Visual Law for Children and Adolescents

Colette R. Brunschwig

In late August of this year, Sidney Mediation Partnership (http://www.sydneymediation.com.au/) will launch a series of children’s self-help books about divorce, separation, and mediation entitled "Two Birthday Cakes."

Danielle Jaku-Greenfield, one of the founders of Sidney Mediation Partnership, had the idea to write a series of books for young children about divorce, separation, and mediation, since there is an obvious lack of such books for young children in Australia. I would add that this problem exists in many countries.

“Two Birthday Cakes” responds to parents’ needs to explain their children the topic of divorce, separation, and mediation. It’s a picture and colouring-in book written from the child’s point of view. Based on true separation or divorce stories, it will hopefully help children and families going through separation or divorce.

This book covers a spectrum of issues in family law ranging from where the children will live to with whom they will wake up on Christmas Day, birthdays, and special family days; relocation; what school they will attend, and so forth. The purpose of this book is to facilitate and encourage a constructive dialogue between the parents involved.

The first book in this series, Two Birthday Cakes, is by Danielle Jaku-Greenfield. The author of the second book entitled “Two Birthday Cakes and Baby Jack,” is Nicky McWilliam, the other founder of Sidney Mediation Partnership.

All endeavours aimed at making the law accessible for children and young adults need to be strongly supported. There are many reasons for this. One lies in the deplorable fact that too many adults have insufficient legal knowledge.

In this context, I would also like to refer you to Caroline Walser Kessel’s and Maria Crespo’s article “Visualisierung von Rechtsnormen durch Kinder – Darstellung ihres Fairness- und Gerechtigkeitssinns [= Visualization of Legal Norms by Children – Visual Representation of their sense of justice and fairness].” This paper is available at http://jusletter.weblaw.ch/login.php?ref_url_succ=http%3A%2F%2Fjusletter.weblaw.ch%3A80%2Farticle%2Fde%2F_7609%3Flang%3Dde&ref_url_fail=http://jusletter.weblaw.ch/fail.php; last accessed on August 11, 2010.

Caroline Walser-Kessel is currently writing a book on how children learn the Swiss law. She made a posting in the community on multisensory law at C. H. Beck publishers on this book project (see http://community.beck.de/gruppen/forum/visual-law/fair-play-kinder-lernen-das-gesetz-vortrag-von-caroline-walser-kessel-und-maria-crespo-anlaesslich-der-; last accessed on August 11, 2010).

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