Page 24 - Meeting with Children Book

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Most often Yellow cases involve single incidents that,
though unacceptable, are regarded by the target of
the incident as historic. The perpetrator of the
incident discusses what occurred, may still minimise
its impact, but does express remorse. The practitioner
judgement is therefore that the risk of future harm is
low at this time, and the presence in the family law
system is not currently increasing the concern for any
person within the family system.

Implications for ADR and Child Meetings
Yellow cases make up a significant proportion of the
cases that most practitioners handle. It is not
unusual that our clients describe some degree of
complexity in the past, and yet there is no
suggestion that these cases are not appropriate for
ADR.

Some Yellow cases lend themselves well to
traditional facilitative mediation models, while
others require more evaluative or settlement
focused approaches. The use of more therapeutic
models of mediation is possible providing the
parents demonstrate a reflective capacity.

Meeting the children in these families can be
beneficial for both parents and children. The
children may be experiencing high levels of conflict
between their parents and may feel
triangulated/caught in the middle between their
parents.