Mediation through separation can help you solve disputes amicably
Hands up all the perfect parents out there. What? No-one. That’s right. There are no perfect parents. Hardly groundbreaking news but sometimes it’s worth remembering writes Emma Ingham. Parents are just people, trying to do their best, but sometimes – even a lot of the time – making mistakes. And the feeling of making mistakes can be heightened when you are going through a separation and potentially arguing with your ex-partner. Sometimes these arguments will happen in front of your…
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In a divorce pensions can be one of the biggest assets people have (or even the biggest) but many people put them on the back seat when it comes to working out what happens next. There are understandable reasons for this: unless you are approaching your retirement you are unlikely to be able to access your pension (yes there are rules on potentially taking money from your pensions after the age of 55 but this should only be done in…
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8 Tools from Positive Psychology to help you feel happier after your divorce. Positive Psychology is the science of happiness and is concerned with helping individuals flourish and thrive in life. Whereas traditional Psychology looks at what’s ‘wrong’ with people, Positive Psychology focuses on the positives and negatives equally. It focuses on what’s going well in your life, with your relationships and work and building on your strengths. We’re all hardwired to focus more on the negative things in life……
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In recent years the government has placed a much greater emphasis on separating couples/parents resolving issues outside of the court process wherever possible. This started with the introduction of the requirement to attend a MIAMS (Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting) a few years back but there have been issues with whether this requirement was policed and what difference it made if you hadn’t. The reasons for it are probably clear to anyone with any knowledge of the family court system…
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It occurred to me the other day that I’ve been blogging about divorce and mediation for over 10 years and I’ve never written about love writes Louisa Whitney. That struck me as being particularly strange given the work I do. It almost feels taboo to be talking about love when you talk about divorce as though you are breaching some unwritten rule. The simple truth is that when your partner tells you they want to separate, or you make the…
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It’s a truth universally acknowledged (by family mediators anyway), that mediation has many benefits. For example, it is widely accepted that family mediation is quicker, more cost effective and less acrimonious than going to court. Here are three further benefits to family mediation that you might not have thought of: It is empowering You are in control when you come to mediation. You can choose the mediator, someone you feel you can work with and trust. You can choose the…
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The other day I was asked where the best place was for someone who had heard of family mediation but didn’t know much about it, to find out more information. That got me thinking about what the key messages are that I would want someone to take away about family mediation (whether with LKW Family Mediation or another service). I thought about this for a bit and then recorded this 3 1/2 minute video that hopefully sums up the most…
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Hopefully if you’ve followed these blogs for the last few weeks then you have a greater idea of the thinking that goes into this question. In order to help you arrive at a definitive answer the purpose of this blog is to pull the threads together into a thought process. The starting point is do you have issues that need resolving as a result of your separation? These might be to do with money, or your children, or both. Or…
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In this new series of blogs we’re looking at the question we get asked a lot which is, do I have to go to mediation. The first blog looked at what the rules say and the context behind why the rules were made. The second blog looked at whether you might be able to resolve things yourselves and asked questions about what you need to resolve, and what the barriers might be to this. In this blog we’re looking…
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Never has a period of time brought forth such use of the word “unprecedented”. The use is of course justified as these are times for which there simply is no road map or blueprint. Lockdown is a situation that was only put in place previously during airstrikes during World War II. Even then the situation was not entirely the same. I have already written guidance for those self-isolating in a house with a partner they’re separating from. I now want…
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