After 14 months of working online as a mediator, I can see the potential of it and the benefits for clients, mediators, and mediation. COVID thrust us into a new world of online mediation, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Skype. In my case, very much against my will and I had to develop an additional set of skills as an online mediator. Of course, I had concerns about:
- How do I make sure that the person I can see on screen cannot be overheard?
- How can both people take part on an equal basis?
- What is acceptable in an online MIAM?
I have now held over 200 online MIAMS, some of which have included cats, dogs and, in one case, a parrot. We have been interrupted by flower deliveries, the postman and the inevitable Amazon delivery driver (both me and the client!).
I have held online mediations, both financial and children, with clients in all kinds of locations including, memorably, a man in a crane (the reception was great) and another who was fishing at Lakeside in Doncaster (we had to stop when he caught a carp!).
I have held MIAMS with men and women who have sobbed throughout, and it was hard not to be able to put a hand on their shoulder, but I have learnt that the right words (or not) said in the right way can comfort and help.
As a practice, we have had to adapt and change our work, often needing to use Microsoft Teams, Skype and Zoom and make sure our practice and policies are fit for purpose for the clients and the mediators. We have been constantly updating our website to make the process of making an appointment and applying for legal aid easier and ensuring that providing evidence is as easy as it can possibly be. We can now do mediations across the country from Derby to Devon and from Cumbria to Cornwall. We have mediated cases where clients are working in different counties and countries.
We have found shuttle mediations work better – that is when people are not able to be in the same online meeting room for whatever reason. In these cases, we can conduct two separate online meetings and both people can come knowing that they will not bump into the other person accidentally or run into new partners or family members in the car park, at the bus stop or even walking down the road.
Financial mediations also work better online. People can be in their own homes with their paperwork arranged in their own way on the table in front of them. Often, in face-to-face meetings, people would bring all their paperwork in a carrier bag and I would watch them get increasingly stressed as they could not find the one piece of paper they wanted. Now it can be uploaded in the client’s own time and the mediator tells them how to number it, so it is easy to organise.
Online mediations about children can give people the chance to think without the other parent actually being in the room and they can be more focused on the arrangements that will work for the parents and their children.
Coming to mediation or a MIAM online means that people don’t have to worry about traffic, parking or going to a strange building in a strange town. Find out all about online mediation on our web pages.
There are challenges, of course – the technology being one – and there is always the fear that I will end up in the wrong meeting. I will always remember gratefully the parents who replied reassuringly to my panic-stricken “I have lost you where have you gone?” saying “It’s alright Juliette, we are still here”. The majority of people who come to mediation are tolerant of my inability to get the camera and the microphone working on the first attempt and at the same time.
On balance, online mediation offers new opportunities to provide more mediations to more people – and that cannot be a bad thing.
To start the process of opening your online mediation case click here.
By – Juliette Dalrymple, mediator and director at Family Matters.
