The flip-side of Valentine’s Day
In the lead up to Valentine's Day, shop windows become filled with hearts, roses and all things love, and social media becomes filled with snaps of happy couples jetting off together, or going for a romantic meal. This can be a bitter reminder to couples who have recently separated or divorced. This can, more often than not, trigger memories of what life used to be for the once happy couple and add to the worries of money, parenting and child arrangements.
In some ways it may prompt people to start thinking about their future plans now they are separated/divorced and making arrangements to get these plans set in place so that they can move on. This is the perfect time to look into the mediation process.
At Band Hatton Button we offer mediation to help both parties come to an agreement in a more amicable way than relying on the adversarial approach adopted by some solicitors or the court process, which can be very overwhelming, time consuming and very costly.
Mediation can often be a much quicker process to resolving issues and making arrangements than going to court and it can be done on a fixed fee basis which makes it more cost effective. It allows parties to feel in control and make decisions that are in the best interests of their family rather than having a stranger make decisions for them.
There often seems to be a common misconception that parties must attend mediation before they can go to court, this isn’t strictly the case. Whilst mediation should be considered, and evidence provided to show that, nobody is forced to mediate if they don’t want to.
However, mediation is a viable alternative for most people, and sometimes many people don’t really know what it involves. Both parties do need to agree to mediate and often attend initial assessment meetings with their chosen mediator, to ensure that the mediation process will be appropriate for them. These assessments meetings are designed to discuss background information and what parties may hope to achieve in mediation, whilst also giving the mediator opportunity to go through what the mediation process will involve and answer any questions.
The next step is to arrange a joint mediation session of some type and this may vary depending on the circumstances. Mediation is not prescriptive and can be a very flexible and creative process which is tailored to the needs of the individuals involved.
Whatever your circumstances, Wednesday 14th February is just another day and you can celebrate that, however you want to.
For more information on mediation, visit the mediation page of our webiste by clicking here.
Or call or email us and we can provide more information.