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===Contact under the ''Family Law Act''===
The ''Family Law Act'' doesn't say much about contact compared to what it has to say about parental responsibilities and parenting time, except to say that anyone can apply for contact, including parents who are not guardians, grandparents, other family members, and anyone elsereally. This is the definition of contact from section 1 of the act:
<blockquote><tt>'''contact with a child''' or '''contact with the child''' means contact between a child and a person, other than the child's guardian, the terms of which are set out in an agreement or order;</tt></blockquote>
People can make arrangements that someone have contact with a child in a number of ways. They can make an agreement with the child's parents, using negotiation, mediation, or a collaborative settlement process, or, if they can't agree, the person seeking contact can go to court or the person and the child's parents can decide to use arbitration. Arbitration, like mediation, is a process that everyone involved needs to agree to use. However, unlike mediation, the arbitrator will make a final and binding decision if an agreement cannot be reached. You can get more information about negotiation, mediation, collaborative settlement processes and arbitration in the chapter [[Resolving_Family_Law_Problems_out_of_Court | Resolving Family Law Problems out of Court]], and more information about litigation in the chapter [[Resolving_Family_Law_Problems_in_Court | Resolving Family Law Problems in Court]].
Under section 58(1) of the ''Family Law Act'', the guardian of a child can make an a written agreement with someone who is not a guardian that they have contact with a child. (Under section 58(2), agreements like these are only good if they are made with all of the child's guardians who have parental responsibility for making decisions about the people with whom the child may associate.) If agreement isn't possible, the person asking for contact Written agreements can apply for a contact order be filed in court under section 59 58(3) of the ''Family Law Act'' or under section 16.5 act and, once filed, can be enforced just like they are orders of the ''Divorce Act''court.
If agreement isn't possible, the person asking for contact can apply for a contact order under section 59 of the ''Family Law Act'' or under section 16.5 of the ''Divorce Act''. It's important to remember people who are asking for contact orders under the ''Divorce Act'' can only ask for those orders:
*if there is an existing court proceeding between married spouses under the ''Divorce Act'', and
====Factors====
There are two sets of factors that judges and arbitrators will consider in making orders about how contact with children's parenting time will be allocated between their parents, the factors set out in the legislation and the additional factors that have developed through the courts. As far as the legislation is concerned, the most important factors are the children's best interests. Section 16 of the ''[[Divorce Act]]'' says that:
<blockquote><tt>(1) The court shall take into consideration only the best interests of the child of the marriage in making a parenting order or a contact order.</tt></blockquote>
<blockquote><tt>(2) When considering the factors referred to in subsection (3), the court shall give primary consideration to the child’s physical, emotional and psychological safety, security and well-being. ...</tt></blockquote>
<blockquote><tt>(5) In determining what is in the best interests of the child, the court shall not take into consideration the past conduct of any person unless the conduct is relevant to the exercise of their parenting time, decision-making responsibility or contact with the child under a contact order.</tt></blockquote>
The list of ''Divorce Act'' best-interests factors is set out in section 16(3), and the list of additional factors to be considered when assessing the impact of family violence is set out in section 16(4).
The list of ''Family Law Act'' best-interests factors is set out in section 37(2), and the list of additional factors to be considered when assessing the impact of family violence is set out in a separate section, section 38.
The courts have expanded these factors into the following general principles when determining how if someone should have contact with a child and, if so, the children's parenting time will be allocatedextent of their contact with the child. The court may consider:
*the age, maturity and independence of the children,
*which parent was the childrenchild's primary caregiver during history of spending time with the relationshipperson seeking contact,*the distance nature and travel time strength of any connection between the parent's homeschild and the person seeking contact,*any benefits the parents' work schedules and person seeking contact offers to the childrenchild's school schedule cultural, linguistic and spiritual upbringing and schedule of extracurricular activitiesheritage,*each parentthe nature of the relationship between the person seeking contact and the child's flexibility and willingness to cooperate with parents, including the other parent about parenting time and accommodate unexpected changespresence of any conflict,*whether siblings should be kept together, which is usually how the case although siblings contact can be separated if accommodated into any parenting time schedule that may exist, including whether it is in their best interests appropriate to do so,*whether the children are in a stable and satisfactory setting, and if so, whether set the childrenperson's interests long-term interests justifies upsetting contact with the child during a stable arrangement,*each particular parent's character, fitness, and overall parenting capacity, depending on the circumstances of the case and as long as issues like this are genuinely important and relevanttime,*each parent's the mental and physical capacityof the person seeking contact, again depending on the circumstances of the case and as long as issues like this are genuinely important and relevant,*the impact of any family violence, and the steps taken by a parent the person seeking contact to prevent further family violence from occurring, and
*the wishes of the children, particularly those of children who are 10 or 11 years old or older, although the court isn't required to make the order the children would prefer.
There really is no standard pattern of parenting timecontact, although contact between a trend toward shared child and the relative of a parent will usually come out come out of that parent's parenting time has developed in case law over the past several years. All of these factors, including the best-interests factors, usually get will be taken into <span class="noglossary">account</span> when contact is allowed and a parenting time schedule of contact is designed, and, in general, a parenting time schedule of contact schedule can be as creative as the flexibility of the parents circumstances and common sense allow. This chapter has a chart of different parenting schedules that accommodate some of these concerns in the section [[Parenting after Separation]].
====Conditional contact====
A parentperson's parenting time contact with a child can be made ''conditional'' upon the parent person doing or not doing something. If a parent the person fails to meet any of the conditions of their parenting time contact with the child, the parent's parenting time their contact may reasonably be denied.
In general, the court must have some fairly serious reasonable concerns about a parentperson's lifestyle or behaviour before an order for parenting time contact will be conditional. Conditional parenting time orders have been made in cases In fact, where a parent:such concerns exist, the person is more likely to be denied contact with the child altogether than to get contact on conditions.
====Supervised contact====
==Resources and links==