Resolution Events Continue to Grow
In addition to our National Conference and Resolution Awards, our other flagship national events continued to grow in 2023.
Family Practice Conference
Our annual Family Practice Conference puts innovative practice in dispute resolution front and centre. Always an energising two days, Resolution brought the community together in Nottingham, to exchange ideas, gain insights from the Henry Brown lecture and dive into a wide range of workshops.
This year, we have made sure that there is something for everybody, including financial advice, collaborative working, and developing your key skills.
Delegates enjoyed a feast of engaging and informative content, where we welcomed experts from around the world to lead thought-provoking discussions and share best practice with you.
Those in attendance got to choose from five interactive workshops, and they also shaped the work of Resolution through lively and energetic Café Sessions – a great way to have their say and get involved in the conversation.
On the second day of the Family Practice Conference we heard from Dr Adrienne Barnett who gave us her thoughts on coercive control, trauma and how victims and survivors can be better supported by the family courts and practitioners.
Bill Eddy, Chief Innovation Officer at the High Conflict Institute, California, delivered this year’s Henry Brown Lecture. Bill discussed how to identify and work with clients demonstrating high conflict personalities. He’ll describe the four big skills needed to manage intense emotions, and present ten paradigm shifts for negotiating and mediating high conflict disputes.
You can read more about the Family Practice Conference in this issue of the Review.
Financial Planning on Separation Conference
Words from Conference Chair … Steve Hennessy
It is still early days, but I think this year’s conference will be looked back at as a pivotal moment for our growing community of specialists.
First and foremost, after a four-year break it was a real pleasure to get back in the same room. We are a relatively close-knit and friendly bunch, and there was a real sense of encouragement and support amongst delegates. We are all looking forward to this conference becoming a regular fixture in the calendar.
We were blessed with an exceptional array of speakers from a wide range of professions – financial planners of course, but also a family law solicitor (Alison Bull reminding us of the value we can add as financial planners), a barrister (Rhys Taylor has forgotten more about pensions on divorce than I’ll ever know!), an actuary (I mean, who better to talk about the Galbraith Tables than Jonathan Galbraith!), and the multi-talented Dr Supriya McKenna.
If the conversation in the bar was anything to go by, the notes and slides will be referred back to for a long time to come.
As I said in my opening remarks, devoting oneself to any specialism can sometimes be a bit of a lonely slog, and so networking and building relationships with peers is key to feeling part of something bigger.
People’s motives for being at the conference varied – some were looking to explore a new niche, others were experienced practitioners seeking to deepen their expertise in a technically diverse field. Everybody left with what they came for, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
This has always been my motivation in putting the conference together – to get us talking to each other and, importantly, to other family justice professionals, so that we can better assist the families we all serve.