Kinder Family Services empowers self-compassionate & child-centric support
We offer individual coaching and counselling, co-parent coaching and counselling, family counselling, child/youth counselling, child/play counselling, family mediation, child-inclusive family mediation, facilitated discussions, family violence survivor support, neurodivergent parent/child support, and custom support.
Our Services
2% from each and every session is contributed to children and youth mental health and/or advocacy programs in the community.
Talia Spear
Talia is a Certified Comprehensive Family Mediator, Certified Family Relations Mediator, Child-Inclusive Mediator, Certified Clinical Trauma Practitioner, Co-parent Counsellor/Coach, and Certified New Ways for Families Coach who specializes in aligning cost-effective, and realistic paths forward for families that proactively reduce conflict and re-establish consistency as well as calm.
Her role is to guide folks and facilitate conversations that help to figure out the unfigureoutable.
She began her career at assault services also two decades ago, she’s been fortunate to have led a wide variety of local, regional, domestic, and international teams towards the elevation of support and equity for vulnerable people in challenging circumstances inclusive but not limited to family violence, intimate partner violence, mental illness, substance misuse, homelessness, poverty, crisis, and trauma.
She practices from a culturally supportive, child-focused, trauma-informed, and neurodiversity-affirming perspective where she aims to hold equitable space for folks to feel heard, and find solutions for their families.
She has extensive lived experience, education, and professional experience working with families navigating heightened conflict. She has received training from a broad range of well-respected institutions, organizations, universities, and professionals including but not limited to Family Mediation Canada, the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts, the Canadian Police Knowledge Network, the Centre for Research & Education on Violence Against Women & Children, Children Beyond Dispute, Harvard Law School, Stanford University, the Institute of Child Psychology, the Crisis and Trauma Research Institute of Canada, the High Conflict Institute, University of Toronto, the Justice Institute of British Columbia, University of Salford’s Master of Psychology programme with a specialization in coercive control, Provincial Association of Transition Houses & Services in Saskatchewan (a province with the highest rates of reported family violence in Canada), and Research and Education for Solutions to Violence and Abuse (RESOLVE).
Those who work with Talia often note she’s soft-spoken, insightful, and gets things done.
Talia works in private practice as well as with the co-lab company which offers online/virtual support for co-parents and conflict or court-involved families at cost-efficient rates, and Crossroads Collective on their High Conflict Team that provides holistic support (family mediation, co-parent counselling , child/play therapy, etc.) from a family systems lens for separated/divorced families who are navigating high levels of conflict and/or may be court-involved.
memberships + affliations
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AFCC is the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts – the premier interdisciplinary and international association of professionals dedicated to the resolution of family conflict. AFCC members are the leading practitioners, researchers, teachers and policymakers in the family court arena.
Talia's fortunate to be an organizing committee (board) member of the British Columbia chapter of the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (AFCC-BC), and Ialso was on the task force that developed the AFCC-BC Parenting Plan Guide. One project that is ongoing with AFCC-BC that Talia is particularly passionate about and leads is the heard and seen children’s voices and choices project.
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APA is the leading scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States, with more than 157,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants, and students as its members.
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The ABA was founded in 1878 on a commitment to set the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation. Today, it exists as a membership organization and stands committed to its mission of defending liberty and pursuing justice.
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Family Mediation Canada is a national, interdisciplinary association of individuals working together to promote mediation and other forms of conflict resolution for individuals and families and to promote high-quality specialized family mediation services for the public. FMC was established in 1984 as a charitable, not-for-profit association. It is affiliated with like-minded organizations across Canada.
Talia is a Certified Comprehensive Family Mediator. She qualifies under s. 4 of the Family Law Act.
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The ADR Institute of Canada (ADRIC) is recognized as Canada’s preeminent self-regulatory professional Dispute Resolution organization.
ADRIC sets the standard for best practices for ADR (alternative dispute resolution) in Canada and provides leadership, value and support to our individual and corporate members and to our clients. We provide education and certification, promote ethical standards and professional competency, and advocate for all forms of ADR for public and private disputes.
