In this episode, Tamsin speaks to James Evans from Our Family Wizard. This is a brilliant app to help co-parents to communicate better. It’s a fascinating idea, which I’m sure will help many parents.
James Evans
Professional Liaison, The OurFamilyWizard® website.
James is a Professional Liaison and the UK representative for OurFamilyWizard. His role includes educating Judges, Barristers, Solicitors, Mediators and many other family law professionals on the online tools that can be utilised to benefit and monitor parental communication in high conflict cases. James travels the country attending family law conferences, courts, workshops and seminars each year. James spent 4 years as a teacher before working with OurFamilyWizard.
Recent speaking engagements include the Family Law Bar Association, Resolution National and Regional events, Bournemouth Family Courts, Central Family Courts in London, Support Through Court and NACCC charity events and individual chambers and firms throughout the country.
James graduated from the University of Sussex receiving a BA in Theatre and Film Studies.
Tamsin is a Chartered Financial Planner with over 20 years experience. She works with couples and individuals who are at the end of a relationship and want agree how to divide their assets FAIRLY without a fight.
You can contact Tamsin at tamsin@smartdivorce.co.uk or arrange a free initial meeting using https://calendly.com/tamsin-caine/15min. She is also part of the team running Facebook group Separation, Divorce and Dissolution UK
Tamsin Caine MSc., FPFS
Chartered Financial Planner
Smart Divorce Ltd
https://smartdivorce.co.uk
P.S. I am the co-author of “My Divorce Handbook – It’s What You Do Next That Counts”, written by divorce specialists and lawyers writing about their area of expertise to help walk you through the divorce process. You can buy it by scanning the QR code…
Transcript
(The transcript has been created by an AI, apologies for any mistakes)
Tamsin Caine 0:06
Hello, and welcome to the Smart Divorce podcast. In series five, my guests will be helping you to come out of your divorce, dissolution, or big breakup and create a different you move forward with the things that you want to be able to achieve. And think about things differently. I really hope you enjoy this series. I'm your host, Tamsin Caine. And we'll be meeting some fabulous guests, I hope you enjoy them. If you do have any suggestions as to for the guests that we could have on, then we'd be more than delighted to hear from you. I hope you enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the Smart Divorce Podcast. I'm joined today by James Evans from the from sorry, OurFamilyWizard, which is the most brilliant tool for helping you to communicate and co-parent effectively. And through a very special app. It has the most amazing tools. And just imagine a world where before you send a message, it's checked to see if you're being too rude, too aggressive, too sarcastic, et cetera. I don't know about you, but sometimes I think I could perhaps do with that in my everyday life, nevermind during co parenting. Anyway, let's jump right in. Hope you enjoy it. Hello, and today, I am very delighted to be joined by James from OurFamilyWizard. And so James is professional liaison and UK reps and for OurFamilyWizard. We're going to tell you stats more about very shortly. His role includes educating judges, barristers, solicitors, mediators and many other family law professionals on the online tools that can be utilised to benefit and monitor parental country, collar conflicts. Communication, it's high conflict cases, James travels the world attend Oh, no, he doesn't he travels the country attending family courts with the world would be better.
James Evans 2:22
Well, I don't we I have been I have, you know, we're based out in America. So I have been to America with OurFamilyWizardd. And there's a couple of international conferences that I'm hoping to go to. So hopefully it'll be world soon. Now it's just the country,
Tamsin Caine 2:35
we just leave world. And yeah, hopefully it gets more checks that way. The country attending family law conferences, puts workshops and seminars each year, although guess probably not the last couple years, and spent four years as a teacher before working for OurFamilyWizard. So let's start with what an air is our family wizard.
James Evans 3:01
Yeah, good question. So for a basic outline, our family was the design co parenting communication app, it offers a space for parents to communicate through during before or after the divorce and separation process. And I say app, it can be used on on any device that uses the internet, you know, laptop iPad desktop, that most of our users use the app on their smartphone. And it has a series of features that have been made specifically for co parenting communication, and also for family law professionals as well. And so I can give you a quick run through of the features if you think there'll be a helpful helpful starting point, Tamsin.
Tamsin Caine 3:36
I think so because my co parenting communication tends to be done with varying degrees of success through text, email, WhatsApp, so I'm guessing that our family wizard is slightly more swanky and clever than the above.
