Family Mediation

Keeping families together with mediation

Relationships with families can often become strained

Family members may be having some difficulties, misunderstandings, or conflict that they are struggling to resolve, and they may be looking for some support to have the difficult discussions that really need to take place. Family mediation helps you to have a better conversation with your family members, to fix relationships, and to open up new dialogue.

For issues around couple separation or divorce, we would advise looking at other providers who specialise in this area. Our mediation service is only used for intra-family disputes: intergenerational issues, sibling fall outs, and situations where families want to stay together.

Family mediation is used to address:

Clashes of lifestyles, values, or beliefs
Unacceptable or unwanted behaviour
Communication issues
Issues arising from re-structured families

Benefits of Family Mediation:

Family relationships are preserved, improved, and future-proofed
Costly and time-consuming formal action is avoided
Personal matters can be kept private and contained

How does Family Mediation work?

1. Referring a case

A completed referral form, providing us with details of the dispute and of the parties, and a signed booking form all are that is needed to book in the case.

2. Before the mediation

The case manager will liaise with the referrer to organise the logistics, including timings, contact information, and online links (if required).

3. Individual meetings

The mediator will meet with each party individually to discuss the dispute to date. These private sessions will last for approximately 1½ hours each.

4. Joint meeting

Getting parties together for half a day allows for a comprehensive airing of views, as well as a discussion with a view to building an agreement.

5. The agreement

The agreement is a joint plan of action decided upon by the participants. The mediator can write it up as a good faith agreement to give to both parties.

6. Feeding back

If there is a third-party referrer, UK Mediation will provide them with a Mediation Summary on the next working day (subject to parties’ consent).

7. Follow-up

The case manager will follow up the situation after an agreed period by contacting the parties confidentially to see if the agreement is working.

Family mediation FAQs

We understand that you may have some queries about how family mediation works.

We’ve answered some of the most Frequently Asked Questions below.

What's the difference between the types of family mediation?

Couple separation mediation generally requires some discussion around properties and finances, as well as some legal knowledge. And, as we are not lawyers, we try to stay away from this side of things!

Intra-family mediation, on the other hand, focuses on the interpersonal relationship and aims to help family members reconcile their differences.

Does family relationships mediation work?

Simply put, yes.

Our experience over the past 23 years is that helping family members to have an open and honest conversation can be extremely beneficial, especially when this is something that they may not have had a chance to do.

The vast majority of our cases end up with a renewed understanding of parties' thoughts and opinions, as well as the formation of a future-focused agreement.

Will the agreement be legally binding?

All agreements made in our family mediation cases are good-faith agreements. We find that this is the best way to engage parties in mediation and provides more impetus to stick to any agreements made.

Do you work with family mediation cases involving children?

We do not provide mediation services for issues around child arrangements.

This would fall under the category of couple separation/divorce mediation and would need to be facilitated by a specialist in this area.

Can family mediation be used before going to court?

Family mediation is highly recommended BEFORE going through legal proceedings.

It is a much cheaper and faster method of resolving your dispute, and offers more control over any agreements made.

How long does family mediation take?

For family disputes, we would recommend a full day's mediation service for families running from 9:30-4:30.

Can family mediation be done online?

Yes, we do offer online delivery for family relationship cases.

And while online mediation for family relationships in this area is successful, we would always recommend face-to-face mediation as the preference. We find that this is often the best way to address interpersonal disputes between family members.

Is mediation for family relationships confidential?

Yes, we ask parties to sign a Liability and Confidentiality Agreement on the day of the mediation, to make sure that whatever is said does not leave the room.

In addition, all notes related to the case are disposed of upon completion.

Is family mediation voluntary?

Yes, people cannot be made to take part in family mediation.

If parties are coerced or forced to take part on the day, we find that this often hinders the result of the mediation and makes it less likely to arrive at a successful conclusion.

What we will say, however, is that mediation is strongly recommended if things progress towards court.

How many people can take part in family relationships mediation?

Our one-day family mediation service (running from 9:30-4:30) is suitable for two- or three-party disputes.

For larger family disputes, mediation can still be used but will require multiple days and potentially multiple mediators. Prices are available upon request.

Our relational model of mediation...

Here at UK Mediation, we treat conflict as a failure of dialogue and as a breakdown in a relationship.

Our relational model, re:talk, aims to restore dialogue, repair relationships, and rebuild teams, while re:connect allows us to achieve the same objectives through online mediation.

Find out more

What our clients say

"The mediator was a highly professional individual. I certainly found the experience a release and I now feel I have some closure."

Recent participant in a family relationship case

"I really appreciated the way in which the mediator dealt with our situation. Couldn't fault them at all!"

Recent participant in a family relationship case

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Want to find out more or get a quote from us?

We're a friendly bunch at UK Mediation and we're always happy to talk about our mediation services.

Please get in touch!

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See mediation in action!

In this free 45-minute webinar, we see a classic dispute between a parent and young person, which could lead to the latter becoming homeless.

Our Founder, Dr Mike Talbot, then takes you through our seven-stage mediation process and looks at how it can be applied to a family relationship dispute.