February 24, 2017
Kari Boyle

Public engagement – the parable of the turtle

Categories: Access to Justice, Empathy, Innovation, public engagement, User Centred

Previous posts have tackled the important question of why engaging with system users (in our case BC families experiencing separation and divorce) is critical to effective justice reform. Some may continue to believe that this is an unnecessary step since system professionals (judges, lawyers, government policy people, academics etc.) have all of the knowledge and […]

February 4, 2017
Kari Boyle

Youth Voices Narrative Workshop: Some Early Insights

Categories: Access to Justice, convening, Empathy, User Centred, youth engagement

On January 22, 2017 we gathered with a very courageous group of young adults who were willing to share stories about their experience of the parents’ divorce. This was the first step of our Youth Voices Initiative which is using a human-centred design process to maintain or improve the well-being of children faced with separation […]

January 4, 2017
Kari Boyle

How to have meaningful conversations about adaptive challenges

Categories: Access to Justice, convening, Innovation, Systems thinking

Happy New Year everyone! One of the purposes of the BC Family Justice Innovation Lab is to create a space (or platform) for meaningful conversations about how to address the complex adaptive challenge of supporting family well-being as they journey through separation and divorce. The traditional method of gathering justice “insiders” to diagnose the problem […]

December 23, 2016
Kari Boyle

Putting the Public First – Part 5

Categories: Access to Justice, child rights, Empathy, User Centred, youth engagement

This is the fifth in a series of posts about HOW we can begin to put the public first in justice design. In the family justice system we rarely hear the voices of children who are experiencing the separation or divorce of their parents. Despite the legal principle that the “best interests of the child” […]

December 22, 2016
Kari Boyle

Vote for NSRLP!!

Categories: Access to Justice, News, Unbundling

Social media is abuzz with the news that our friends at the National Self-Represented Litigants Project have been nominated for a prestigious award. the NSRLP’s new National Database of Professionals Assisting SRLs has been nominated for the American Bar Association’s Louis M. Brown Award for Legal Access! Dayna Cornwall, Project Coordinator with the NSRLP, advises: This award is […]

December 6, 2016
Kari Boyle

Youth Voices Workshop – a First Step in Justice Design

Categories: Access to Justice, Empathy, Innovation, User Centred

The Lab is moving ahead with the “Youth Voices Initiative“. The purpose of the initiative is to support the well-being of youth whose families experienced separation and divorce. Research shows that the divorce process can be very damaging for children as their well-being is closely linked to the level of conflict between their parents and […]

December 5, 2016
Kari Boyle

Putting the Public First – Part 4

Categories: Access to Justice, Innovation, User Centred

In the first three parts of this series I described the thoughts I contributed to the Justice Design Project on how to put the public first in justice system reform. This post attempts to build on that very important theme. I follow Richard Zorza‘s Access to Justice Blog. Richard is one of my justice heroes […]

November 28, 2016
Kari Boyle

Unbundling: Announcing the New BC Family Toolkit & Roster!

Categories: Innovation, Unbundling, Uncategorized

Our friends at Mediate BC are excited to announce two important milestones in its unbundled legal services adventure (in partnership with Access to Justice BC): Publication of a Toolkit for Lawyers and Paralegals (version 1.0); and An invitation to receive more information about the BC Family Unbundling Roster The Toolkit version 1.0 During the surveys […]

November 8, 2016
Kari Boyle

Putting the Public First – Part 3

Categories: Empathy, Innovation, User Centred

This is Part 3 in our series on what it means to be “public-centred”. It is an outline of my presentation to the Winkler Institute’s 2016 Justice Design Project group in August 2016. The third and last part of the presentation was focused on considering how putting the public first is relevant to justice and […]

November 1, 2016
Kari Boyle

Putting the Public First – Part 2

Categories: Empathy, Innovation, User Centred

This is Part 2 in our series on what it means to be “public-centred”. It is an outline of my presentation to the Winkler Institute’s 2016 Justice Design Project group in August 2016. After exploring why it was important to put the public first, the next question was HOW to put the public first. At […]