Parenting Coordination

On 22 October, Dr Astrid Martalas and Craig Schneider joined OurFamilyWizard for an informative discussion about parenting coordination. Presenters offered their professional insights and detailed experiences in this field. They also explored its various advantages and disadvantages as well as how practitioners can include parenting coordination in their practice.

Presentation Materials

Access materials from the presenters of this webinar. 

Our Presenters

Dr Astrid Martalas is a counseling psychologist registered with the HPCSA specialising in the resolution of family disputes through parenting co-ordination. Her other areas of expertise include child and adolescent psychology, parenting, contact and care assessments and relocation assessments. She has been court appointed as parenting coordinator and/or mediator in more than 300 matters. She holds a PhD from Utrecht University. The title of her thesis is “Alternative dispute resolution post-divorce or -family separation. Parenting coordination: a blueprint for its regulation in South Africa and its introduction in the Netherlands”.

She has been an accredited mediator with the Family Mediators Association of the Cape (FAMAC) since 2005 and has acted as co-chair of FAMAC on two occasions. She has also acted as vice chair of the National Accreditation Board for Family Mediators (NABFAM) and has made expert submissions to the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) on parenting coordination. She is a member of the committee which published the South African Guidelines on parenting coordination in 2017.

Together with Craig Schneider, Astrid has trained on parenting coordination in Australia, the Netherlands and South Africa. She has presented on parenting coordination at conferences in Australia, the UK, the USA, the Netherlands and South Africa. Together with Craig Schneider, she has organised three biannual ADR conferences under the auspices of FAMAC.

Craig Schneider, B.A. LLB is an attorney of 30 years experience, a qualified and accredited mediator of 13 years and an experienced and suitably qualified parenting co-ordinator.  Craig conducts his practise as an attorney/mediator/parenting co-ordinator for the past 24 years as Craig Schneider Associates.  He has trained mediators and parenting co-ordinators throughout South Africa and been instrumental in promoting parenting co-ordination throughout South Africa. He has appeared on regular radio talk shows and was the designated expert for South Africa at The Hague Private Law Conference in the Hague in February 2011 for the drafting of a mediation guideline in International Child Abduction matters. He has presented papers at various conferences both nationally and internationally on The Children’s Act, Mediation, Parenting Co-ordination, mediation in Hague Convention matters.  He is a participating expert in Family Law Reform relating to mediation, alternative dispute resolution and Parenting Co-ordination.

He works in an informal, holistic manner, interactively and raises his own concerns and observations with clients in mediation and parenting co-ordination. He brings into his practices his observations flowing from his life and work experience. He uses an organic, open ended and individualized approach to resolving disputes.