Edward Kruk is Associate Professor Emeritus of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, specializing in child and family policy. As a child and family social worker in Canada and the U.K., he has practiced in the fields of welfare rights, child protection, school social work, hospital social work, and family services. He is currently teaching and practicing in the areas of family mediation and addiction.

Edward’s first book, Divorce and Disengagement, was the first in-depth study of the experiences of divorced fathers and the phenomenon of father absence after divorce. His second book, Mediation and Conflict Resolution in Social Work and the Human Services, explores the application of mediation in eighteen fields of practice, with a focus on theory and practice relevant to each field. His third book, Divorced Fathers: Children’s Needs and Parental Responsibilities, examines fathers’ perceptions of their children’s needs in the divorce transition, and parental and social institutional responsibilities to those needs. His new book, The Equal Parent Presumption: Social Justice in the Legal Determination of Parenting After Divorce, based on emergent trends of egalitarian parenting and non-adversarial conflict resolution, outlines a “best interests of the child from the perspective of the child” and a responsibility-to-needs approach to post-divorce child and family policy.

Edward has published numerous peer-reviewed research articles in a range of social policy, social work, sociology, and other scholarly journals on topics such as parental alienation, shared parenting, family law reform, family mediation, children and divorce, and women and addiction. His book chapters, professional journal articles, and other papers span a similarly wide range; his most recent policy paper, Child Custody, Access and Parental Responsibility: The Search for a Just and Equitable Standard, is informing the development of a new approach to child custody determination in Canada and abroad. He has appeared in several documentaries, and his work is regularly featured in print, and on radio and television, including CBC, the Globe and Mail, and the National Post, and he was recently cited as “Canada’s leading child custody expert” by two national newspapers. He was recently awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for his service and research on the best interests of children of divorce, and was elected as the inaugural president of the International Council on Shared Parenting.

Edward is an alumnus of the University of Toronto, where he completed his B.A. and M.S.W. degrees, cum laude, and the University of Edinburgh, where he completed his doctorate as a National Welfare Fellow. He has a B.A. (Hons.) degree in both Sociology and Psychology, a Master of Social Work degree, and a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Work. He has taught at both the University of Calgary and at UBC, and his work has taken him abroad, including Israel and Iran, where he has taught family mediation to social work students and practitioners.

Current Research

• The Equal Parent Presumption in the Legal Determination of Parenting After Divorce
• The Recovery Needs of Women Struggling with Hard Drug Addiction
• The Lived Experiences of Non-custodial Mothers: Equal Parental Responsibility in Child Custody Determination
• Children’s Needs and Paternal Responsibilities During the Divorce Transition
• Fatherhood Involvement Research Alliance: Separated and Divorced Fathers Cluster

Books

Kruk, E. 2013. The Equal Parent Presumption: Social Justice in the Legal Determination of Parenting After Divorce, Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Kruk, E. 2013. Skrbni_tvo nad djecom, pristup djetetu i roditeljska odgovornost (Child Custody, Access and Parental Responsibility). Zagreb: Udruga Dijete Razvod.

Kruk, E. 2011. Divorced Fathers: Children’s Needs and Paternal Responsibilities,  Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Book Chapters

Kruk, E. (2015). “Child and Family Social Work in Canada: Issues and Challenges Within a Neo-liberal Political Context.” In Palattiyil, G., Sidhva, D. & Chakrabarti, M. (Eds.) Social Work in a Global Context: Issues and Challenges, London: Routledge.

Kruk, E. and Aghabakhshi, H. (2015). “A Social Work Charter for Unexpected Disasters: Lessons From the Bam, Iran Earthquake.” In Palattiyil, G., Sidhva, D. & Chakrabarti, M. (Eds.) Social Work in a Global Context: Issues and Challenges, London: Routledge.

Kruk, E. (2011). “The Disappearance of Parents from Children’s Lives: The Cumulative Effects of Child Care, Child Custody and Child Welfare Policies in Canada.” In Allen, G. & Lauster, N. (Eds.) The End of Children, Vancouver: UBC Press.

Journal Articles (Peer reviewed)

Millar, P. & Kruk, E. (2013). “Maternal Attachment, Paternal Overnight Contact, and Very Young Children’s Adjustment,” Journal of Marriage and Family. 76, 256-260.

Kruk, E. & Sandberg, K. (2013). “A Home for Body and Soul: Substance Using Women in Recovery,” Harm Reduction Journal 10 (1), 39.

Kruk, E. (2013). “Social Justice, Spirituality and Responsibility to Needs: The ‘Best Interests of the Child’ in the Divorce Transition,” Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health. 15 (2), 94-106.

Kruk, E. (2012). “Arguments for an Equal Parental Responsibility Presumption in Contested Child Custody.” American Journal of Family Therapy, 40 (1), 33-55.

Kruk, E. (2011). “A Model Equal Parental Responsibility Presumption in Contested Child Custody.”American Journal of Family Therapy, 39 (5), 1-15.

Kruk, E. & Sihota, P. (2011). “Engagement of Substance Using Pregnant Women in Addiction Recovery.” Canadian Journal of Community Mental Health, 30 (1), 79-91.

Kruk, E. (2010). “Collateral Damage: The Lived Experiences of Divorced Mothers Without Custody.” Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 51 (8), 526-54.3

Kruk, E. (2010). “Parental and social institutional responsibilities to children’s needs in the divorce transition: Fathers’ perspectives.” Journal of Men’s Studies, 18, (2), 159-178.

Areas of Scholarship: Co-parenting after divorce; parental alienation; divorced fathers; women and addiction; spiritual foundations of social justice

Areas of Practice: Child and family policy; family mediation and conflict resolution; addictions

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