Mapping Paths to Family Justice

Lead Research Organisation: University of Exeter
Department Name: School of Law

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Title Considering Mediation? Video 
Description YouTube video to inform separating couples about mediation and to train mediators. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2017 
Impact The video is being used by 3 accredited national family mediation associations - Family Mediation Council, Resolution and the Family Mediators Association who have embedded it in their mediator training to inform mediators about the need for emotional and practical readiness to optimise mediation success. Mediators also show it to clients.This video is now being used regularly in England and Wales by all our collaborators, both as a mediator training tool and also for their clients. It is being further considered for use by the Law Society and the Ministry of Justice. It has also been adopted in the ongoing CAFCASS pilot work relating to diverting separating families into mediation from court to resolve their parenting disputes where appropriate. It has also been used in training for family mediators in Turkey under a Council of Europe programme through the Family Mediators Association and has now been translated into Turkish to be used in mediator training programme and materials over the next 10 years, they have indicated to us. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTz_9AM3Mo
 
Title Infographic:The Rights Idea? Children's rights when parents separate 
Description The Infographic follow two fictitious children, Tom and Chloe and their respective experiences following parental separation; Tom through child inclusive mediation and Chloe through court proceedings. The infographic accompanies The Rights Idea? video and lesson plans for KS3 and KS4 students on their rights including the right under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to information, consultation and where needed representation following parental separation. 
Type Of Art Image 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Mediation practices are using the infographic. The video and infographic are in the process of being translated into Welsh and will be used by Cafcass Cymru. 
URL https://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/collegeofsocialsciencesandinternational...
 
Title Is mediation for me? 
Description 'Is mediation for me?' is a series of five 'talking heads' detailing the real accounts (voiced by actors) of mediation experiences from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice study. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact 'Is mediation for me?' is available to the public on YouTube and will be linked to by mediation organisations as a resource for prospective clients. The 'talking head' of Kim's story was used to support the various initiatives during 'Family Mediation Week, 2019' (http://www.familymediationweek.org.uk/video/). The Ministry of Justice has also indicated that it intends to link to 'Kim's story' to help parties with a family justice issue to consider whether mediation is suitable for them. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe8vyktlR0b30Yd7lJyGLErjf22o-Ej32
 
Title Mediating Safely 
Description Video for prospective mediation clients with recommendations on when it is safe to mediate and the safety measures available, following the Mapping Paths to Family Justice Project. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact The video is available to the public on YouTube and will be linked to by mediation organisations as a resource for prospective clients. It was used to support the various initiatives during 'Family Mediation Week, 2019' (http://www.familymediationweek.org.uk/video/). 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=449&v=WYlPqonxcyc
 
Title Screening Appropriately? 
Description 'Screening Appropriately? Recommendations following the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project' is a video resource aimed at practitioner training to ensure best practice in screening for domestic abuse in mediation. Given the sensitive nature of the contents of this video it is not publicly available but is available for training purposes on request. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2019 
Impact The resource has been used by the Family Mediation Association on both a Mediation Refresher Course and on the Family Mediation Foundation course. The Judicial College has agreed to use the resource as part of its judicial training programme. 
 
Title The Rights Idea? Children's rights when parents separate 
Description The video follow two fictitious children, Tom and Chloe, and their respective experiences following parental separation; Tom through child inclusive mediation and Chloe through court proceedings. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact The video, launched on 1 December 2020, has been viewed 244 times as at 08.03.21. Mediation practices are using the infographic. The video and infographic are in the process of being translated into Welsh and will be used by Cafcass Cymru. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4e83WKzw4&t=1s
 
Title The Rights Idea? Children's rights when parents separate: Tom's Story 
Description The animation, Tom's story recounts the experience of child-inclusive mediation following parental separation of a fictitious child, Tom. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2020 
Impact Tom's Story has been viewed 255 times as at 08.03.21. Mediation Week 2021 featured Tom's Story. It is also available on the Family Mediation Council's website and mediation organisations' websites (see, for example, Devon and Exeter Mediation and Wells Family Mediation). It has been used in child inclusive mediation training in Liverpool and internationally in Madrid and Italy, with plans to use it in Argentina. 
