What is Child Inclusive Mediation?
Child Inclusive Mediation can be an important part of the family mediation process. It involves a specially trained mediator, the Child Inclusive Mediator (CIM), meeting separately with the children in the family to understand their wishes, feelings and experiences.
In 2016, the Ministry of Justice published a detailed report recommending that all children aged 10 and above should be offered the opportunity to speak to a mediator when child arrangements are being made. This recommendation reflects a growing recognition that children have a right to be heard and that agreements made with their voices in mind are more likely to hold.
Crucially, this is not the same as asking children to choose between their parents or decide their own arrangements. The Child Inclusive Mediator makes it clear to the children from the outset that the decisions are their parents’ to make but that their voices matter, and that anything they wish to say can be fed back, with their permission, in a subsequent session with their parents.
The process is entirely voluntary for both parents and children. However, in our experience, it is rare for a child who is given the opportunity to speak to a Child Inclusive Mediator to turn it down and rarer still for parents not to find the feedback session genuinely transformative.
The word we use most often to describe Child Inclusive Mediation is ‘powerful’. Hearing their child’s authentic voice, unburdened by the need to protect either parent, enables parents to shift their focus from their own conflict to what their children actually need.
Step 1: Meeting with both parents
Before any child is involved, the Child Inclusive Mediator meets with both parents together, or separately if needed, to explain the process in full. This gives parents the opportunity to understand what will happen, raise any concerns, and share background information about their children that will help the mediator approach the meeting appropriately.
Step 2: Inviting the children
Before the children are contacted, both parents must give their consent in writing. Both parents hold parental responsibility, and this must be a decision taken jointly for the benefit of the children. As part of giving your consent you also agree to attend a feedback meeting as it is important that you hear any messages your children want shared with you.
Once written consent is in place, the mediator writes to each child individually, by letter or email, with an age-appropriate invitation to come and meet them. The letter explains who the mediator is and what the meeting will involve, in language suited to the child’s age. Parents are encouraged to talk through the invitation with their children beforehand, to answer any questions and reassure them about what to expect. One parent brings the children to the meeting and waits outside while the session takes place.
Child Inclusive Mediation is most commonly offered to children aged 10 and above. Younger siblings can also be included where this is considered appropriate for that individual child.
Step 3: The children’s meeting
The meeting is confidential to the child. They are told from the start that the mediator is not there to report everything back to their parents, that what gets shared is entirely their choice. The Child Inclusive Mediator uses age-appropriate language and techniques to give the children space to talk about how life is for them: what they enjoy, what they find difficult, what worries them, and what messages, if any, they would like their parents to hear.
The meeting typically lasts between 45 minutes and one hour. Where there is more than one sibling, the mediator will see them together or separately, depending on what the children themselves prefer – they may begin together and then spend some individual time with each child. There is no written record of what is discussed, and children meet the mediator on one occasion only.
Step 4: The feedback session
At a subsequent session, the Child Inclusive Mediator feeds back to both parents the messages the children have chosen to share and only those messages. This session is one of the most significant parts of the process. It is often emotional, frequently moving, and almost always clarifying.
Parents regularly tell us that hearing their children’s voices in this way changed their perspective – and in many cases, broke an impasse that had been preventing them from making progress in mediation. Decisions that had felt impossibly contested often become much clearer once parents have heard directly how their children are experiencing the separation.
We have put together a range of downloadable resources to explain some of the benefits of child inclusive mediation, how the process works and why it might be right for you.
