About us
What a mediator actually does, how we try to keep difficult talks fair and useful, and where our role stops.
Family Mediator helps people talk through decisions about children, money and everyday practicalities when a relationship has changed and those talks have become hard to hold alone.
We sit between people, not on anyone's side. We keep the discussion fair and moving. We do not decide the outcome, act as anyone's lawyer or tell you what a court would do.
Many people reach a page like this late in the evening, after the children are asleep or after another message exchange has gone badly. They are rarely looking for a company history. They want to know whether this is the kind of help they need, whether the other person can be made to take part, and whether anything said in the room could later be used against them. This page tries to answer those questions directly.
Mediation is a voluntary, structured conversation led by someone with no stake in the result. It suits people who are separating, people who separated some time ago and find that an old arrangement has stopped working, and relatives who are caught up in decisions about a child. It can sit alongside legal advice, and for many people it should. It does not replace that advice.
Everything below expands on that outline. You will find a plain account of what a mediator does, the commitments we hold ourselves to, the situations in which we would suggest a different route, and the things we will not promise. You do not need to read it all before picking up the phone, and you do not need to have made up your mind.
The word "mediator" is often confused with other roles. The difference matters, because it determines what you can fairly ask of the person in the middle.
If you know who answers which question, you waste less time and less money asking the wrong person, and you are less likely to feel let down when a mediator declines to take a view.
A referee applies rules and blows the whistle. A chair makes sure that a meeting has an agenda, that everyone gets a turn and that the group reaches the items it came to discuss. A mediator is much closer to the second. We can pause an exchange that has become unproductive, ask a question nobody has asked yet, test whether a suggestion would hold up on a wet Tuesday in term time and write down what has been proposed. We will not announce who is right.
That restraint can feel frustrating when you are convinced that the facts are on your side. It is also what makes the process usable for the other person. Someone who suspects that the mediator has already formed a view will stop listening, or stop attending. Impartiality means that both of you can test ideas aloud without feeling you are being marked.
| Person | What they can help with | What falls outside their role |
|---|---|---|
| Mediator | Running the conversation, explaining the process, helping you explore options and recording proposals. | Advising either person on what they should accept, or deciding between you. |
| Your solicitor | Telling you how the law applies to you, what your position may be and whether a proposal looks wise. | Remaining neutral. A solicitor acts for one client. |
| Financial adviser or accountant | Explaining pensions, tax, mortgages and the long-term effect of a financial choice. | Settling how the money should be divided between two people. |
| Counsellor or therapist | Supporting you with grief, anger, anxiety and the emotional weight of the change. | Producing practical proposals for two households. |
| The court | Making orders that are enforceable when people cannot agree or when an agreement needs formal approval. | Offering the private, flexible conversation that mediation allows. |
These are working habits rather than slogans. If you feel that one of them is slipping during your own process, say so. Raising it is a legitimate part of the conversation.
Fairness is not only about the big decisions. It shows in who is asked to speak first, how long each person has, whose wording ends up in the notes and whether both people receive the same explanation. We pay attention to these details because people notice them.
Nobody can be forced to reach an agreement in mediation. You can ask questions, take time to think, seek advice between meetings or decide to stop. A process that people feel trapped in rarely produces arrangements that last, so we would rather hear your doubts than have you hide them.
Discussions are treated as private and are generally kept out of later court proceedings, so that people can explore ideas freely. There are exceptions. Serious concerns about the safety of a child or an adult may have to be passed on, and financial facts disclosed in mediation are not secret in the same way. We explain this early.
An agreement reached without the facts is fragile. We encourage people to find out what they need to know first, whether that means seeing the same financial documents or taking independent advice. Nobody should feel hurried into a position they do not yet understand.
Family matters come with plenty of unfamiliar vocabulary, and using it to sound authoritative helps no one. If a term has to be used, we explain it, and we are happy to explain it twice. You can always ask what a phrase means or what a document is for, however simple the question may feel.
A good session does not always end in agreement. It may simply end with a clearer question than the one you walked in with.
People rarely arrive with neat topics. They arrive with worry, and part of the work is turning that worry into something two people can actually discuss.
A complaint usually describes the past. A question points towards next week. Moving from one to the other does not dismiss what happened, but it does give you something you can act on.
Imagine someone saying, "They are always late and it is ruining everything." That sentence holds real frustration, and it deserves to be heard. It is also very hard to negotiate. If we ask what happens on a late evening, a more specific problem may come into view: a seven-year-old sits by the door with a coat on, misses a swimming lesson and then becomes upset at bedtime. Now there is a topic with edges. Could handovers move to the school gate? Could a fifteen-minute rule be agreed, along with a simple message if someone is running behind?
