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Child inclusive mediation

Centring your child for better outcomes.

Research shows children greatly benefit from being involved in the mediation process.

Child inclusive mediation allows children to talk about their feelings and express the outcomes they’d like to see.

If your separation involves any children, your mediator will raise the option in your Mediation Information Assessment Meeting. Your mediator may then ask you and your ex-partner questions around how you might take your child’s views into account when making child arrangements.

Child inclusive mediation isn’t putting your child in the middle of a difficult situation. Rather, it allows them to freely express thoughts and feelings about a major life change, without feeling pressure from either parent to wish for a specific outcome. For many children, it’s their first opportunity to have a voice in their parents’ separation.

The process

What are the steps we'll take you through?

We’ll email you for formal consent to meet your child and arrange a time and date to meet them on their own if you’re happy to proceed. We’ll then arrange an appointment for you and your ex-partner to receive your child’s feedback.

We’ll write to your child asking if they’d like to chat with a specially-trained mediator. If they say no, there are no further steps.

We’ll encourage them to express their thoughts, feelings, and desired outcomes of your separation.

We’ll meet with you and your ex-partner to chat about what your child has said. You won’t receive a written record of the discussion that took place.

FAQs

Other questions you might have.

The specially-trained mediator will ask your child about what is happening to their family and what is important to them. We use open questions to determine how children are feeling.

We’ll never ask questions about who the child wants to live with or anything that favours one parent over another in a separation.

Your child will agree on what your mediator feeds back from the session.

Some children talk a lot and others draw pictures and write letters to their parents. These can also be valuable expressions of your child’s wants and expectations.

It’s vital that neither parent tries to influence what a child says during these sessions. It causes additional stress for the child, but it’s also easy for the mediator to pick up when a child has been told to say something.

The feedback from a child inclusive session does not have to inform any decisions you and your ex-partner make. However, we highly recommend you consider the feedback when formalising your arrangements.

If you child is involved with social services or is receiving children’s counselling, you must inform us. Your mediator may need to speak to their social worker or counsellor before arranging child inclusive mediation.

More information