are in crisis and the JI courses were
very useful in helping me to understand, for example, the grief cycle that
children and adults go through when a family breaks up.

“The prerequisite courses that I took in order to be accepted as a
family justice counsellor included conflict resolution courses with an inter-
personal specialization. I have always found the JI courses to be good value,
hands-on and very applicable to the subject they’re addressing”

Glenn Robinson started his career in family justice in 1980 after a
six-year spell as a probation officer (he took his probation training in pre-
JIBC days at the Marpole Training Centre in Vancouver). “I’ve taken most
of my training at the JI, either at the Jericho site or in New Westminster,”
he says. Now based in Kelowna as the Manager of Family Justice Services
for the Okanagan and Kootenays Region, he looks on the JIBC as his alma
mater. “I have fond memories of my courses—most recently I’ve taken lead-
ership classes—-and being with colleagues.

“Now I manage training for people in my office when they take
courses online and I am a mentor in addition. They may train in Kelowna
but be posted to a different office. The training takes six months with some
courses in New Westminster. To be a successful family justice counsellor
requires knowledge of the law and good mediation skills. It’s a career with a
learning curve that continues for a long, long time. And now it’s even more
complicated because we find ourselves helping people who have come from
different cultural backgrounds, with very different beliefs about marriage
and gender equality.’

When family crises affect the well-being of children, it’s possible that
a child protection social worker from the Ministry of Children and Family
Development will investigate to see what strengths the family has and, ifa
child is at risk, what preventive and/or supportive activities need to occur.
At the JIBC, child welfare training is a joint responsibility of the Correc-
tions and Community Justice Division and the Centre for Counselling and
Community Safety, which work closely with and at the direction of the
Ministry, in conjunction with the Schools of Social Work and Child and