Child Inclusive Mediation
You may have heard of the term ‘Mediation’ and be familiar with the process of you and your former partner attending mediation to assist you in resolving your parenting and/or financial matters.
Under the Family Law Act, in determining what is in a child’s best interests, the Court must consider a number of factors. One of the factors is any views expressed by the child and any factors (such as the child’s maturity or level of understanding) that the Court thinks are relevant to the weight it should give to the child’s views.
Rather than a Mediation simply including you and your former partner, our experienced Solicitors may recommend a ‘Child Inclusive Mediation’, often referred to as a ‘Child Inclusive Family Dispute Resolution Conference’.
A Child Inclusive Mediation would involve you, your former partner, and the children separately attending upon a qualified Child Expert who would first meet with each of you and understand and explore what current issues are occurring and specifically talk to the children about their views and wishes.
Thereafter, you and your former partner would attend a mediation facilitated by an Independent Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (‘mediator’) and the Child Expert would also attend to assist you and your former partner to reach a resolution whilst appropriately sharing the children’s views and wishes and any of their recommendations.
If you would like to learn more about Child Inclusive Mediation, please call or email our office via the link below.
The benefit of a Child Inclusive Mediation is that the children are involved by attending and speaking with an Independent Child Expert who is experienced in meeting with children and communicating their views and wishes to parents in the context of often very stressful times of separation. The children do not attend the mediation itself, but separately meet and speak with a Child Expert who is a qualified psychologist or social worker and who has specialist knowledge in child and family issues after separation.
The children have the benefit of speaking to the Child Expert who is independent and in an environment where they should not feel conflicted or pressured to say certain things but rather to speak with the Child Expert about any issues that are concerning them.
Each of our experienced Solicitors regularly recommend and attend Child Inclusive Mediations with our clients.
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Our team of senior Family Lawyers, Mediators, Collaborative Lawyers, and Parenting Coordinators offer legal advice, legal representation, Mediation and Parenting Coordination services.
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Principal Solicitor, Sarah Cleeland, who has over 24 years’ experience as a Family Law Solicitor and Mediator.