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-JteJOTjQ&t=1s
 
Description The Mapping Paths to Family Justice study first aimed to provide an up-to-date picture of awareness and experiences of three principal forms of alternative or out-of-court family dispute resolution (AFDRs): solicitor negotiations; mediation; collaborative law. On awareness, we found that there is recognition of these alternatives to court in the general population, though 45% of our National Omnibus sample had heard of none of them. Less than half (44%) had heard of mediation; this rose to over two thirds among the divorced/separated population. Solicitor negotiations was poorly-recognised as a means of avoiding court even by the divorced/separated, with less than half (48%) aware of it. Media/internet are key sources of information to the general public about AFDRs but for those divorcing/separating since 1996, solicitors were the major source for all AFDRs, including mediation.
Nationally, two thirds of those who had experienced the lawyer-led AFDRs were satisfied with process and outcome, compared with under half (41%) of those who had mediated their dispute. However, in our follow-up interviews with parties, almost three quarters were satisfied with their experience of the mediation process, although far fewer with the outcome. Those who were not satisfied had often felt pressured into mediation. Perceived quality of the practitioner was key to satisfaction in all AFDRs. Overall in our follow-up sample, Mediation was seen as improving communication in around 40% of cases, whereas under a quarter of Solicitor Negotiation participants felt they benefited in this way. Generally people felt well supported by having their own solicitor or collaborative lawyer, allowing them to 'know where they stood' on finances or in relation to children. In Mediation, good communication outcomes were highly correlated with successful resolution. Collaborative Law was very well liked (combining support with a non-partisan approach) but like solicitor negotiations, was criticised for cost.
Concerning norms brought into the processes by parties, we found this was highly gendered and differed in relation to children and finances. In children matters, parties did not feel they were steered in a particular direction, in contrast to financial disputes.
Considering which AFDRs are most 'appropriate' for which cases and parties, we concluded that one size does not fit all. We recommend introducing a neutral triage system (conducted by practitioners knowledgeable about all AFDRS) open to directing people to the appropriate process. Some cases are unsuited to mediation (e.g. where violence/control or mental health issues exist or one party is not 'emotionally ready'). Suitability for AFDRs depends largely on the disposition of the parties, not the nature of the case. For collaborative law or mediation, there needs to be willingness to engage and communicate; relatively low conflict; an equal power dynamic and openness to compromise. The lawyer-led AFDRs are more appropriate where there are highly complex financial issues, power disparity. Only solicitor negotiations are appropriate where there are entrenched positions, control/mental health issues or a vengeance agenda. Mediation can help in high conflict children cases to improve communication and does well for financial disputes where there is a highly skilled mediator.
Whilst we found many mediators were trained for child inclusive mediation, we identified few parties who had experienced it. We identified a lack of confidence by some practitioners and some parents around this process and we consider the voice of the child in AFDRs needs further attention.
Exploitation Route Having followed our Pathways to Impact plan to include representatives of the range AFDR processes, we actively engaged and consulted with the practitioner community throughout the project. The Law Society, National Family Mediation, Family Mediators Association and Resolution all contributed to aspects of the project and received our findings well.
Our final conference was attended by an audience of 70 practitioners, policy makers and academics interested in out-of-court family dispute resolution, including David Norgrove who chaired the Government Task Force on Family Mediation (of which the PI was also an invited member), and some of our initial findings were included in the Task Force Report in June 2014.
Having been asked to give keynote addresses and other presentations by national mediation associations and collaborative law practitioners, we anticipate that our findings will shape and influence training of mediators and collaborative lawyers, in particular, and the professional associations have confirmed this is the case.
We are currently concluding a collaborative joint venture with One Plus One who provide educational online relationship support tools to help parties assess emotional readiness for mediation to help prevent inappropriate cases and prepare parties for mediation.