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IACP is the International Academy of Collaborative Professionals, an international community of legal, mental health and financial professionals working in concert to create client-centered processes for resolving conflict. IACP has members in 42 states and 22 countries, on 5 continents.
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The BC Hear the Child Society is a non-profit society formed in late 2009 to support opportunities for children to share their views and be heard when their best interests are being determined in family justice decision-making.
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Since 1974, the Society has focused on providing a strong voice representing children and youth and advocating for their well-being in British Columbia. Using the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as a foundation, SCY has a track record of creating and delivering programs that have motivated change in legislation, policy, and practice in Canada.
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Started in 2008 and co-founded by Bill Eddy and Megan Hunter, High Conflict Institute offers skills and strategies to help resolve the most tense and difficult situations. Where other conflict resolution strategies fail, HCI provides answers.
Talia is a Certified New Ways for Families Co-parent Coach.
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MediateBC supports the public in learning about and accessing inclusive and ethical conflict resolution services. They maintain a roster of qualified conflict resolution practitioners with diverse backgrounds, approaches, and identities and can assist in identifying and appointing appropriate mediators, med-arbitrators, and facilitators in most areas of practice.
Talia is on the associate roster for MediateBC
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American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists is the professional association for the field of marriage and family therapy. They represent the professional interests of more than 72,000 marriage and family therapists throughout the United States, Canada and abroad.
“Talia has a way of unwinding really complicated things in a way that not only makes sense, but helps create more peace. I’m so glad I found her. She’s one of the good ones.”
— Client
services and support.
co-parent coaching or counselling.
Working with families from a child-centric, trauma-informed, diversity-affirming, and pragmatic perspective. Suggesing solutions that can create calm in conflicted moments.
Vague directions/details, loopholes, lack of accountability, the list is endless when it comes to the pitfalls of poorly constructed parenting plans. Filling gaps with simple protocols that solve core issues (and consider most possibilities).
parenting plan gap strategy.
post-litigation decompression.
Family court involvement doesn’t allow for family members to be their authentic selves, and litigation experiences can hang a dark cloud over your future. It’s time to learn how to sweep away the eggshells and start walking on solid ground.
co-parent communication strategy.
Co-parent communication doesn’t have to be frequent, direct, or cause more stress for your family. Creating simplistic communication protocols that work for your unique family circumstances.
facilitated discussions.
Tired of professionals who make things worse or create adversarial back and forth? Talia uses discussion to solve problems instead of stoking fires. Working only in shuttle format (never in the same room), and with support to communicate information in a way that each person understands and is receptive to.
family mediation.
Full-on family mediation that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, doesn’t run more than 4 hours in one day and is trauma-informed. Talia is trained to see people as they are, not as they’re assumed to be. Working only in shuttle format (never in the same room), and with support to communicate information in a way that each person understands and is receptive to.
child-inclusive family mediation.
Talia empowers kids’ voices in ways that insulates them from co-parenting conflict. Children commonly contribute to mediation through highly skilled professionals, hear the child reports, voice of the child reports, s. 211 reports, and/or via advocacy or legal representation.
neurodivergent and neurotypical
co-parent counselling.
Talia is a 2e (twice exceptional) professional who works with family members who simply live in different worlds! She works to translate and support paths forward from a neuro-affirming perspective.
parenting time supervision or observation.
Talia offers parenting time supervision (as ordered/agreed) and/or observation (by choice) to support families that require additional support.
What people are saying
“Talia just gets it. She saw who each of us were after 10 years of family court, and supported each of us to get back to who we wanted to be.”
— Client
“My kids told me that they felt safe with her. They haven’t felt safe with what they’ve been through. She’s such a warm, and thoughtful person. You can tell she actually cares.”
— Client
“When I told her that the likelihood of anything coming of mediation was low, she told me that what’s possible is what my mind is open to. I haven’t forgotten that line. In fact it’s something that I think about often. I can acknowledge that was getting in my own way of having some peace in my life.”
— Client