James Evans 3:59
We'd like to hope so I mean, there's a couple of issues with those methods of communication that we're all familiar with, you know, text and WhatsApp and whatnot. And first of all, there are so many you know, and we see this happening with a lot of family law professionals, we work with what you know, one parent says text doesn't respond on email, and they reply on Facebook and it takes longer and it gets very confused. And it can be frustrating for everyone involved. On top of that, it is really easy to manipulate modern communication. And anyone listening, I encourage you to go and try this. If you just go on to Google and search for, you know, fake WhatsApp generators or fake email makers. There are so many ways for free that you can make it that like someone's new message they never actually did. And it's horrible. It's nasty, it's malicious, but it is possible to have a go to have done in the mean time. See it try it out. It's crazy how easy it is to make fake WhatsApps
Tamsin Caine 4:47
I don't like the idea of that. That's horrible
James Evans 4:51
it is really horrible it is but we do safeguard against that. And we are also a one stop shop. So all the different various apps you might be using you know your camera under your whatsapp you're in, we were all in one place. So our first feature is our message board. Master space to send messages is very familiar to most of our users, but it's like an informal email, the main differences, we have something called tone metre, tone metre. It's like an emotional spellcheck. So I'll actually alert you if you're writing something that could potentially be deemed as offensive, or inflammatory and give you a chance to think about what you've written before then choosing whether or not to send it. And all those messages are fully accountable. So it will say who sent the message on what data what time who first read it. And that can be changed or edited, unlike other apps, so it's full accountability on their communication. They then have a shared calendar, where they can input parenting schedule, they can do events, one time, events, holidays, they can swap the allocation of the time, all within the calendar itself. Again, they can be turned into reports to an info bank, we can store information about family things like you know, shoe size, height, weight, school reports, medications, prescriptions, basically all the nitty gritty info. And that's all stored in one place, we didn't have a journal in the journal, they can upload what is called moments, which is like sort of like a social media, you can upload pictures and videos, but you choose, you can see that within the family visit accounts, there's a checking feature, we can geotag your locations, you can actually prove you in the right place at the right time. And there's also an expensive, we can track and payback reimbursements that have been made towards the child. So there's a whole whole mountain of different features all in one place. And that's only accessible to to parents. And then they can add what are called Child accounts, which which are free accounts for the children and third party accounts which have things for people like grandparents or guardians who are involved, and they're free as well. It's only the parents who will pay for their accounts. And that's 79 pounds per year per parents for their subscription. Unless the parents are on any sort of legally do Universal Credit, any sort of low income, then they get free accounts. And there's a form they fill out on our website, which is all family visit Dakota, UK. And they get free accounts. So hopefully, it's accessible to any sort of parent going through this process.
Tamsin Caine 6:56
Wow. So for anybody listening, who's listening who feels like they've been hit by a truck, incredibly rapid rundown of everything that our family was does. I think it might be a plan to take it one by one. Because that was very quick. And I've seen my family was working. And still, I'm like, Oh, hang on. Lot of information to take in it starts it does so much stuff, I think is that is the thing. So let's, let's start with the fact that that you mentioned, I think I'm going to try and take this in the order that you shot. So at the beginning, you were saying that one of the massive benefits of our family wizard, there's a that everything is all in one place. So you've not got emails and WhatsApp and so on all in different places, which can be confusing and difficult to kind of pull off what the communication was that was said. And secondly, that you said that it is easy to manipulate and create fake emails or fake bots up to et cetera. So tell me about why that might be a problem.
