Usually, each party will be offered a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (a MIAM). According to professional standards set out by the Family Mediation Council, MIAMs should take at least 45 minutes but can be shorter if there is good reason. The purpose of a MIAM is to gather information from individual clients to enable the mediator to carry out safeguarding checks and to assess whether mediation is appropriate in any given case. If it is appropriate, then the mediator will confirm whether the client wishes to mediate as the process remains voluntary and also check if there are any additional factors that need to be considered such as the need for an interpreter.
Usually a joint mediation – an MED in our shorthand – will take around an hour and a half. However, about half an hour before the meeting starts the mediator will review our notes made at the parties respective (MIAMs) to see what the issues are likely to be. The mediator will then start the Zoom meeting a few minutes before the allocated time in case everyone is ready early. Once the meeting starts there will be a brief run through the Agreement to Mediate to make sure there are no queries and then some ground rules for the meeting. Each party is then asked to say what they want to discuss so an agenda can be formulated. The mediator will help the couple develop options and hopefully an agreement on some or all of the issues. An agreement may be reached in the first meeting but usually there are 2 or 3 meetings to get to this stage. A “Without Prejudice” Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) also known as a Mediation Summary is then prepared, together with, in financial cases, an Open Financial Summary (OFS – sorry, more initials!) setting out the financial information shared in the meetings. The MOU contains some details of the confidential discussions in the meetings and so cannot be seen by a court, but the OFS contains information which enables the court to see if the agreement reached will fall within the sort of order the court will normally make, based on the parties’ finances. The preparation of these documents usually takes a couple of hours or even longer in complex cases.
Of course, whilst most mediations end with an agreement not all are successful in which case the parties will be guided as to their options and be issued with a certificate to enable them to go to court if they wish. Couples are always welcome to come back to mediation to try again and sometimes the court will nudge them back in our direction.
A typical mediation day may see a mediator conducting 2 MEDs or up to 7 MIAMs or a combination of both, say 1 MED and 4 MIAMs. Or MEDs and MIAMs may be combined with document preparation.
One final set of initials – PPC – the Professional Practice Consultant, who is an experienced mediator who has undergone further training to enable them to discuss a mediator’s professional development and ongoing training and any particularly difficult or concerning cases. Sometimes mediators need help too!
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