We also took the research findings to a further stage of impact work, following the award of Impact Accelerator funding in April 2015. Working with One Plus One, Relate, the Ministry of Justice, CAFCASS, Resolution and the Family Mediation Council we considered how feasible it would be to build out from the Emotional Readiness online tool, developed with One Plus One to use other aspects of the research findings to inform the development of a further online 'screening tool' (currently being developed by Relate) to assist parties and practitioners to more effectively 'explore and diagnose' appropriate and inappropriate cases for family mediation. These aimed to offer or direct parties to more specialist help before attempting mediation where necessary, particularly in high conflict disputes. OnePlusOne's emotional readiness tool has formed part of the CAFCASS Manchester pilot aiming to divert couples away from court into family mediation, where appropriate and we hope this will be rolled out nationally. We were also actively assisting Relate in developing their online mediation service (Relate Rechtwijzer) in our second phase Co-Creation ESRC IAA Award Creating Paths to Family Justice, which was completed at the end of November 2016 and formed the basis of their revisions for their new screening tool, now being piloted in 2019. Our work with our other collaborators on this project - Ministry of Justice, Resolution, Cafcass, Family Mediation Council - aims to address the confusing array of online information for people separating about how to resolve family disputes. In 2017 and 2018, we worked with all our practitioner and policy maker collaborators to make a YouTube video Considering Mediation? which has been adopted by the Family Mediation Council and affiliated mediation associations for use in mediator training in the UK. In addition it was used in a Council of Europe funded programme to train Turkish mediators. It has been translated into Turkish and is likely to be used for the next 10 years we have been told. In 2018/19 we have used a further IAA award to develop two further videos with our stakeholder group, focusing on our finding that mediation is not always appropriate in cases where there have been abusive or controlling relationships. The first video, Mediating Safely, is aimed at separating couples considering mediation and uses the stories of some of the study's research participants to indicate when mediation may not be appropriate and how safeguards can be put in place to make it safe in some situations. The video and some Talking Heads from it have been linked to by the websites of the Ministry of Justice and a number of mediation agencies to assist couples. In addition, a second video 'Screening for mediation' using narratives from our participants who were wrongly required to mediate despite abuse or coercive control within relationships was made for mediation training by mediation agencies. This is aimed at improving mediator practice has been made and adopted by Family Mediators' Association and a number of mediation trainers, with other agencies actively considering it. Our realisation of impact has been recognised in letters of support from the policy maker and practitioner community in our application for the ESRC Outstanding Impact in Public Policy Prize 2018, for which we were shortlisted, interviewed and invited to resubmit. ESRC have also put our case study on their website https://esrc.ukri.org/news-events-and-publications/impact-case-studies/helping-separating-couples-to-settle-out-of-court/, based on this.
In 2018-19, we have focused on better practice for mediation screening and our ESRC Impact Accelerator Account Award enabled us to develop with our collaborating partners further YouTube video aimed at the public, Mediating Safely, which is a YouTube video plus Talking Heads taken from it of real accounts of some of our research participants about when it is and is not safe to mediate family disputes.The Talking Heads are going live in 2019 on the MoJ website and are being used by some collaborating mediation agencies. In addition, a further video Screening for Mediation has been networked to mediation associations and their trainers, nationally and internationally and will inform mediation training on this critical issue of screening out inappropriate cases or ensuring that complex cases which can be made safe to mediation are properly safeguarded.
Our work on Child Inclusive Mediation is being progressed by the Family Justice young People's Board and has also prompted Family Mediators' Association to change their training for Child Inclusive Mediation and is prompting new requirements at Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings to discuss this, being taken forward by the Family Mediation Council.
