Page 55 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 4

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child’s wellbeing in comparison to other similar age/development children
who are also experiencing their parents’ separation

While the child provides permission to the consultant with respect to information that
may be shared, it is the call of the consultant as to what information is actually shared.
This decision should not be taken lightly and it must be informed by the readiness of
each parent to receive the feedback from their children.

When the Family Mediator is NOT Also Acting as the Child

Consultant

Many models of child inclusive mediation separate the role of the mediator and the
child consultant. Separation of roles particularly assists high conflict parents to
separate the role of the neutral third party from the role of the professional advisor
(child consultant). In the Family Relationship Centers in Australia the roles are
generally separated. This assists high conflict parents to remain engaged in the
dispute resolution process even when the feedback from the child consultant tends to
lean towards one parent over the other.

In preparation for the delivery of feedback the child consultant should provide a
briefing to the mediator of what is to be said, and together a feedback strategy should
be established.
 Should the feedback be given to parents individually before a joint feedback?
 How much feedback should the parents receive particularly taking in to
account the Parent Readiness Scale. From each practitioner’s knowledge of
the parents which pieces of information are likely to be the most contentious?
 What role should the mediator take during the feedback session?
 How will the mediator and child consultant manage situations where either
parent becomes dysregulated?
 What materials should be present in the room during the feedback session?

An important task of the mediator is to also monitor the engagement of each parent
and to appropriately intervene through question if a parent appears to be disengaging
from the feedback from the child consultant. Another role of the mediator is to take
notes on the white board or flip chart to record the key points raised by the child
consultant. Parents can be encouraged to raise points that they believe the mediator
should scribe if the points are missed. The mediator role is to assemble the feedback
received according to the headings of the Child and Youth Concerns Scale. This
becomes an important strategy because it provides opportunities for all in the room
to see the breadth of the feedback from each child and more importantly to see the
areas where the child reported no particular concerns at the mument and even
sources of resilience.

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