Mandatory Mediation outside the Court: A Process and Effect Study

Abstract

In a study of 154 couples in precourt mandatory mediation in Norway, a majority of the thirty‐eight high‐conflict (HC) cases left the mediation after two sessions and without any agreements. Eighteen months later, five of ten HC couples were still without an agreement. With seven sessions available free of charge, the mediation system seems to fail at helping the HC cases. The authors discuss some of the challenges that are attached to a mandatory mediation system. One explanation seems to be the attempt to fulfill several ambitions with the same intervention. Some ideas for improvement of the system are introduced.

Alliance formation in high‐conflict custody mediation: a serial case analysis

“…The material for the present study consisted of audio‐recordings of ‘practice as usual’ mandatory mediation sessions, collected during 2008 as part of the FORM custody mediation study (Gulbrandsen, 2014; Tjersland, Gulbrandsen and Haavind, ). Sessions from a total of 154 cases were audio‐recorded at five family service centres in Norway.…”

“…Sessions from a total of 154 cases were audio‐recorded at five family service centres in Norway. Of these cases, thirty‐eight were classified as ‘high‐conflict’, as the parents reported a high degree of disagreement and low expectations of settling in a simple questionnaire completed before the first session (Tjersland, Gulbrandsen and Haavind, ). In order to highlight the management of particular challenges of high‐conflict mediation, unaffected by possible differences in the skills or style of mediators, all five high‐conflict cases mediated by one of the mediators were selected for the present study (Table ).…”

“…Based on the premise that mediation may counteract harmful consequences of parent conflict for children, custody mediation is mandatory for separating parents with children below 16 years of age in Norway (NOU, , p. 17). However, approximately 40 per cent of high‐conflict couples terminate mediation after a single session, without agreeing upon a written plan (Bufdir, ; Koch, ; Nilsen, Skipstein and Gustavsson, 2012; Tjersland, Gulbrandsen and Haavind, ; Ådnanes et al ., ). Appropriately, mediators and policy‐makers request improved strategies for working with high‐conflict cases (Ådnanes et al ., ).…”

Town mediation in Taiwan

“…The authors emphasized that this pattern in family and divorce mediation was the rule rather than an exception. In other countries like Australia (Rhoades, 2010), the Canadian province of Ontario (Smith, 1998; Winestone, 2015), Germany, Japan (Funken, 2001), Norway (Tjersland et al, 2015), Italy (De Palo & Harley, 2005), England and Wales (Gribben, 2001) mandatory family dispute resolution has also been used as the basis upon which to build.…”

A Dispute Systems Design Perspective on Norwegian Child Custody Mediation

“…Mediation may be facilitative, evaluative, therapeutic, narrative, transformative or simply trying to induce the parents to settle. The consequence of an unclear concept of mediation and bundling of services is that families often leave mediation after the first hour (Kjøs et al 2015;Tjersland et al 2015;Gulbrandsen 2013;Ådnanes et al 2011a, b;Gulbrandsen and Tjersland 2010;Haugen and Rantalaiho 2010). Thus, the positive potential that mediation and other services could offer remains untapped.…”