In terms of taking scholarship forward, we secured a book contract with Palgrave Macmillan. The book, 'Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Disputes in Neoliberal Times' was published in 2017. It has been positively received and won the Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize 2018.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice,Other
URL http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/law/research/groups/frs/projects/mappingpathstofamilyjustice/
 
Description Between March 2020 and March 2021,the Mapping and Creating Paths findings have continued to inform practitioner practice and policy nationally and internationally. Barlow and Ewing were invited to evaluate a DWP Reducing Parental Conflict Challenge Fund initiative, 'Mediation in Mind', which provided legal information and counselling to parents before mediation to aid emotional readiness and practical preparedness, drawing directly on the Mapping findings about the need to assess and address these before mediation was likely to succeed. The evaluation, published in June 2020, showed that the conversion rate from Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM) to mediation starts in the initiative was ten percent higher than the national average for legally aided clients in 2018-19 (72% compared to 62%), and settlement rates were higher (68% compared to 62%). The Private Law Advisory Group's Final Report (01.12.20) indicates, 'We consider that there may be value in developing further the 'Mediation in Mind' project.' (Para. 28). In November 2020, the publication of the Family Solutions Group report 'What about me? Reframing support for families following parental separation, showed the influence of the Mapping and Creating research in its recommendations for early triaging of the separating family's needs, directing to court those who require judicial input through a safety pathway and giving holistic, child-centred support to those who do not in line with the findings of the Mapping Paths research. The report also endorses the recommendations of Creating Paths around the need for a better understanding and response to parents' need to be emotionally ready to engage in out of court dispute resolution processes (paragraph 226) and on the need for practitioner training around the emotional issues arising on separation or divorce (paragraph 231). It also recognised the value of the approach taken in Mediation in Mind (based on Mapping research), recognising such a bundled package of support was best practice. The FSG reports recommendations, including those based on Mapping and Creating research, were reported fully in a House of Commons Library Briefing Paper (Number 8764, 2 February 2021). The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Strengthening Couple Relationships and Reducing Parental Conflict meets on 17 March 2021 to discuss the FSG recommendations. Barlow and Ewing continue to inform MoJ policy, meeting MoJ and Cafcass in April, June and November 2020 to discuss their joint Covid-19 rapid-response for separating couples update on The Co-Parent Hub. Mapping and Creating research findings on the voice of the child were drawn on (alongside more recent ongoing research) in Ewing's presentation to the Family Mediators' Association annual conference op 30th September 2020. Further interest in this finding has come to Barlow and Ewing from DfE who are keen to incorporate young people's right to be consulted following parental separation in lesson plans to be used within PSHE and/or Citizenship lessons on young people's rights when parent separate, where DfE Guidance requires schools to teach Key Stages 3 and 4 students' skills 'to manage grief about changing relationships, including the impact of separation [and] divorce and sources of support and how to access them.' With the support of DfE and the PSHE Association and collaborating with the National Youth Advocacy Service and the National Association of Child Contact Centres, Ewing has written lesson plans on young people's rights, including the right under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to information, consultation and where needed representation following parental separation. The two-part lesson plan, 'The Rights Idea', have passed the first stage of scrutiny for quality mark approval jointly from the PSHE Association and the Association of Citizenship Teaching. The lesson plans will be launched in May 2021. To accompany the lessons, Ewing has worked with a production company to co-create a video and infographic (see The Rights Idea?) which has been viewed 240 times since it was launched in December 2020. The video is also being linked to by mediation associations and will be adopted by Cafcass Cymru who are translating it into Welsh. A shorter video of Tom's experience of child-inclusive mediation (Tom's Story) based on Creating Paths work with the Family Justice Young People's Board, has been viewed 244 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation Week 2021 featured Tom's Story. It is also available on the Family Mediation Council's website and mediation organisations' websites (see, for example, Devon and Exeter Mediation and Wells Family