Family & Children Law; Mediation, Court Programs and Protocols - Meeting Francisca Farina Rivera

During Covid19 ‘lockdown’ there was an excellent opportunity for many (who were blessed not to be ill) to use the time as a pause for reflection; a time to contemplate where we are at and how we got there! Importantly also, a time to reach out to like-minded professionals to research and learn more about their work in the world. One such lady I was very interested and privileged to connect with via David B Wexler’s kind referral, was Francisca Fariña Rivera.

My interest in speaking with Francisca was due to her extensive research, work and programs about Family and children law, including domestic abuse- also her championing Mediation and the education of children from a very young age, in peaceful dispute resolution.

From Francisca’s research work, different procedures and action protocols have been derived which are frequently used by judicial experts and in Court intervention programs, such as the, "Program Breakup of Couples, not of Families,” and, “Galicia Program for the Re-education of Abusers”.

Francisca graduated in 1986, in Philosophy and Educational Sciences, in the Psychology Department of the University of Santiago de Compostela. She received her doctorate in 1990, in Psychology. Since 1990 she is a professor at the University of Vigo, obtaining her chair in Basic Psychology and Legal Psychology of Minors, in 2003.

She is the Principal Investigator of the PS1 Group (Legal Psychology) of the University of Vigo and has published 46 books and manuals, more than 150 chapters, in national and international publishers; she has written 89 scientific articles, and has participated in multiple conferences in which she has presented more than 200 papers and taught more than 50 conferences.

Francisca is an associate editor of The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context (Indexed in Scopus and Thomson Reuters Web of Science, Journal Citation Reports, Journal of Research in Education (Indexed in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science) and Revista Iberoamericana de Psychology and Health (Indexed in Scopus and Thomson Reuters Web of Science).

Francisca is also a member of the Editorial Board and / or reviewer of 15 national and international journals, and has participated in more than 20 research projects, 10 of them as principal researcher and is a member of an inter-university group that obtained funding in more than 30 research and development contracts and agreements. She is Coordinator of the services of, Intra-judicial Mediation of Pontevedra and Vigo.

Among other awards, Francisca has received the following recognition for her work: III and II Prize in the National Prizes for Educational Research of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

She is founder and member of the Board of Directors of the University Society for Research in Psychology and Health and of the Spanish Society of Forensic and Legal Psychology.

Francisca is also President of the Iberoamerican Chapter for the International Society of Therapeutic Jurisprudence, through which we met.

For further information, please contact:

https://intltj.com/chapters-interest-groups/
https://plataformafamiliayderecho.org/socios-fundadores/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8v2xLa9KWo