#audioCALM

In this #videoCALM interview, mediator Scott Docherty chats with Carol Hope of hopemediation.co.uk. Carol has practiced and developed mediation for decades and been instrumental in bringing peer mediation and conflict resolution skills to young people & families throughout Scotland. In the interview Carol talks about the benefits to young people of involving them in the mediation process, and tackles some of the big questions this might raise for separating parents working through their issues. She explains in very simple terms what the process will look like for kids and parents within a child-inclusive mediation, including the kind of safeguards necessary to make sure it's not abused by the parents and that the kids involved will feel genuinely listened to. Flowing from this idea of helping young people through their parents' conflict, Carol goes on to explain how peer mediation can blood children early on in school with problem solving, conflict resolution skills they can then take with them throughout life, and why such a vital knowledge and approach to conflict might benefit from forming part of the mainstream system of education in Scotland. Please excuse the one swear word near the end - it is, after all, a direct quote from a child!...

In this interview our Scott Docherty talks with Sue Atkins, parenting expert and coach, best-selling author of Parenting Made Easy and a huge amount of similar resources, and regular on ITV's "This Morning" show as well as on Sky and BBC Radio.
Sue talks passionately about parenting apart and talking to your kids after separation. Her down-to-earth, common sense advice will strike right at the heart of what you may be going through right now in your separation, coming as it does from her deep well of experience and training. The important point she asks you to think carefully about is that your best chance of getting through everything in a time of stress and turmoil, including working out how to communicate with your children and your ex-partner or spouse, is to start looking after yourself.
Although the advice and the shoulder to cry on provided by family and friends can be vital, Sue asks you to think about some coaching even if that's online - and shake off that image you might have that it's only celebrities who instruct life coaches, because getting emotional and practical help from a professional who knows what you're going through and can look more objectively at how you can pull through it, could very well leave you with the peace you've been striving for.

Meet Susan Oswald of SKO Family Law Specialists, Edinburgh. In this wonderfully gentle interview, Susan talks about the types of situations, and the types of people, mediation can help. She tells us that if you are recently separated, have been separated for some time, even if you've been embroiled in court with your ex partner or spouse, mediation can help you grasp control of your future.
Susan considers how it might feel if you visit a family court lawyer, who asks questions he or she thinks relevant to your type of case in order to progress your interests, and she talks about how different mediation can be. For example, your mediator will recognise that your feelings can still be raw & that it's difficult to look past those feelings and far into the future to think carefully about how to shape your new life and that of your kids. In mediation, you might find that you are really listened, empowered to control the agenda at your own pace and discuss what's genuinely important to you and your kids, what is fair to you rather than what might SEEM fair because that's how a court would look at it objectively. She recognises that mediation is difficult, particularly when it comes to considering the balance of responsibility for couples and parents after separation, but that what you can end up with is a future that you have drawn up yourselves rather than imposed on you, and which therefore makes it easier to follow through with.
The message which comes through loud and clear from Susan is that court is something that happens TO you, that it can feel sometimes like an out of body experience where strangers are deciding the fate of you and your children, whereas mediation puts the control back firmly in your own hands. Why not give it a go and see what happens?...

Meet Anne Dick, of Family Law Matters, Glasgow. Although she would never accept it, Anne is a true pioneer of mediation in Scotland. Some decades ago she helped introduce it to our country, whose preferred system of determining family law disputes until then had been solely adversarial. Anne became the founding convener of CALM Scotland and the very first lawyer accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a family mediator.
In this interview, Anne talks about the development of mediation in Scotland, how it helped shift the focus of family law onto children, reflecting a new understanding of a more equal status for parents and a responsibility to get it right for the children. She makes it clear that although it has been a real challenge to get the message out about mediation, to overcome the public perception of family lawyer mediators in the midst of huge financial settlements still grabbing the headlines, and she tells us in fact, that very few separation and divorce cases actually need to be decided in court these days, and that the legal system we now have runs quite complimentary to the self-determining approach mediation can bring to the table.
Thankfully Anne sees this development progressing, and looking into her crystal ball she leaves us with her vision on how mediation will look in the future in Scotland. We hope you agree that this is a fascinating interview, and remember to subscribe for more of the same.

Meet Rachael Kelsey and Robert Gilmour, both accredited lawyer-mediators of SKO Family Law specialists in Edinburgh.
In this 'co-mediated' chat they explore just how flexible the CALM model of mediation is. What is the CALM model? It's really just how we describe the way our lawyer-mediators uniquely approach family mediation around Scotland. The flexibility talked about in this interview rests on how we can make sure you feel most comfortable in mediation, and therefore, how we can help make it work well for you. So Rachael and Robert describe how, if it will help you resolve YOUR dispute, your mediator can bring in another mediator, male or female depending on what would be best; or they could bring in the solicitors you and your ex-partner may have been instructing; or they might recommend third party non-legal specialists to help you build on what you've been working towards in mediation; or they might introduce something called shuttle, or 'caucus' mediation if spending some time apart from each other during sessions might help keep up a momentum towards sorting things out.
The advice at the end? Feel free to explore with your mediator what will work best for you in your situation.