Mediation). It has been used in child inclusive mediation training in Liverpool and internationally in Madrid and Italy, with plans to use it in Argentina. Responding to Mapping evidence on the need for parties to be emotionally ready to mediate, the family support charity and Creating Paths partner, OnePlusOne (OPO), has continued developing and piloting a conceptual model and measure for emotional adaptation to relationship dissolution (Millings et al. 2020). The publicly available YouTube video drawing on the Mapping research on emotional readiness, Considering Mediation? written by the academic team and co-created with collaborators continues to be used in mediator training in the UK and internationally. The video's views in the last year have doubled; 9499 views as at 06.03.20 compared to 4432 times as at 07.03.20. Views of the co-created publicly available video from the Creating project, Mediating Safely (2019), developed for separating couples who were unsure of their safety, were at 1748 on 06.03.21 compared to 619 views as at 07.03.20. Short 'Talking Heads' from this video recounting the experiences of 5 (anonymised) Mapping participants (Family Mediation Experiences) have also doubled in the past year. They have been viewed on YouTube 1309 times as at 06.03.21 compared to 653 times as at 07.03.20. MoJ links to this publicly available resource on the gov.uk website (see: 'resources' in Professional mediation). Barlow also used the findings from the Creating and Mapping Paths projects about the difficulties people reported on navigating legal information online following the withdrawal legal aid and obstacles to using legally aided family mediation to inform evidence she gave to the House of Commons Justice Committee on the Future of Legal Aid on the 14th December 2020. Between March 2019 and March 2020, the Mapping and Creating Paths findings have continued to have considerable reach and impact both nationally and internationally. DWP are funding the initiative 'Mediation in Mind' in Crewe (ending June 2020) which is assessing the effectiveness of providing counselling to parents prior to mediation to aid emotional readiness to mediate, drawing directly on the Mapping findings. Barlow has been appointed to evaluate the initiative. In June 2019, the Private Law Working Group (PLWG) led by Mr Justice Cobb published a review of the Child Arrangements Programme. Hunter is a member of the PLWG. In February 2020, Mr Justice Cobb set up a PLWG 'Family Solutions Sub Group' with the purpose of looking at the pre-court space to consider how to support parents to address their dispute collaboratively and make sustainable child arrangements. Ewing has been appointed as a member of the sub group. The research continues to attract interest internationally. In November 2019, Smithson gave a presentation on experiences of family mediation in the UK at the University Centre for Family Studies and Research, Milan, Italy which has led to requests for possible collaboration with colleagues from Milan for future studies of mediation. In mediation, the child's voice can be heard through the process of child-inclusive mediation (CIM). However, the Mapping and Creating Paths research found that despite young people's appetite for their views to be better represented in mediation processes following parental relationship breakdown, non-court dispute resolution processes tended to be child focused but not child inclusive. A key recommendation of the research was that the voice of the child needed to be to be heard more consistently in non-court dispute resolution processes. This caused the FMC to amend its 'Standards Framework' in 2018 to introduce a requirement that all mediators must attend child inclusive mediation (CIM) awareness training and must explain CIM to prospective clients. With funding from the Wellcome Centre, Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter, and as part of a larger project looking holistically at healthy transitions into relationships and out of intact parental relationships, Barlow (assisted by Ewing) is considering how we might reduce the adverse consequences of parental conflict on child (and parental) health by promoting greater CIM uptake. It is hoped that this will improve well-being and agency for young people whose parents separate. Barlow is due to report the findings of this project in March 2021. 'Responding to [the] evidence' from the 'groundbreaking UK study, Mapping Paths to Family Justice' on the need for parties to be emotionally ready to mediate, the family support charity and Creating Paths partner, OnePlusOne (OPO), has developed and piloted the Emotional Readiness Assessment, with the aim of developing an online tool for assessing the emotional readiness of separating parties (Houlston et al. 2019). Additionally, the research findings, learning and expertise on emotional readiness fed into the development in 2019 of Relate's new online separation support tools. The publicly available YouTube video drawing on the Mapping research on emotional readiness, Considering Mediation? (2017) (http://bit.ly/2XVZaWY) written by the academic team and co-created with collaborators continues to be used in mediator training