Guest post by Jessica Reid, a partner and mediator at London law firm Dawson Cornwell LLP
Reid: Candidates need more support in accreditation process
For family mediation week in January, the Family Mediation Council (FMC) suggested that mediators make a pledge. Mine was to the FMC itself: to make the accreditation process for trained mediators more straightforward.
Having qualified in 2017 as a Resolution all issues (finance and children) family mediator, I was keen to start mediating. But without accreditation, you cannot sign a client’s Mediation Information & Assessment Meeting (MIAM) form – your professional practice consultant (PPC) supervisor must do it – nor undertake publicly funded mediation.
A large portfolio of evidence is needed to meet the required competencies by both assessment schemes: one run by the FMC, the other by the Law Society.
Demonstrating your competence to practise, accreditation is highly regarded by professionals.
Accreditation requires:
- At least 10 hours of one-to-one support with your PPC, kept in a detailed log, as well as the obligatory four hours per year of PPC contact and requirements for continuing professional development. Though the PPC relationship is invaluable, it requires time out of a family lawyer’s practice. They therefore need compensation, which can be very expensive.
- Observing or co-mediating a session conducted by an accredited mediator and producing an evaluative account. This is difficult to arrange, requiring a mediator willing to be observed and/or co-mediate. Both clients must consent.
- At least one mediation session (not a MIAM) observed by your PPC, which can be nerve-wracking. Again, both clients must consent.
- Attending a child-inclusive mediation awareness and understanding course.
- Submitting an application portfolio, which includes MIAM and case commentaries, a reflective account, answers to case study questions, and a training and development plan. For two cases, a memorandum of understanding or confidential summary of proposals is required, together with open financial and outcome statements.
Completing the portfolio creates a valuable learning opportunity – helping to identify relevant competencies – but the cross referencing of an extremely long list of competencies is extremely onerous. Perhaps there should be less emphasis on the written portfolio and more emphasis on observations by one’s PPC (given mediation is after all about how the discussions go in the mediation session itself). - Completing a minimum of three cases, which need to be written up for assessment, increasing to four if one is not an ‘all issues’ case.
Achieving three or four ‘completed’ cases requires extensive, rather than partial, agreement – a big hurdle. In my experience, the issues in every mediation session, whether ‘completed’ or not, have always been identified and narrowed, with substantial progress usually made.
Yet this example is insufficient for one’s portfolio, which suggests failure when the successes of mediations should be celebrated, rather than measured only by reference to extensive agreement.
Cases break down for various reasons through no fault of the mediator’s – one party decides to leave the mediation process, issue court proceedings, or tensions run high.
Cases are expected to require more than one mediation meeting, as it is difficult to evidence the process satisfactorily in a single meeting. In some cases, I have seen a couple for only one session, either because we discussed only one or two discreet interim issues, or the mediation broke down and they did not return.
At least one case must be conducted in person. Until recently, I had conducted all mediations online. Some clients prefer the safety net of a screen, while many live in different places, making online the only option.
You also cannot submit cases that were completely conducted via shuttle mediation – another limitation for the portfolio.
This process should be achieved within three years of finishing your mediation training. It is hard, though not impossible, to obtain extensions. Three-day refresher courses are required (or sometimes repeating the entire 10-day foundation course) with extensive pre-reading and participation, at further cost.
Finding courses is difficult – even Resolution has stopped doing refresher courses now.
Candidates often give up, including many of my 2017 trainee cohort. My PPC, Elizabeth Sulkin, notes that many of her candidates have given up, which “forces mediators outside of the process and the regulation intended to achieve a basic reliable standard for family mediators”.
What does this produce? Low levels of completion with unregulated and unaccredited mediators. The danger is that they may neither comply with the competencies and frameworks of professional standards, nor stay up-to-date with knowledge and procedures.
Their PPC relationship may have ended – so they have no one to approach when a difficult situation arises. The mediation may fail, damaging the reputation of the process.
Industry professionals should do more to support candidates seeking accreditation. The FMC could make its portfolio process less burdensome for time-poor family mediators with a day job, and remove the requirement for three cases to have been ‘completed’.
It could also increase the time it takes to become accredited by default; three years is often insufficient to build a caseload and referrals let alone complete the burdensome portfolio in the way described above.
This would substantially increase completion of the accreditation process and ensure that those pursuing accreditation are supported.
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