A one year study into the effectiveness of mediation in family disputes done by The Family Court of Western Australia has found that mediation meets the need of a majority of separating couples.

Couples involved in the court system were diverted for a confidential one day mediation process with a court registrar. What was said in the mediation was totally confidential and could not later be used in a court process.

The study found 52% of the couples who participated managed to come to an agreement on all of their issues.

The study which was overseen by two senior registrars included almost 625 people involved in 312 mediations. 89% of those who participated saw the process through to the end, completing the whole mediation process, and only 5%. did not proceed at all.

The study found 53% of the couples who participated managed to come to an agreement on all of their issues. A further 11% came to an agreement on a majority of their disputed issues and a further 13% came to an agreement on at least some of their disputed issues.

“I [have hope] for the first time in nearly four years…”

Participants were also given 4 questions to answer after the mediation process giving an interesting insight in to the effectiveness of the mediation process and how much mediation meets the needs of the participants.

From the questionnaire responses 69% said they went in to the process expecting an outcome of some sort, 91% said there was at least some benefit to participating and 78% said it increased the chances of a settlement with their Ex.

91% said there was at least some benefit to participating and 78% said it increased the chances of a settlement.

The comments participants made also gave an insight in to how the mediation process can help to encourage agreement with even entrenched disputes.

Here are a selection of the responses.

• “Yes, absolutely! We ended our legal disputes from 2016 in under 6 hours”
• “Yes – 2 years in the family court system and this helped, now settled”
• “Yes, as it was a huge “game changer”. We both came to agreement and re-established for the first time in 4 years our communication with each other”
• “Yes. Made more progress in one day than months of expensive lawyer time”
• “Possibly not for my case but would certainly be the case I’m sure for other cases”
• “I [have hope] for the first time in nearly four years…”

The findings of the report has provided hard figures which back up the significant push currently underway to divert people from the court process and in to mediation.