#audioCALM

This interview features Alan Susskind of Harper Macleod, Glasgow. Alan talks about choosing the right dispute resolution process when you separate and approach a family lawyer. He explains the various options your lawyer should lay out for you in working out what type of process might lend itself to resolving your issues, whether that may be negotiation, mediation, collaborative law, arbitration, or litigation.
Breaking those options down, Alan takes some time to explain the different approaches you can take to resolve those issues with your ex-partner or spouse, and how important it is to find the path most appropriate for you and, if you have any, for your children. He considers also why mediation and collaborative law might not have kicked off in Scotland as much as perhaps they could have in recent years, and ends with a very informative key message for those of you who are thinking of making an appointment with a family lawyer.

In this #audioCALM interview recorded at the University of Strathclyde Law School, our Scott Docherty talks with Charlie Irvine, former chair of the Scottish Mediation Network, active and innovative mediator, and Senior Teaching Fellow at the university.
Charlie talks here about conflict, about the way we approach separation issues and how our brains might get in the way of discussing those issues civilly. He describes the types of things that might be going on psychologically and the mistakes we can make or the cycles we can lock ourselves into when trying to find a solution to the issues we face. More positively, however, Charlie lays out some tips for separating couples and co-parents who find themselves in such conflict.
We hope you've been enjoying our interviews with mediators, parenting experts, innovators and thought leaders across the world, and there are plenty more to come. Please remember to SUBSCRIBE for free and don't miss any interviews!

This interview features Jane Evans (thejaneevans.com), trauma parenting expert with a background in early years care, foster care, and parenting & family support.
Recently explored in her fascinating and inspirational TEDxBristol talk on Taming And Tending Your Meerkat Brain, this interview centres on the development of a child's brain, and the impact of parental separation on that brain development, particularly where the separation is not handled carefully by the parents. Jane talks passionately, and with heartfelt personal experience, about what might be happening under your kids' bonnets if they've been exposed to your parental conflict, about the types of behaviour you might be seeing in your kids during the separation and divorce that could signal concerns later on in their development.
Positively, however, she discusses in some detail the little things you might do each and every day with your kids whilst in the midst of the separation, and that although it can be really hard to focus on the kids whilst being distracted by the ongoing conflict with their other parent, doing so and building on that emotional connection with the kids will have a lasting effect they'll benefit from for years to come. Based on her TED talk, Jane's wonderful new book "Little Meerkat's Big Panic" is available now on Amazon.

This interview features Gary Direnfeld, internationally renowned social worker, keynote speaker and author of, amongst other things, the wonderful book Raising Kids Without Raising Cane.
Gary talks with relaxed clarity and passion about the importance of choosing the right path in resolving your separation issues, and mentions particularly the folly of going to court. He makes clear that he is not a lawyer, and that speaking with his social work and counselling hat on, by and large if a court makes an order concerning your children, whichever parent 'wins' or 'loses' the fight to get that order, both parents will be faced with having to make that order work. He talks about how difficult that can be for you and your kids following a period where you have been painting each other in a bad light within a court structure that forces you to do so.
His answer for those considering court, therefore, don't do it (!), and choose mediation, collaboratively-trained lawyers, and the caring services that can surround the process and help you reach a child-focused resolution to your issues that you have designed and can find some peace with.

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?...