This week is Family Mediation Week, and the Family Mediation Council (FMC) has suggested all mediators 'make a pledge'. My pledge is to the FMC itself, to make the process for trained mediators to become accredited more straightforward.
I qualified as a Resolution all issues family mediator, meaning both finance and children, in 2017. I was eager to start mediating right away and earn my accreditation. This requires building a large portfolio of evidence that you meet the required competencies. There are two portfolio assessment schemes, one run by the FMC and one by the Law Society. If you are not accredited, you cannot sign a client’s Mediation Information & Assessment Meeting (MIAM) form – your professional practice consultant (PPC) supervisor must do it for you. You also cannot undertake publicly funded mediation.
Accreditation signals how competent to practise as a mediator you are, and is seen as a high standard amongst professionals.
Accreditation requires:
- At least 10 hours of one-to-one support with your PPC, kept in a detailed log, as well as maintaining the normal four hours per year of PPC contact and requirements for continuing professional development. Though the relationship with one’s PPC is invaluable, this is all time out of the day job of a family lawyer’s practice, and they therefore need compensation. This can become very expensive.
- Observing or co-mediating a session conducted by an accredited mediator and producing an evaluative account. This is difficult to arrange, requiring a mediator willing to be observed and/or co-mediate, and both clients must consent.
- At least one mediation session (not a MIAM) observed by your PPC. It is nerve-wracking to be observed, and both mediation clients must consent to such observation.
- Attending a child-inclusive mediation awareness and understanding course.
- Submitting an application portfolio. The portfolio includes MIAM and case commentaries, a reflective account, answers to various case study questions, and a training and development plan. For two cases a memorandum of understanding or confidential summary of proposals must be produced, as well as open financial statements and outcome statements. Completing the portfolio is certainly a valuable learning opportunity - and helps you to identify relevant competencies - but is extremely time-consuming and very onerous, especially the cross referencing of an extremely long list of competencies. I wonder if there should be such an emphasis on the written portfolio.
- Fully completing a minimum of three cases, which need to be written up for assessment, increased to four cases if one is not an ‘all issues’ case.
One of the biggest hurdles is achieving three or four 'completed' cases, meaning there must be extensive agreement secured, rather than just partial agreement. In all mediation sessions I have been fortunate enough to conduct, whether they have 'completed' or not, the issues have always been identified and narrowed, and usually some substantial progress has been made – yet this is not seen as enough of an example to submit for one’s portfolio. To me, this suggests failure when the successes of mediations should be celebrated, rather than measured only by reference to extensive agreement.
Cases may break down for various reasons, through no fault of the mediator’s – one party decides to leave the mediation process, issue court proceedings or tensions run high.
The expectation is that cases should exceed more than one mediation meeting, as it is difficult to evidence the mediation process satisfactorily in a single meeting. There are cases where I have only seen a couple for one mediation session, because we discussed one or two discreet interim issues and the case did not need to proceed beyond that, or the mediation broke down and they did not return.
At least one case must be conducted in person. Until recently, I had conducted all mediations online, following Covid. Some clients prefer the safety net of a screen, and many live in different parts of the UK or abroad, making online the only option.
You also cannot submit cases that were completely conducted via shuttle mediation, another limitation for the portfolio of cases.
This process is meant to be achieved within three years of finishing your mediation training. It is difficult to obtain extensions, though not impossible. Three-day refresher training courses are required (or sometimes re-doing the whole 10 day foundation course), with extensive pre-reading and participation at further cost, and finding these courses is difficult – even Resolution have now stopped doing refresher courses.
Many candidates give up, including many of the cohort I trained with in 2017. My PPC, Elizabeth Sulkin of Elizabeth Sulkin Mediation, tells me many of her own candidates have given up, which 'forces mediators outside of the process and the regulation intended to achieve a basic reliable standard for family mediators'.
What does this lead to? Low levels of completion, and ultimately unregulated and unaccredited mediators practising. This is dangerous as they may not comply with the competencies and frameworks of professional standards. They may not stay up to date with knowledge and procedures, and their relationship with their PPC may have ended - when a difficult situation arises, they have no one to discuss it with. The mediation may fail, damaging the reputation of the process.
More needs to be done by professionals in the industry to support candidates seeking accreditation. The FMC could make its portfolio process less burdensome and more user-friendly for time-poor family mediators with a day job, and remove the requirement for three cases to have been 'completed'. They could increase the time it takes to become accredited by default; three years is often not long to build up a caseload and referrals. I believe this would substantially increase completion of the accreditation process, and ensure that those pursuing accreditation are supported.
Jessica Reid is partner and mediator at Dawson Cornwell LLP
No comments yet