The same thing happens with money. "We can't afford to split up" may be several different questions: who can pay the mortgage from next month, whether either person could rehouse nearby, what is owed on the joint card and when a pension might be looked at. Separated out and put in order, these become items on a list. Some will need documents, others will need outside advice, and a few can be settled quickly, which often helps people feel able to carry on.
The example above is an illustration rather than a real case, but the movement it describes is what much of our time is spent on. We help you say what you are concerned about, identify what lies underneath it, and agree the order in which to take things. The agenda belongs to both of you, and it can be changed as the discussion develops.
Parents usually know their children far better than any professional will. Our task is to help that knowledge reach the table, even when the adults' own relationship is under strain.
Take any proposal and walk through an ordinary week from the child's point of view: who wakes them, where the PE kit is, who collects them and which bed they sleep in.
It is easy for discussion to settle on percentages and nights. Those numbers matter to adults, partly because they can feel like a verdict on who is the better parent. Children tend to experience something else: how many bags they carry, whether they can still get to football, whether anyone mentions the other parent with contempt, and whether they have to pass messages along. Starting from the detail of a real week tends to lower the temperature, and it often reveals options that a debate over percentages had hidden.
Plans also need room to grow. What works for a toddler who naps at lunchtime will not suit a twelve-year-old with a phone, a social life and strong opinions. We encourage parents to agree how they will review an arrangement, and how they will handle the awkward occasions such as birthdays, school holidays, illness and a new partner. A short written note on these points can prevent a good deal of later disagreement.
Some parents ask whether their child can have a say. The answer depends on how old the child is, what they can understand and what is happening around them, and on whether both parents support it. If this matters to you, raise it at the outset and ask how it could be handled. Children should never be asked to choose between parents or to carry the responsibility for a decision that belongs to the adults.
Financial disagreements often feel like disputes about fairness. Many of them begin as disputes about facts, and those can usually be narrowed before anyone has to argue about values.
First see the same picture. Then talk about what each household needs. Only then weigh up the options, and take advice before anything is made final.
Where finances are on the agenda, both people are normally asked to give full and honest information about income, property, savings, pensions and debts, with documents to support it. That can feel intrusive, particularly if one person has always handled the bills. It does, however, mean that you are both working from the same figures. Should it later turn out that information was hidden or misleading, an agreement may not stand.
A mediator can help you organise this material and identify the gaps. We can ask what a monthly budget would really look like in two homes, what is being assumed about a house sale and whether a pension has been valued. What we cannot do is tell you that a particular split is the right one for you. For that you may need a solicitor, and for some questions a pensions specialist or financial adviser.
Proposals reached in mediation are not automatically binding. They are usually written up in a summary, often called a memorandum of understanding, which each person can take for independent advice. Where a financial settlement needs to be made legally binding, a solicitor can normally prepare it as a consent order for a court to consider. We prefer that you know this at the beginning, so that the final stage does not come as a surprise.
Sitting across from someone is not the only way to mediate, and it is not always the right one. The format is something to discuss rather than a test you have to pass.
The format has to suit the circumstances as well as the people. Whether a given arrangement is suitable depends on an assessment of your situation, including whether each of you can speak freely.
Joint sessions let people hear one another directly and test ideas in real time. They tend to suit those who can manage the discomfort of being together and feel able to disagree openly.
In shuttle mediation the mediator moves between two people who stay apart. It takes longer and loses something in directness, but it may help where the tension of sharing a room would get in the way.
Online sessions can help when distance, work or caring duties make travel hard. They do require a private place to speak, a reliable connection and confidence that nobody else is listening.
Part of acting responsibly is saying when mediation is the wrong tool. It relies on each person being able to speak for themselves, without fear and with enough freedom to say no.
Mediation may not be suitable where there has been domestic abuse or coercive control, where someone is afraid of the other person, where a child may be at risk or where a person's capacity to make decisions is in doubt. It is also a poor fit when one person intends to use the sessions to delay matters, to gather information or to keep up pressure. These are not moral judgements. They are practical questions about whether a fair discussion is possible at all.
Being turned away by a service, or deciding against mediation yourself, does not mean that you have failed. There may be urgent protective steps available through the courts, and specialist organisations support people who are dealing with abuse. A solicitor can explain your options. Where anyone is at immediate risk of harm, the emergency services should be your first call. Mediation is not a crisis service and should not delay anything that keeps someone safe.