James Evans 8:16
Yeah. And then this is something that we have worked on. So OurFamilyWizard has been going around for 20 years. It started out in America 20 years ago, we built the UK version about five years ago. So these features have been tailored around the specific needs for our users. And those parents. And a lot of the feedback we got in our early days was, you know, when people were using things like Whatsapp and Facebook, and it is so easy to falsify those records. So if you're going to court and you are providing, you know, 20 sheets of printed off communication, which is a variation of all those things we mentioned, WhatsApp texting email, and without doing some pretty clever technical stuff, it is it is really quite difficult to actually evidence whether those records were falsified. So if if you if you go on, you know, WhatsApp dotnet or what.net, dot Facebook or whatever there are these websites, you put in the information. So if it's a fake boss, WhatsApp one, on the website, you put in your telephone number, as in the number, that message to go to the the phone number of the person you'd like that message to have come from. So let's say your ex husband or your ex wife, you then type in the message on the websites, you click Send on the website, and that will then drop it into your whatsapp chat on your app. As if that person had sent you the message. And it's it is really horrible. It's really nasty. But you can do that with pretty much anything Gmail, email, texts, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, all of them. You can do that with so we are safeguarding against that through our accountability. And on top of that, it becomes really quite confusing and this is a lot of feedback we get from family law practitioners. If you are needing to get records if you are needing to clarify what exactly happened. They can be quite confusing. If someone sends a text and then three days later they respond but on Facebook Messenger and then they respond by email. It really doesn't make it make me learn the easiest way Anyone involved in that process to try and filter through all those emails who've been CZ it into or whatever, it puts everything in one place. So we're trying to hopefully make that process of communication coparenting communication easier. And put the focus back on, essentially, you know, putting the focus back on the child, you know, if we don't have to worry about who sent what message on what data what time or Oh, no, I never said this. Oh, no, that wasn't true. And if you know that everything is that saves that step of having to worry about what's true, what's not, and put the focus back on. Okay, actually, what are we doing for the child this week? What do what time do you need to pick up on that kind of thing? And so hopefully, we're alleviating some of those concerns if that answers your question.
Tamsin Caine 10:39
Yeah. So it's kind of the, the fact of having everything in one place is is about evidence essentially evidencing and that's not necessarily just doing whilst you're going through the divorce process. But it could be if there were, if there are subsequent issues afterwards. Regarding the children, you still using my family, to do all the communication of things all in one place, and is able to be pulled off as a report so that the court can see exactly what's been what's been going off. Now, my favourite bit, my family wizard, which sounds a bit odd, but is, is this tech What did you call it
James Evans 11:21
a tone metre
Tamsin Caine 11:22
Tone metre? Yeah, I think this is genius. I think most of us could do with the tone metre, and all aspects. This is this is just brilliant. It's like, really?
James Evans 11:39
It's extremely intelligent technology. Yeah.
Tamsin Caine 11:42
You feel like your conscience that and your shoulders that?
James Evans 11:45
Yeah, absolutely. We sort of describe it as kind of like a digital filter. So but back in the day, before we had instant digital communication, something would happen. And you know, a parent would have time to sleep on it or speak to a family member or a friend before then confronting the other parents. Now we are all guilty of being keyboard warriors, you know, something happens. And we, we tweet about it, or we text a friend before we even actually give ourselves time to digest that information. And so Tomita is a digital version of that filter. Essentially, when you're writing a message on our family wizard on our message board, it will alert the writer as they're writing the message of any language they've used, that might be offensive, inflammatory, you know, might cause some sort of harm, it will flag that up and give them the chance to think about it and then they can choose what to do. Now it doesn't, doesn't stop them from sending it as it already has. It doesn't offer them an alternative phrase to change into something else. And it doesn't alert the recipient parent or Tomita as you so they don't get a notification saying, you know, you've just received a new aggressive message that parents of two metres use it gives that writing parents a chance to think about it, have that language highlighted to them, and then give the emphasis on you choose how best you want to proceed given the information you have on screen here and over time as as it's an annual subscription. So over the course of that year, hopefully tone meter will work alongside their parents to develop a healthier method of communication.
Tamsin Caine 13:05
I like that. Okay. So apart from the just because I think this is genius. Often the really obvious like, it's presumably going to pick up any swearing and suggest that perhaps you don't want to, you don't want to use those sorts of words and communication. And does it like pick up passive aggressive? Does it pick up actually aggressive? What
James Evans 13:29
Yeah, it does. It does this. So how is it so it's an algorithm so picks up on the toning of phrases, rather than necessarily bad words. So swearing is a really good example, actually. So we can use swear words in positive ways. And we like to do that in this country. You can, you can write a sentence with a swear word, but you've said it in a positive way. You know, you know expletives, but I'm impulsive ways, told me to one flag those sentences, even though you've used the swear word, you will know that the sentence overall is things it's an algorithm putting the order of the words punctuation into an algorithm, they'll calculate whether it's negative or positive. But if you use the same swear word in the next sentence, but it's a negative swear word, sorry, a negative use of that word in the sentence, it will know that that sentence overall is negative. And so it is extremely heavy. It is really good at picking up things like passive aggressive and sarcasm, and that kind of thing. It's not, it's not perfect. And I always use the example of Michael McIntyre's sketch very talking about the British, the great British public and how we describe being drunk and we say, you can use any word to describe being drunk. You know, I was completely Zeebo. Last night was completely Caravan, we can at any point, create a new sign word, and that could be deemed offensive in any way to me does not going to be able to pick up on your own creative uses of language in that sense. However, all the common stuff or the normal ways of us communicating writing, passive aggressive sarcasm, all that kind of thing. It's really very good at making up and and it's also adaptive, so over time we can add to it and we can introduce new phrases to the system. It is very, very helpful in that scenario.
