‘Trauma and the Family Courts: developing a trauma-informed practice’ published in Family Law Journal

Friday 24 January 2025

The article is co-written by Amanda Weston KC and Amanda Meusz of the Garden Court Chambers Family Law Team for Family Law, alongside Lucy Barnes, CEO and co-founder of Lawyers Who Care and a pupil barrister at East Anglian Chambers.

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The impact of trauma on ability to recall and recount testimony has been recognised as a key issue for many years. Initiatives such as The Advocates’ Gateway have made important strides in providing strategies for those identified as needing support to communicate effectively and provide their ‘best evidence’. However, understanding the real impact of trauma on the brain, and how that affects parties in the family court is still in its infancy. The need for a trauma-informed approach to representation in family proceedings is increasingly recognised.

This article covers what a ‘trauma-informed approach’ means, and explains the physiological responses to trauma. They also explore how family barrister Amanda Meusz at Garden Court Chambers and Lucy Barnes, the co-founder of ‘Lawyers Who Care’, are highlighting the impact of trauma in the family justice system, with a particular focus on the needs of care-experienced people.

The full article will be published in LexisNexis’ Family Law.

The authors, alongside a team of experts, previously considered trauma-informed representation in our seminar, ‘Trauma Informed Practice in Family Law’ on 4 September 2024.

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