At Resolution Mediation, trained mediators help you think through all the different areas you need to consider in caring for your children, such as:

• • Day-to-day care for children
  • Holidays, special days, and vacations
  • Decision-making—on healthcare, education, special activities
  • Financial provision
  • Relationships with extended family

We then guide you through the options for addressing each area, and an understanding of how each option will work moving forward. We offer also Child Inclusive Mediation as an option to make the transition to two homes easier and more protective for children.

Child Inclusive Mediation utilizes the services of a trained Child Consultant to talk with the children about:

• • the impact of the parents’ relationship on the children,
  • what they fear and what they hope for,
  • what they understand and questions they have

Rather than feeling the victim of forces beyond their control, children are brought into the process—in an informal, supportive, protected way. This ability to speak significantly lessens the trauma of parents separating as children feel valued and heard.

The Consultant will never take a position that they are the “expert” on your children. You are. At the same time, children often become very protective of parents when they separate. They know how hard this is—and they often don’t want to make it harder. So, they stay silent. Talking to a compassionate, trained third party with whom they can share concerns or ask questions helps children express what they might otherwise bury.

The Child Consultant then sits with the parents and their mediator as they craft a parenting plan. The Consultant offers input to assist parents in shaping their parenting plan according to their children’s developmental stages and considering their children’s input. While parents remain fully in control of the decisions—they do so in a more informed, child-inclusive way. This helps them work with the mediator to craft a plan that meets the needs of both children and parents.

The mediator then writes your decisions into a Parenting Agreement that we file with the court. Your plan is enforceable by the court, but you never have to go to court. More, you have a clear roadmap to working together to care for your children from two homes.

For more information from Resolution Mediation, click here or call 317-793-0825. We look forward to serving you.