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Mediation Matters: MIAMs can be so much more than a box-ticking exercise
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Today 22 April 2015 is the first anniversary of Children and Families Act legislation that made it compulsory for separating couples seeking a court order to first attend a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM).
It was a key plank of the government’s drive to encourage couples to use family mediation. So how is it doing?
It is of course possible to measure the number of MIAMs undertaken in a year and to compare this figure with the same period the year before. On that score our experience tells us it’s doing well. Figures vary in different geographical areas but generally across England and Wales we’ve seen twice as many people taking up a MIAM since the law changed.
But because a MIAM ideally represents the first stage of an ongoing mediation process that lasts several weeks it’s tricky to gauge the
true effectiveness of the ...
Read the full article here.
