How do children have a say in mediation

  • Children like to be informed and they appreciate having their views and opinions heard but not to be responsible for the overall decisions. Many children have practical suggestions to make.
  • We offer to see children of parents who are using the mediation service. With parents’ permission we see children for one or possibly two sessions, on the following basis.
  • We assure them that their views will be taken into account as far as possible.
  • We offer confidentiality to the child (but we find that most children wish some of their views to be fed back into the decision-making process);
  • We feed back to parents in a mediation session any issues that children wish to raise. This information can then form part of the picture when parents are deciding how best to make plans for everyone in the future. Children and young people value the opportunity to have a voice in the decision-making process.