Family Mediation – 1 in 800

I am a family mediator who is accredited by the Law Society. I was trained as a mediator by the Solicitors Family Law Association – now Resolution. Both organisations are members of the Family Mediation Council.

The Family Mediation Council

The Family Mediation Council is the overarching governing body for family mediation. Both the Law Society and Resolution are members of the Family Mediation Council (FMC) along with other mediation governing bodies including the Family Mediators Association – of which I’m also a member. It’s a bit complicated. Basically the idea was The Family Mediation Council was formed to draw together the different and disparate mediation bodies. Hopefully in due course the regulatory roles of all of the different mediation bodies will be drawn together and merge into the FMC.

Resolution Mediation PPC forum

This is a slight digression but, the post that I wanted to make was that last month I attended a forum for family mediation supervisors (Professional Practice Consultants – PPC’s) organised by Resolution. It was an informative day – the lead speaker was Robert Crichton of the Family Mediation Standards Board (essentially a subsidiary from the FMC tasked with unifying standards across the different mediation bodies). The mediation world is quite small and it was also a good opportunity to catch up with some old friends.

The Family Mediation Council has required mediators to gain accreditation and to register with it in order for those mediators to be able to undertake Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings and to be able to sign off the relevant parts of court applications.

Because, like me many mediators are registered with several of the old governing bodies, and because the old governing bodies weren’t always very cooperative with each other, it wasn’t really known how many accredited mediators there actually were.

The registration process has been completed. Long-standing mediators who were approved to undertake legally aided work but who were not actually accredited by one of the old governing bodies have also been required to gain accreditation as mediators either with the Law Society or with the Family Mediation Council. This accreditation process is nearly complete.

Only 800 accredited mediators are registered with the FMC – and I’m one of them

What we did learn on the day was that by the time the whole registration and late accreditation process is completed, there will only be around 800 accredited mediators nationally.This was less than had been expected. It is also noteworthy that the population of mediators is ageing and what is currently required to achieve accreditation is quite onerous (and expensive) and the number of accredited mediators is likely to go down before it goes up.

I qualified as a mediator very early in my family law career and now have 20 years as a mediator behind me. I could easily keep going for another 20 years.

I have posted before that I have my registration with the Family Mediation Council. My Unique Registration Number (URN) is 0292A

The letter A records that I have accredited (FMCA status). FMCA being Family Mediation Council accredited.

Only mediators with the correct registration can sign Court Forms

For the avoidance of doubt, only mediators with a registration number ending in ‘A’ or ‘P’ (Provisional accreditation) can sign court forms. When I sign court forms I now need to add FMCA 0292A as confirmation that it is me who has signed the form.

We are told that the courts will now  start to reject application forms which are not signed by a mediator with the proper credentials.

Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings

Therefore, if you are seeking a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting – make sure that you see a mediator like me who has the proper registration credentials with the Family Mediation Council.

I am not aware of any other Mediator who has FMCA  who is based in East Devon. I am based in Honiton but also cover Exeter and Taunton.

Competitive charges

Our current charges for Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings are £100 plus VAT to include me signing the relevant court form.