Tamsin Caine 15:06
So this temptation in my mind, but perhaps this is because of how my brain works, but I'd be like really tempted to try and create some slang that beats it.
James Evans 15:15
I think you just you'd have, you'd have to let the other person know that oh, by the way, this slang word is something offensive. Because if you're writing something like caravan, which is Michael, only, he really matters what that means in that scenario, and then if we're using a, you know, a normal word or phrasing that that is common for something that's offensive, Tone meter, we'll we'll pick that up. I think it is, it is it should you know for most of our everyday ways of communicating it will it will really make a difference
Tamsin Caine 15:44
Yeah, no, I really like it. I think it's, I think it's a really good idea when we normally suggest and, you know, by all means, draft the email, but but leave it in your draft box until, you know, don't put the address in it until you're absolutely ready to send so you can't send accidentally, or write it and then our fashion writer on piece paper and then chuck it away. And then right. So I think it's the kind of modern version of that, a much cleverer version of that. Okay, I love that. So, so the calendar set seems kind of fairly straightforward. But but one of the things that we talked about when you demonstrated to us was using it to ensure that it's very clear to both parties, when something's happening, when the exchange is happening when the child is supposed to be with one parent or the other. And, you know, that information is, is all in one place. And they're all in the same calendar so that they're accessing the same information at same time. So there's not a oh, well, you said it was x, because that calendar says different
Unknown Speaker 17:00
You've hit the nail on the head. And that's exactly what he said, first, it's colour coded, first of all, so you know, throughout the system, one colour is assigned to one parent and the other so they can see straightaway what's going on in the calendar. And then they both have so many creative options. And the main difference here is everything. Because of the functionality of the calendar, everything happens within the calendar. So they don't actually have to then go and message the parent and say, Oh, we agreed, there will be two o'clock on Tuesday, not three o'clock, can you adjust the calendar, you don't have to send those types of back and forth messages anymore. All the functions within the calendar actually allowing you to do that. So both parents can create parenting schedules, which have reoccurring timing events. So you know, if it's school drop off, for example, that at the same time, as most weeks, they can input that as a sort of backbone in the calendar, where they can make adjustments as they go, they can add holidays, and which longer period breaks events, which are one time events, and then they can actually do swap swaps of times within the calendar. So let's say for example, down to once this has been part of the chart on Saturday, which one a month is allocated days in the calendar, through the timeslot feature, they can actually say, Okay, can I spend time with the child on Saturday? And in return, you could spend time a child on Sunday, which is one of my days? And that's sort of essentially what that is. And because it's all within our family, was it everything is recorded and accounted for? So we don't have this back and forth argument like you discriminate? You said two o'clock? No, no, you said three o'clock, we actually now have these accurate records of who said what, and it's all recorded for both parents to see. So they cannot hide anything from the other parent. So there's no point in in doing it wrong to try to annoy the other parent, because you can't get away with that. It puts the emphasis on the parents of, you know, let's calendar, this the most efficient way for the child, put the focus on the child, make it the most efficient, and that will then naturally develop a healthier communication. So that calendar really does alleviate a lot of those issues and push everything into one place.
Tamsin Caine 18:43
Yeah, absolutely. can then can one parent move, like, move a time, like they're do to do something without the other parent knowing or noticing,
James Evans 19:00
No, they can't do anything in the calendar without the other parent being notified. So if there's something in the calendar, and they need to change the time, they can, if it's an event they made themselves, they can edit that time, but that will be recorded and both parents will be notified. So they have done it. If they've edited it, and it's incorrect, your parent will get a notification. And they'll say, Oh, I've just seen you've edited that event. I thought we agreed it was three o'clock pick up, please, can you confirm something like that? And if they want to swap the time, that's all approval based. So you know, in that example we gave of, you know, oh, can I have the child on Saturday, and you have on Sunday, the other parent will get a request and they have to approve that. And that before that's confirmed in the calendar, and if they don't approve it, they can respond and say, Actually, I can't do Sunday, but could I do after school Tuesday and then once both parents agree, everything in the calendar will change automatically. They don't have to go back and manually adjust it all themselves. So it's all sort of communication within the calendar feature itself. Yeah, exactly.
