When Family Mediation Hurts More Than It Helps
Mediation is supposed to make family break ups easier and reduce family court hearings, it is almost always demanded as a procedural step before a hearing. In reality, it often fails the people who need protection the most.
New UK reforms mean family courts must now check for coercion, safety risks and power imbalance before pushing parents into mediation. The government also plans to repeal the presumption of parental involvement, recognising that some contact arrangements are unsafe.
The evidence behind this shift is sobering. Studies show mediation helps amicable couples reach agreements, but for high conflict or abusive relationships, it can be damaging.
Joan Kelly’s 12-year study found that many parents who mediated were still in conflict more than a decade later.
The University of Sussex’s research revealed survivors often felt coerced into “compromise” to keep the peace. Put bluntly: you can’t negotiate safety.
No one should have to “meet halfway” with a partner who controls, frightens, or manipulates them.
Even beyond abuse, mediation doesn’t guarantee peace. You can’t make another person co parent well, apologise, or grow up. What you can do is strengthen your own emotional grounding.
That's whyFamily Frith Foundation created the Freedom and Mastery, Have You Got Your Paperwork in Order and Creating a Family Court Bundle courses. Spaces where parents can learn practical legal strategies, vital for those on low incomes and who are litigant's in person. Learning emotional regulation techniques and somatic trauma release work, will ultimately heal you and move you forward. You need to do all this inner work alongside the legal bureaucratic process to not just survive but thrive through and after a Family Court case.
Peace is rarely found in a courtroom; it’s cultivated inside you.
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