in the UK and is recommended by the Family Mediation Council (FMC) which oversees and regulates family mediation nationally. As outlined in last year's submission, it is on the websites of Resolution (the national organisation of family lawyers) and the Family Mediation Association (FMA) and will be on the revised and updated FMC website. It is also being linked to by practitioners on their websites (see for example Stone Rowe Brewer llp (http://bit.ly/2xScmBISRB) and Progressive Mediation http://bit.ly/2GfQcOyPM).The video and research findings have been used in Russia, Italy, Denmark, Switzerland, Ukraine and also in Turkey in Council of Europe approved training with interest in March 2019 from colleagues in the Czech Republic. Considering Mediation? has been viewed on YouTube 4432 times as at 07.03.20. To take forward the Mapping findings around appropriate screening for mediation, a mediator training video, Screening Appropriately? (2019) (http://bit.ly/2Lqrqzj) was produced using real accounts of Mapping participants about their bad experiences of mediation, typically leading to mediation failure. It is being used nationally by FMA mediator trainers to challenge and avoid poor screening practice and spread best practice where it has had 'enormous impact, undoubtedly sobering and resulting in some real detailed consideration of the necessity for good screening and thought-through processes to facilitate safe mediation' (Beverley Sayers, FMA, March 2019). The video is unlisted and viewable by private invitation only. Links to the screening videos were given to delegates at Resolution's 'Dispute Resolution' Conference in June 2019. Given the Mapping finding that the most common reason for refusing mediation was 'fear of a partner', the co-created publicly available video from the Creating project, Mediating Safely (2019) (http://bit.ly/2JC6EKX), was developed for separating couples who were unsure of their safety or how their concerns could be addressed. Mediating Safely has been viewed on YouTube 619 times as at 07.03.20. Barlow has also created 'talking heads' from this video recounting the real experiences of (anonymised) Mapping participants ('Family Mediation Experiences'; http://bit.ly/2JLPglV)). These publicly available resources will be available on the revamped FMC website. The five talking heads that make up Family Mediation Experiences' have been viewed on YouTube a total of 653 times as at 07.03.20. The research continues to inform mediation practice and judicial training. It is cited in the practitioner journal, Family Law, in 2019-20 by Parkinson (September 2019); Crisp and Hunter (December 2019) and Robinson (March 2020). Hunter has cited it in the following presentations at the Judicial College: 'Domestic abuse in financial remedy applications' (Civil and Family Law Combined Seminar, October 2019); 'Recent developments in research - research on private law proceedings' (Private Law Continuation Course, October 2019) and 'Recent research on private law' (Private Law Continuation II, February 2020). Between March 2018-March 2019, the Mapping and Creating Paths findings have continued to have considerable impact as evidenced by the fact that in January 2019 the project was chosen by the ESRC as a case study on its website. The ESRC recognised the benefit of the innovative, collaborative way of working with policymakers, practitioners and third-sector organisations established in Creating Paths noting that, 'Coming together in this way has resulted in a more joined-up approach to FDR policy and practice - to the benefit of couples considering or undertaking mediation.' The project was shortlisted for the 2018 ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize (Public Policy category) and whilst unsuccessful the Panel agreed that the research had demonstrated 'strong public engagement and collaborative working in the area of Family Justice [and] clear evidence of being responsive to needs within government and parliament.' The researchers' book from the project, 'Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving family disputes in neo-liberal times, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017' won the prestigious 'Hart Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize, 2018' and is listed as one of five 'Useful Resources' in the Ministry of Justice's 'Family Justice Research Bulletin: New and forthcoming research and analysis for the family justice system, 2018' available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/706672/family-justice-bulletin.pdf. Using evidence from the project and learning from the development of the Considering Mediation? video, in collaboration with the Creating Paths partners, Anne Barlow and Jan Ewing have developed three further digital resources on screening for domestic abuse and coercive control in mediation. The first, Screening Appropriately? is a practitioner training resource to encourage best practice. It uses the compelling experiences of individuals (voiced by actors) interviewed in the Mapping project who had been inadequately screened into mediation to emphasise the need for proper screening for domestic abuse and coercive control in every case. The