When most people think about family mediation they imagine a cold room with the person you can’t stand right now, and someone else, the mediator, someone you just met. It doesn’t exactly set the scene for warm, fuzzy, open conversations.
At MFM, we don’t like cold rooms. I don’t mean 65 degrees Fahrenheit, I mean emotionally cold, unsafe, and unfamiliar. None of those describe a place I’d want to be, and certainly not a space I want to open a conversation. Don’t get me wrong. By no means will the conversations always be warm, fuzzy, comfy. Hard conversations happen in the room, but that isn’t a bad thing. Think of it more as a place where hard conversations can happen without taking over the room.
MFM starts with a virtual Consultation. In my experience, people have questions before they dive in and that’s the purpose of the Consultation. You see me, I see you, we talk about what the room will include, what the room won’t include, and I get a snapshot of what your situation looks like in the moment. The Consultation is a 25-minute Zoom call with both participants. I learn about your situation, and you learn how mediation actually works, not everything you’ve already heard about mediation, but how it really works at MFM.
Once you’re both on the same page and want to proceed with mediation, we sign an agreement, do some individual intake, and you prep your forms beforehand so you’re not wasting precious mediation time with a pencil in your hand rushing through paperwork you’re seeing for the first time. I don’t fill it out for you. You each do your own preparation because, realistically, you may have very different ideas of what life will look like after separation. My job is to filter through those forms, find where you agree, find where you don’t and give space to work through where things don’t align.
The great thing about mediation is it can happen virtually anywhere. Literally. Virtual sessions are very common these days, but we can also meet in person. It really just depends on if you feel like getting out of your PJs or have time to take the whole day off work, or if you just simply like doing things face to face. Again, you lead here.
Once we’re in the room, you drive the pace, you decide the topics, I just make sure no plants get thrown. I like my plants, and they deserve better.
My role is to make sure the topics you decide are important are worked through productively. So, I’ll ask a lot of questions. Usually, “What does that look like for you” or “What does flexible mean to you” or “How do you think you’ll feel about this in five years?” Realistically, in mediation, people are focused on the right now, or what happened last Tuesday, or three Halloweens ago when everything fell apart. My role is to make sure the topics you tell me are important stay in focus. I’m not going to give opinions or guide you towards what I think makes most sense. You decide what makes sense, and I, again, protect the plants. I’m not the emotional support animal. I’m there to keep the conversation from running off the rails.
Sometimes, conversations start out slow, and that’s okay. Sometimes we need to take a beat, and that’s also okay. It doesn’t mean the process is failing, it might just mean hangry showed up before anyone realized it and some breathing room is the best next thing.
Another option is a side conversation individually. In mediation, we call this a caucus. The same rules apply in caucus. What you tell me privately stays private unless you authorize me to share it, except where disclosure is required or permitted by law. I don’t automatically share. You decide what gets shared, if anything.
You also don’t have to decide everything in one session. Some topics take more time, need a little more thought, and can be much more complicated than a check-the-box, yes-or-no decision. Full resolution isn’t necessary for a session to be productive. I’m not pushing decisions simply because you’re in the room.
When agreement does happen, I write up those agreement terms for you and you review them to make sure I understood what you wanted. Things tend to look different on paper, and I want to make sure your intention is clearly stated as you want it stated.
After mediation depends on where you are in your process. Next steps look different for every family. Some families work with attorneys, others don’t. Some families are already in the middle of filings, and others aren’t.
Some mediation discussions may eventually become part of court filings. What happens next depends on where you are in the process, whether attorneys are involved, and what still needs to happen outside the mediation room.