Suitability is looked at again as things develop. A person who felt able to take part at the start may find that they cannot continue, and they are free to say so. A mediator who sees that the balance in the room has become unfair may also bring a session to a close. Stopping for those reasons is a proper use of the process rather than a breakdown of it.
A family decision rarely involves only two adults. People who are not at the centre of a dispute can still feel its effects, and some of them may hold part of the solution.
A grandparent who no longer sees a child regularly may want to find a way back without provoking a row. A step-parent may be doing the school run every day while having no recognised place in any discussion. An adult son or daughter may be worried about how a parent's separation affects a family home or a family business. Each of these situations can call for a structured conversation, although none of them fits the usual picture of two people at a table.
Who takes part is something to agree rather than assume. A new partner may have useful practical knowledge, and their presence may also make the other parent feel outnumbered. There may be good reasons to begin with the two people who hold the decision, and to think afterwards about how others should be informed or involved. If several people have a stake in the outcome, describe that at the start, so that everyone can think about how to keep the process fair to those in the room and to those outside it.
It is tempting to think of mediation as either succeeding or failing. In practice many people finish somewhere in between, and that can still leave them much better placed.
You might settle the school-week routine while still disagreeing about holidays. Should the remaining question go to a solicitor or a court, it is now a narrower question, which may take less time and cost less to resolve.
Some arrangements are easier to accept as an experiment. Trying a pattern for one school term and then looking at what actually happened can feel safer than committing to it permanently, and it gives you real evidence.
Even with nothing agreed, people may leave with a better way to exchange information, such as a shared calendar or a rule about when messages are sent. Small habits like these can make everyday contact easier to manage.
If mediation ends without any agreement, you keep your other options. Discussions are generally treated as private, so you do not need to fear that an idea you floated will automatically follow you elsewhere. A solicitor can advise you on what to do next.
A fair conversation depends on the people in it as much as on the mediator. These requests are few, and they apply equally to both of you.
Marketing for a service like this can easily drift into reassurance that nobody can honestly offer. You are entitled to a straight account of what is uncertain.
We cannot promise that you will reach an agreement, that the other person will attend, that the process will take a set number of sessions or that it will cost less than another route. Those things depend on the issues, on the people involved and on matters outside anyone's control. Mediation can often reduce conflict and give people more say over their own arrangements, but "often" is not "always", and we would rather you heard that from us at the start.
Nor do we set out to repair a relationship, although some people do find they communicate better afterwards. We are not there to help you win, to establish who was to blame for the separation or to give a professional view on anyone's character. If you need any of those things from a process, it is worth saying so during your first conversation, so that you can both judge whether this is the right place to bring them.
What we can offer is a structured process and an honest description of how it works. If you would like to know something that this website does not cover, such as the current fees, who would be mediating or what experience and qualifications they hold, please ask us directly. Those are sensible questions to put to any mediation service before you commit to anything.
A small glossary, because these terms tend to appear in letters and online discussions without any explanation attached.
| Term | In everyday language |
|---|---|
| MIAM | A Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting. A first meeting, usually on your own, that explains mediation and looks at whether it suits your circumstances. |
| Memorandum of understanding | A written summary of the proposals reached in mediation. It records what was discussed but is not, in itself, legally binding. |
| Parenting plan | A written, usually informal, record of how separated parents intend to care for their children day to day. |
| Consent order | An agreement set out in legal form and approved by a court, which makes it enforceable. |
| Financial disclosure | Each person sharing complete information about their income, assets, pensions and debts so that decisions rest on known facts. |
| Shuttle mediation | Mediation where the two people stay apart while the mediator moves between them. |
No. We provide mediation and do not act as anyone's legal representative. We can explain how mediation works and give general information, but advice about your own legal position should come from a solicitor.
Neither person's. If you feel the process is tilting one way, say so. The mediator's job includes hearing that concern and looking at how the conversation is being run, without treating it as a complaint.
Possibly. Family disagreements do not always involve a separation. A question involving a grandparent, an adult child or a step-family may also benefit from a structured conversation, so describe the situation and ask.
That is quite common. Children grow up, people move house and new partners arrive, so an arrangement that once worked can stop working. Mediation can be used to revisit it without restarting old arguments.
No. A mediator can describe the general framework people are working within, but cannot predict an outcome or advise you on your position. For that, you would need independent legal advice from a solicitor.
Yes, and we encourage you to. Ask about the mediator's training, experience and any professional standards they follow. A straightforward question deserves a straightforward answer before you decide whether to go ahead.
You do not have to know what you want from mediation before you call. If you are unsure whether any of this applies to your family, that is a perfectly good reason to ask.
Family Mediator