About Mediation
Mediation helps you to help yourself (and sort out the best future for you and your children):
- By taking the step to mediate, you are empowering yourself to make your own decisions
- This is done by talking through and working out all issues surrounding your divorce or separation, whether it be before, during or after the event.
- Mediation improves communication and helps you build for the future in your new circumstances. In particular it can help your children maintain their family relationships.
- Mediation is usually less than half the cost and twice as quick as only using a solicitor
- CFFM is a specialist not for profit family mediation service with experienced highly trained staff who have experience in children, finance/property and the legal system.
Our trained mediators provide you with the tools to untangle all the strands around family breakdown, find new ways of communicating and most importantly help parents to help their children make the necessary adjustments to family life.
Our goal is to ensure the best outcomes for each client, in order to build a strong foundation for a positive and happy future.
If you are a solicitor or other professional wishing to refer clients to our service please download and complete our referral form.
Who is family mediation for?
- Parents
- Divorcing couples
- Teenage parents
- Grandparents
- Adult siblings
- Parents & adult children
- Other members of the extended family where communication and/or relationships are problematic.
Family mediation can help improve communication, help you make decisions about future arrangements for the children and help you make decisions about property and finance as it affects your separation.
What can be mediated?
- Contact arrangements
- Residence of children
- Parenting
- Communication
- Maintenance and Child support
- Finance
- Holiday arrangements
- Property – the family home
- Sharing possessions
- Pensions / Endowments
- Settling of debts
- Education
What can mediation provide?
- A safe neutral environment in which to discuss things
- Impartiality
- An organised and constructive process
- Options for you to explore
- A lasting agreement for the future
MEDIATORS DO NOT:
- Give legal advice
- Offer counselling or therapy
- Make decisions for you
What can mediation achieve?
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- Improved future relationships – you are able to move forward and make a new start
- Exploration of all issues – our mediators can help you identify the real issues and guide the discussion in an open and fair way
- Simplicity – the process is informal, straightforward and constructive
- Control – you remain in control and as mediation is voluntary you can stop the process at any time
- Flexibility – unique solutions negotiated to suit each particular case
- Saves time – and avoids the stress of a lengthy legal process
- Saves money – Legal costs are kept to a minimum
How long might mediation take?
When we receive the initial referral we will aim to see you for the individual assessment meeting within 2 weeks.
Any further mediation sessions will then be arranged at a timescale to suit both of you and the mediator The number of sessions can vary – if your are sorting out finances and children’s matters(“All Issues Mediation”) then the average is between 3 and 5 meetings.
If you are only discussing children’s matters then 2-3 joint sessions is usually enough to resolve matters.
However, the time needed depends on:
- Individual circumstances
- The number and complexity of the issues that need resolving
- How flexible you can be regarding days/times for appointments
- Most sessions last for 1 to 1.5 hours.