These are proceedings where a court looks to address such crucial issues for a child as where they will live, how much time they will spend with a parent, and even which future school they will attend when their parents have separated.
There is a wait of approximately 12 months for a decision to be made through the court in these types of cases. This shows not only the sheer volume of cases being dealt with by a court system that is at breaking point, but also the thousands of children and their families whose lives are being adversely affected and displaced whilst waiting for these decisions to be made.
For many families, court proceedings will inevitably be the only way in which a dispute with regards to a child’s future welfare can be addressed. For many more, however, if proper education and an understanding of alternative means to address these types of disputes, such as mediation, were made more publicly aware to families from the offset, then the most likely outcome would be a decrease in these kinds of disputes being caught up in adversarial court proceedings.
The government introduced a voucher scheme in 2021 to encourage more families to engage in mediation, affording a one-off contribution of up to £500 towards a qualifying family’s costs. This was initially in response to Covid-19 to support the recovery of the family courts and encourage more families to consider resolving their disputes outside of court.
However, how many families are aware of this scheme and how many understand the enormous benefits associated with mediation?
At McKenzie McKenzie, we seek to educate parents about their options and explore with them the benefit of mediation, but we would welcome an active role from government in the promotion of alternative dispute resolution in family cases.
Public broadcasts have over the years been successful in bringing to public attention matters that deserve due consideration.
We have become very used to political broadcasts, but public information broadcasts in the 70s and 80s highlighted the dangers to children of playing with fireworks, crossing roads, or the importance of wearing seatbelts, educating a generation in its day.
Government campaigns to promote mediation and emphasise its huge benefits could be pivotal in convincing many to adopt mediation as the most appropriate environment in which to address private law children’s proceedings, rather than within a protracted, adversarial court environment.
Social media campaigns and other literature would also be enormously beneficial in educating the public.
