In this video Ashley Palmer, co-creator of The Handover Book, explains how this resource can help parents who are struggling with communication in relation to their children.  The book serves the additional purpose of demonstrating to the children that the parents are working together, for them:

The Handover Book 40 second description - YouTube

Day 5 of Family Mediation Week features blog posts and a video on the theme "Mediation Works."

The Family Mediator's Association offers a whiteboard video called "Mediation Works." It's a short film explaining the process of family mediation and how it can help couples and families separate more smoothly.

In addition, there are two more blog posts. The first from Hugh England, Chair of the Family Mediation Council. Hugh's post about the invaluable work done by family mediators and the positive effects this can have on separating couples is an important and powerful read.

Also writing on the subject is the widely respected academic, Jan Walker, Emeritus Professor of Family Policy and Strategic Research Adviser at Newcastle University's Institute of Health and Society, whose research into mediation has revealed overwhelmingly positive results, time and time again.

Day 3 of Family Mediation Week focuses on "Childrens Voices."

Today this wonderful video clip has been released. It shows child actors reading the words of "Rachel's Poem." The poem was written by an 11-year old girl about her parents divorce and powerfully demonstrates the needs of children to be allowed to love and spend time with both parents after separation/divorce. It has been filmed in collaboration with Kids in the Middle.

Continuing on the theme of Financial Sense, the Family Mediators Association have today published a short video and blog post of a client talking about her experience of going through mediation on financial and children matters.

The video is short but effective at one minute and twenty seconds. Suzy's talks a little about the mediation process in general terms, about her case and about the impact mediation had on her and her family. And, although not all cases will include all the elements that Suzy describes i.e. capital assets, maintenance and children, the real value of this video is to hear what benefits Suzy derived from the process.

Most clients find the process of making full financial disclosure time consuming. Many also find it difficult as they may not have access to documents or they may not be used to dealing with finances. However, it is a pre-requisite to being able to enter into meaningful discussion about a settlement and being able to reality test options.

Advice Now have produced this really useful and straight forward video to help people fill in Form E, the court form used for making full financial disclosure. However, it may also be useful for mediation clients who may be struggling to fill in their disclosure forms, whether this is the Form E or a mediation adapted version.

Although, as mediators, we are always happy to support our clients in this process, the more you can do yourself in preparation for a session the better, as it will move the process on more quickly, saving you both time and money.