Up North Collaborative Divorce Professionals Report

2009

We have been meeting monthly since June 2009. We now have four mental health professionals, one financial professional and eleven lawyers.

Our companion group from the Cadillac area appears to be sending at least one of each profession to a basic training in Ohio in December. I will be meeting with the Cadillac crew this Tuesday. We have spent a good deal of the early meetings working on technical aspects of our group: bank account, forms, dues, intake procedures and marketing. There have been two newspaper articles on CP, one in Traverse City and the other in Charlevoix. Members have begun to present on CP for local groups. For example, last week Ann Marie Love and Jim Saffell presented to 40 people at the Leelanau County Family Coordinating Council. They say it went very well. This was a great meeting to target because its attendees are involved in all aspects of "family" here.

Four of us attended IACP. We all reported back enthusiastically to those who did not attend.
We have two cases going right now. One set of lawyers required their clients to meet with divorce coaches prior to beginning and reduced their fee to provide for this. The last meeting was the first that the teams were able to share developments in real cases. Some Up North organizational items need fine-tuning, but I think it is only a matter of time before we start having more cases.

Submitted by,
Marian Kromkowski, liaison for the
Up North Collaborative Divorce Professionals