Mediation in Family Disputes

This is the authoritative textbook on family mediation. First published in 1988, this fifth edition has been updated to affirm the importance of protecting the fundamental characteristics of the process to protect its integrity, professional practice standards, and the safety of all parties involved. This work draws on the rich cross-cultural and interdisciplinary body of dispute resolution scholarship and research, classic and contemporary, as well as the author’s own extensive mediation practice experience, to re-affirm the central importance of the foundational precepts and principles that go to the heart of mediation. It is these that provide and protect mediation’s unique advantages for many families, especially children, mitigating the damage of family breakdown by avoiding unnecessary adversarial litigation and adjudication. Policy, professional and legal developments and the greater pressures on and complexities and diversity of families are reflected in the book’s focus on such issues as domestic abuse, gender, the role of children, professional regulation and fairness and justice. This work will be indispensable for practitioners and scholars across mediation and wider fields including the judiciary and legal profession including the judiciary and legal profession, social work, and those working in child protection more broadly.