This week, you will address family legal issues at a more macro level. Select the state in which you live or practice (if you live outside the United States, you may select a U.S. state to focus on or address the laws/policies within your country or province).
You will prepare a memo to the legislators in the state/country/province you have selected. In this memo, be sure to address the following:
- Briefly summarize the outcomes of divorce for adults, children, couples, families, and communities.
- Refer to Bogenschneider et al. (2012) for the proposed five principles associated with family functioning, which can be used to examine the impact of policies and programs. The five are “family responsibility, family stability, family relationships, family diversity, and family engagement” (p. 523).
- Select two divorce-related (e.g., grounds for divorce, spousal support, child support, child custody) laws or policies and use the five principles articulated by Bogenschneider et al. (2012) to analyze their impact on families.
- Focus on examining issues like the following:
- Family responsibility: Does this law/policy impact families’ ability to perform their functions and responsibilities?
- Family stability: Does this law/policy influence how families address issues and allow them to stay together as long as possible?
- Family relationships: Does this law/policy support families in developing skills, enhancing their relationships, and preventing family problems like abuse?
- Family diversity: Does this law/policy recognize and respect family diversity (including race, culture, ethnicity, religion, family life cycle stage, SES, geography), and recognize that policies differently impact families depending on their unique cultural context?
- Family engagement: Does this law/policy help connect families with professionals and community resources that will support them and respect their autonomy and dignity?
- Include a brief case vignette (hypothetical or real) that illustrates the problems associated with one or both of the laws/policies you have selected.
- Use your analysis of the impact of these two laws/policies on families to suggest revisions to these two laws/policies.
- Provide justification for these revisions; whenever possible, support your argument with relevant research findings.
- Conclude with a brief description of how divorce in this legal jurisdiction might look differently if these two laws or policy changes were enacted.
Length: 4 to 6-page memo (not counting the reference list; you do not need a cover page. Just begin with the heading of Memorandum centered at the top of the first page).
References: Include a minimum of 5 scholarly resources.