Tamsin Caine 19:58
Okay Like that. Okay. And then I think the next thing that you mentioned was about being able to track where you are.
James Evans 20:08
The journal? Yes, yeah. So it's not quite tracking where you are. Right? Yeah, yeah. So this, there's three features of the journal, one of them's called moments. And that's where you can upload pictures and videos. And so like social media, you can upload a picture and say, you know, I went for a walk with grandma today and upload some pictures, the parent that uploads that post, only they can choose who can and cannot see it. So they could choose to share it with, you know, just just mum, just the child she shared with all of them or just themselves, and that they can't share it with anyone outside of our family was it it can't be hosted on other social media platforms, they can't like they can't comment, it doesn't open a direct communication chain. And so it's like, it's like social media. But it takes away the toxic toxicity of a public social media forum. And the checking feature, which I think you're referencing, that that essentially allows a parent to prove that they were in the right place at the right time. So let's say, you know, dad is picking up the child at four o'clock on Sunday, at four o'clock on Sunday, Dad can go on to our family wizard, go to the journal and drop a pin in the map of his precise location, and timestamp it. So it's actually saying here, I was in this place at this time. And they have to be there, they can't sort of be at home, they move the pins when they're meant to be there they have to be, it was an open a sort of tracking system. So you can't do the parent can't click on the map three days later and see where it is, then it just takes a screenshot of their location saying hero was in this place at this time. So it alleviates those arguments of you know, you were an hour early, no, you're an hour late. And you'd have to sort of get this is where I was proved proving the right place at the right time. And the last thing you can do in the journals is sort of a written entry. So a standard sort of diary post or blog kind of thing. And again, it's all access base so that the parent uploads that post, they choose who can and who can't see it. So that's that was a feature we've introduced in the last couple of years. It's one of our newer features. And it's been particularly helpful during lockdown and sort of adapting to the life and, you know, the child is spending perhaps more time with one parent than they had originally planned because of lockdown. So it's a good way to keep the other parent involved without getting social media involved, which we know is that a tough space for the co parents.
Tamsin Caine 22:08
Okay, cool. Yeah, have we covered all the features
James Evans 22:11
two more they did to us was, so we got the info Bank, which is just a space to store information. So they can upload, you know, data, upload medical records, or school reports, you know, little kind of thing and then an expense sock. And that's just to track reimbursements. So, you know, if one parent has paid for the child's guitar lessons, and they need to say to the other parent, we agreed this was a 50% split, they can upload a receipt and say to that parent, Here's the receipt, here's the breakdown of the payment. Please pay me when you when you get a chance. So it's just a record for payment. Those are the last few features.
Tamsin Caine 22:43
Yeah, it sounds so lovely when you talk about it. And, and and kind of all very common or very sweet. But we both know, the reason that this needs to exist is that life's not really like. So. And before we started recording, we were talking about an example where one parent is very keen to have an amicable settlement and wants to do things up who wants to do things right wants to try and communicate, right? But essentially, they're talking to a brick wall, and the other person isn't engaged at all. So what what can they do to because this sounds like it would be ideal in these scenarios. If the other person's already not communicating, it's likely that they're not going to agree to paying 79 pounds a year and actually using the app rather than going, Oh, I just sent you an email, I just, I just dropped you a text as easier. So what can we do about that?
