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If your lawyer is involved in the mediation, he or she will probably ask you to arrive a little early to run through what you want to discuss. Otherwise, in the brief introduction at your mediation, our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will explain their role and the mediation process in detail to you and the other party, and obtain your signed Joint Agreement to Mediate before proceeding. 

Our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will then request you and the other party to take turns in providing your very own opening statement that you have prepared in advance. Your opening statement will address your issues and concerns that you would like to discuss with the other party without any interruption. 

Once you and the other party have provided your opening statements, our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will summarise back to you and the other party the main points from the opening statements and with your assistance, set a prioritised agenda of the issues for your discussion as sometimes all the issues are not able to be resolved in the first mediation session. 

We call the next stage in the process exploration. This is where you will discuss and listen to each other in greater detail about each of the issues identified. You will be able to air your grievances and provide your viewpoint while being supported by your Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner. Our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will keep you on track as things unfold. This exploration stage is vital to the outcome of the mediation. At its core, it aims to provide understanding between parties. 

You will go into separate meetings with our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner following exploration. This will be a time to break away from the mediation to give you time to think about what has been said in exploration and in some circumstances, to receive advice from your lawyer if you have one on hand. It will also be a time to receive tactful and diplomatic assistance from our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner who will work to keep you focused on your priorities while you continue with the mediation process. The separate meetings are purely confidential. Nothing said in the separate meeting will be disclosed by our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner when you come back together in the mediation. It is a time that will allow you and the other party a quiet moment to weigh up and determine the options that you wish to put forward as a means of resolving your issues. We stay with you every step of the way — it is what we do. 

Once we are back in the mediation, final discussions will centre around reaching an agreement that would work for you. Our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will work to assist you to put forward your terms of agreement that are in line with your perspective, understanding and needs. We will keep you focused and ask you questions of compromise as there is rarely an agreement where you will achieve everything you want. We do not want you to spend more time and more money, not to mention more emotional energy, putting your life on further hold while you wait on the Court to make decisions on your unresolved issues. 

Our Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner will mediate you all the way to the signing of your agreement and assist you in deciding how to best draft the terms. Sometimes it is not possible to agree on issues that are continuously evolving. For example, a young child whose needs will change in a couple of years. A follow-up mediation may be necessary. It is entirely up to you on how you will manage and take control of your future, this is a time to exercise self-determination and we are here to help you do that in a way that is unique to your situation.