Category Archives: Family Mediation

1.What is “Screening”? Screening is a triaging process that has been used by mediators for years to help them provide safe and balanced mediations. The mediator meets separately with each party, before agreeing to take the case, and elicits specific information that will help the mediator “diagnose” their complex relationship dynamic. The main purpose is to ascertain whether bringing the …
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In late September, the Family Mediators’ Association of the Cape (FAMAC) hosted its third bi-annual conference and I was honoured to be a returning international guest speaker. This year I spoke on “Empowering Parents Through Interest-Based Mediation and Facilitative Parenting Coordination”.   (Note: all the conference presentations are available on the FAMAC website) The Conference was opened by my wonderful …
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When is family mediation appropriate? Mediation is probably appropriate when all/most of the following conditions exist: The parties appear to both be willing to try mediation in order to find an acceptable settlement. Each party is able to articulate to the mediator his or her own positions and the reasons behind those positions. Both advise that they feel they will be …
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If there are three qualities that distinguish a good mediator from a great one, they are: Dangerous curiosity: great mediators are not afraid to follow their curiosity. This takes high level questioning skills to do effectively. In particular it requires gentle, non- judgmental, open-ended questions. Genuine curiosity is easy but it requires the mediator to completely set aside any preconceived …
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GUEST POST By Helen Lightstone and Regina Thompson Our team of elite trainers from Riverdale headed for Belize before the break of dawn on Sunday, July 15, 2018. The Belize Team consisting of Hilary Linton, Lead Trainer, Helen Lightstone and Regina Thompson checked in at Pearson International with a heavy load of training materials. We were soon off to Miami …
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On July 15th, the Riverdale Impact Justice Barbados team touched down in beautiful Bridgetown to commence a full week of training for faculty and staff of the University of the West Indies (UWI), and its numerous Open Campuses across the Caribbean.  Despite an initial set-back involving one of our teaching team’s inbound flight to Bridgetown, our team consisting of Daniella …
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Over the past year we have had the privilege of working with a group of family dispute resolution professionals in PEI who are pioneering parenting coordination there. Parenting coordination (PC) is an innovative mediation, coaching, educative and decision-making process that offers high-conflict parents a way to resolve disagreements about their children without going before a judge. It is usually a …
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The crisis in access to family law justice has led to many great things happening outside of court. Collaborative practice, for example, has grown from disenchantment with the adversarial legal system’s assumption that positional bargaining necessarily protects the interest of parents and their children. Family mediation has become the go-to solution for both the public– seeking to avoid paying lawyers– …
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