James Evans 23:55
Yeah, we really do appreciate those situations. And we know that they're not every parent is the same. And not every everyone's going to have the same techniques and methods of going through this. So we hope that there are some ways to help with these parents. And the first of those is some type of order. And we have a draft order language, it was something it was written for us by Judge dancy as part of most recent Children Act updates. And so essentially, if the parents aren't going through court proceedings, or they're working alongside their practitioner, whether that be a barrister, solicitor, mediator, whoever it might be, we have an order language, a temporary order language, we can actually stipulate to the parents using our family was it as the exclusive space to communicate about sort of the child or the child arrangements and we see that being used every single day now we see orders coming in, whether that be traditional orders or otherwise stipulated and parents will communicate exclusively through our family wizard. So you know, in those scenarios, we've got one parent is keen and one parent is less keen. This is a more formal way of saying this is how you're going to communicate going forward. And if there's not proceedings, then it's often the practitioners who say, you know, we think this is really going to benefit you. We will you to try this give it out. Here you go everyone who signs up to our family as it gets a 30 day money back guarantee, so that you have a month to try out essentially. And if you're not, if you're not, if it's not working for you, you need customer support, we get money back, no questions asked. So there is always that sort of trial period as well. The alternative is what's called solo mode. And this is something we're seeing more and more of. So let's say you're representing one of the parents, and they're very keen on a wizard, and the other is less so they can actually sign up themselves, put in the grandparents, the children, input the calendar, input, the input, basically set it all up and get it ready to go, send the other parent their login details and say to them, we're all set up on our family was it all the information you need is there here, your login details come and join when you're ready, and that's an annual subscription. So if that other parent doesn't engage with our family wizard for the first couple of weeks, that every time they messaged other parents saying, oh, what time is pick up, they say all the information is on our family wizard. So you can join that existing account,
Tamsin Caine 25:52
very annoying,
James Evans 25:55
Well that's where all the information is, and then they can join that existing account. And they've got, you know, 11 months of the rest to go. And that's all been set up ready to go. And so we're seeing that more and more and more as well. So hopefully, there's a couple of options there for those parents who want to engage more.
Tamsin Caine 26:10
Okay, so I got it, if you go into court, you've got the you've got the option to add to any other orders that you're that you're in court for you can add, you can add that the family was language to that. And if you're working with a lawyer, then they might suggest it. Do you see them suggesting it to do the party because I'm wondering if you know, as I say, if you've got a sign, like a party that's just not playing, yes, hat, obviously, they've got this so so option, but it really seems to work best if you've got both parties on, it seems to be a bit of a drought day, if there's not is if you've seen people go to court just for this or this type water.
James Evans 26:59
Sometimes Yeah, and it does vary the type of orders we get. And you know, sometimes contact activities, sometimes it's an activity condition order, sometimes consent, sometimes it's just in the recital. And sometimes it's just reference, you know, sometimes the judge will, who will know about our family visit has been trained, will say we encourage you to use our family visit. And that's often the pushing point that the parents need. And if they're working alongside a solicitor or barrister, whoever might be who is aware of our phone who was encouraging it, then then they can give it a trial. And we do have another option here we have what are called practitioner accounts, which I have mentioned as a practitioner accounts is essentially a free account. For family law practitioners. It's optional, but it allows them to link in with their clients, parents account and overview their activity and actually helped them out with their accounts. And they can actually set them up with our family wizard. And that gives them two free sessions. So they can log in twice for free to see what it's like before before paying and subscribing. And that's another incentive there. You know, if you're in that situation where one of the practitioners is encouraging it, they can set up the account for the parents, they'll have that two logins for free to, you know, pay around, see how they get on before then saying to pay and subscribe if the if they're not on low income. So the practitioner accounts are really helpful in that situation as well.
Tamsin Caine 28:11
Yeah, it just it does seem like a pretty sensible option. And how have you kind of seen it working particularly well, if you've got any examples where you've we've seen it really doing the trick for quite for Yeah, into divorce or or, you know, even out the other side?
James Evans 28:34
Absolutely. Yeah. There's a good starting point fans. There's a testimonial section on our websites where we've got family law practitioners and parents who write about their experiences with our family wizard and saying, how it helps and how it can help them their situations. The first one that comes to mind is Elaine Richardson is a wonderful mediator. And most dispute I'm sure you know at times, she we've I've done a lot of workshops with Elaine and she does this fantastic story of a family that she works with who before our family was had couldn't be in the same room together. That communication was was atrocious and it was really one of the most blocking points for them as a family. And they went on our family wizard and after a few months, Elaine had a professional accountant she was you know acts as she got permission from the various access to accounts to help them with their language. And she said that the first time she checked it after a few months, she thought she'd got the wrong family because their communication have improved so much. And through our family wizard she does highlight tone metre when she tells this story, that it had improved so much that she wasn't sure if it's the right family, they've gone from not being able to be in the same room to being able to organise the child's schooling and they've even added one of the parents new partners on there, which was a point of conversation that they can handle before and then they use it for pretty much everything I think Elaine story is on our websites and so do check that out. And but yes, we have some some really really fantastic stories. I mean, on average family use our family will visit for between three and five years. That's what we've seen but we have families have used it for over 15 years. Is there really is no right or wrong length of time. Because once you've transcended past that difficult communication period, it is so helpful in terms of organisation. You know, for busy families, you've got lots of children and do lots of things. And I saw this as a teacher and is so, so helpful in terms of that level of organisation for the family is sort of the administrative side of things, and as well as communication, so it's got benefits that live through many years.
