Family mediation
Practical solutions for your family’s future
Family mediation can help you and your former partner make practical decisions following separation or divorce. It gives you an opportunity to discuss arrangements for your children, your finances or both, with the support of a trained and impartial mediator.
Mediation is not counselling and it is not intended to bring you back together. Its purpose is to help you communicate constructively, consider the available options and work towards arrangements that are practical and fair.
Why consider mediation?
Mediation can be quicker, less expensive and less stressful than court proceedings. It also enables you to retain greater control over the outcome. If your case goes to court, a judge will make decisions for your family; in mediation, you and your former partner make your own informed decisions.
For parents, mediation can provide a less adversarial way of resolving disagreements and help to protect children from ongoing parental conflict.
You can obtain independent legal advice at any stage. Agreements reached in mediation are not automatically legally binding, but solicitors can advise you about converting financial proposals into a legally binding consent order where appropriate.
A process tailored to your circumstances
I provide family mediation online, allowing each participant to join meetings from a private location.
If it would not be appropriate or comfortable for you and your former partner to meet in the same virtual room, I can offer separate-spaces mediation, sometimes called shuttle mediation. You remain in separate Zoom rooms throughout the meeting and I move between you.
I am also trained to undertake child-inclusive mediation. Where appropriate, and with the necessary consent, this enables a child or young person to speak to me separately from their parents so that their wishes and feelings can be heard as part of the mediation process.
I offer hybrid mediation. This allows me, within an agreed framework, to receive certain information confidentially to support the negotiations. It may include your solicitors participating in mediation meetings.
Starting mediation
The first step is to arrange an individual Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM) with me.
Your MIAM is an individual, private and confidential meeting with me. It gives you an opportunity to explain your circumstances, learn more about mediation and other ways of resolving matters, and consider whether mediation may be suitable for you.
Each prospective participant attends a separate MIAM. I assess suitability throughout the process. If mediation is suitable and both of you wish to proceed, I will arrange the first mediation meeting.