Susanna Long Family Mediation | Family Mediation SW London | Divorce Mediation Tooting | Family Mediation Tooting

Mediating about child arrangements

If you and your partner separate with children, you have a joint responsibility to make arrangements about where the children will live, how they will spend time with each of you (if safe), and how you will support them financially.

There is no set outcome: you need to decide what is in the children's best interests and works practically for you both. It is expected that you will work this out between you - possibly with some help such as family mediation - and that court will be a last resort.

When couples separate, it is common for communication to end in arguments, or break down completely. Research shows that it is exposure to ongoing, unresolved conflict that harms children most (not the separation itself). Family mediation offers you a way of modelling healthy conflict resolution to your children: the mediator helps you to hear one another and to focus on the needs of your children (which are different from yours) - this is often the springboard to common ground.

Where children are old enough (usually around 10 or over), our practice is to invite them to talk to a specially-trained mediator in confidence, if they want. The children decide what, if anything, is reported back to their parents. This is not about children making decisions - that is your job as their parents. Rather, it is about giving children an opportunity to say what matters to them about arrangements that affect them. Research shows that consulting children in this way leads to child arrangements that are more workable and lasting, and has a positive impact on young people's mental health.