Tamsin Caine 30:25
Yeah, absolutely. No, it certainly sounds. It certainly sounds brilliant. I think that if if parents get to a point where they can be in the same room together, rather than they haven't been able to, I'm speaking as a daughter of parents who can't be together. Because, because it's, you know, there's a lot of animosity, and you know, my parents share my stuff, but like, five days, six years ago, and still like still would struggle to be in the same room together. And if you can get over that, if you can use some sort of some sort of Apple, whatever that gets you through, that means you can go and share in, in the brilliant things that your kids accomplish, you know, going to work back, but going to weddings, children's Christians, going to graduations, going to parents evenings together, you know, all these things are so important. And, you know, if if your app makes a difference to these, I think it's
James Evans 31:33
That's exactly right. And we see ourselves as the bridge in the communication, you know, we help with that aspect of it so that they can be more amicable going forward. But you know, we haven't we haven't even men fixed it, you know, we haven't solved that issue of separation, what we try and do is put the focus back on the child, and which I know is aligned with with the family law community, and those who are trying to encourage non court dispute resolution and putting the focus back on the child so that the experience isn't as damaging for them, you know, if they are arguing about all these nitty gritty stuff, and the child gets stuck in the middle of that. And trust me, when I was teaching, I used to see that every single day. That is what we are trying to alleviate the hurting, put the focus on the child, make sure the child isn't used as some sort of token going back and forth that is there as the child's make them as happy as possible, and then work out the other issues you have through one on one piece. That's that's really what we're trying to do here
Tamsin Caine 32:26
Yeah, I think that's absolutely spot on. I think. I think it it sounds amazing. And, and I'm sure it's helping many, many families. And it is about getting the word out there now, isn't it and kind of making sure as many people know about it as possible so that families do sign up to it and do because if it's not, you don't want to kind of sound daft here, but it's not, it's not a huge amount of expense to show out. And obviously for those who are on lower incomes, etc, they do have that, that option to be able to access it for free fish. And it sounds absolutely brilliant. James, have we missed anything out?
James Evans 33:14
I don't think so. Thank you really for having me on. And anyone who's listening, you'd like to know more, please, please do get in touch. And as Tamsin said, I'm here to train and educate. That's what my role is so happy to give this training session anytime. And we do offer free accounts as well to family law practitioners. So if you're a family law practitioner, listening to this thinking, yeah, have a family mind I'd like to try this out for and give me an email. My email address is Jay Evans, our family was a.co.uk. And we offer one free family account per practitioner for you to try it out and see what it's like with one of your clients. So that's one use free account for both parents. So email me anytime. We're happy to set that up. And thank you again, Tamsin, for having me on, I really appreciate it.
Tamsin Caine 33:50
That's an absolute pleasure just for people who don't hear as fast as you talk.
James Evans 33:56
There was a lot of information to get out. Sorry.
Tamsin Caine 34:00
Give us your email address again. And if you can visit the website for our family visit as well, please.
Unknown Speaker 34:04
Of course, the website is ourfamilywizard.co.uk. And my email address is JEvans(at)ourfamilywizard.co.uk. And our contact information is on our website as well. So if you want to speak to customer support, that's a free phone number. You can call that seven days a week or you can email them that that's all on the website too.
Tamsin Caine 34:22
Brilliant. And we will put all of that in the show notes. So if you didn't manage to catch James's very fast talking. Okay. Well, we'll put that in the show notes for you. Dave, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been it's been really good. Are you sure that this is going to be useful to so many people?
James Evans 34:42
Let's hope so. Thank you so much having to really appreciate
Tamsin Caine 34:49
it I hope you enjoy the episode of the Smart Divorce podcast. If you would like to get in touch please have a look in the show notes for details or go on to the website www.smartdivorce.co.uk Also if you are listening on Apple podcasts or on Spotify and you wouldn't mind leaving us a lovely five star review that will be fantastic. I know that lots of our listeners are finding this is incredibly helpful in the journey through separation divorce and dissolving a civil partnership. Also if you would like some work further support we do have Facebook group now. It's called separation divorce and dissolution UK. Please do go on to Facebook search of the group and we'd be delighted to have you join us. The one thing I would say do please answer their membership questions. Okay, have a great day and take care
Transcribed by https://otter.ai