second, Mediating Safely, draws on the positive experiences of mediation of individuals interviewed in the Mapping project following appropriate screened into mediation. This resource is aimed at individuals considering mediation to help them to decide whether mediation is appropriate and if not the options available to them to deal with family justice issues following separation. The third, Is mediation for me? is a collection of 'talking heads' of individual stories from the Mediating Safely video. The second and third resources are available on the project website and on the University of Exeter's YouTube channel. Screening Appropriately? is being used in foundation, PPC and refresher course training by the Family Mediation Association (FMA). Mediating Safely and Is mediation for me? will be available on the revamped FMC website due to be launched in March 2019 and on the FMA website. Sinead Krzyzyk (Ministry of Justice, Digital Team) has confirmed that MoJ intends to feature Kim's story (the leading 'talking head' from Is mediation for me?) on the mediation page on GOV.UK. The judicial college are considering using the resources as part of Private Law judicial training. In addition, Mediating Safely and Kim's story featured in the Family Mediation Week, 2019 campaign. Ewing showed the three screening videos at the Mediation Annual Update Conference in London in October 2018 run by Neil Robinson, mediation trainer and Visiting Professor at the University of Staffordshire. The afternoon of the conference was given over to a discussion of the Mapping Paths findings in relation to screening. One attendees, Ian Christie, then used the resources at a talk on emotional readiness to the University of Bristol's law students. The Considering Mediation video resource continues to have both national and international reach. It is available on the FMC, FMA and Resolution websites and is now being linked to by practitioners (see for example https://srb.co.uk/family-law/creating-paths-to-family-justice/). As mentioned in last year's submission, a subtitled version of the video was created for training mediators in Turkey in a programme financed and approved by the Council of Europe. In March 2018, the Creating Paths academics gave permission to The Center for Mediation and Law (the leading organisation for development and training mediation in the Russian Federation) to translate and subtitle the Considering Mediation? video into Russian. In January 2019, Lisa Parkinson, Vice President of the FMA and international mediation trainer, confirmed that she was 'aware of a high level of interest in the Creating Paths videos in Italy, the Czech Republic, the Ukraine and other countries.' Anne Barlow and Jan Ewing are due to meet with colleagues from the Czech Republic on 27 March 2019 to discuss how the videos might be used in the training of mediators in their jurisdiction. One of the Mapping recommendations was that the public needed clearer, impartial information on the options available to resolve family disputes. Matching people and cases to the most appropriate dispute resolution process is key to supportive and enduring experiences and outcomes. The recommendations informed the development of the options page on GOV.UK: (https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk/). A further key finding of the research was that people needed to be emotionally ready and practically prepared to mediate. The project has been critical in highlighting the need for emotional readiness and the importance of emotional readiness is acknowledged on the GOV.UK options page (reference above). The research findings on emotional readiness have informed the development of the 'Emotional Readiness Scale' by OnePlusOne (a family support charity and Creating Paths partner). This scale has been tested with separating parents and in 2018, working in partnership with another Creating Paths partner, Cafcass, OnePlusOne has been testing the 'Ready to Co-Parent Questionnaire' (https://portal.cafcass.clickrelationships.org/content/all-issues/emotional-readiness/) with a view to developing a digital tool that will direct parents to the most relevant support for them. Interrelate Australia (a relationship support charity) has expressed an interest in partnering with OnePlusOne in a similar way to the partnership with Cafcass on the digital tool. The Mapping Paths recommendation that separate rather than joint MIAMs should be the default position to ensure appropriate screening for domestic abuse and coercive control led to the amendment of the Code of Practice for Family Mediators (latest version November 2018) which now requires Assessment meetings to include an individual element with each participant to allow the mediator to undertake domestic abuse screening. The Mapping Paths recommendation that the voice of the child needed to be heard more consistently in out-of-court dispute resolution processes helped spur a conversation amongst practitioners and policy makers around how the voice of the child might be better heard. The 'Final Report of the Voice of the Child Dispute Resolution Advisory Group, 2015' at paragraph 208 acknowledges the call from the Mapping project for a more systematic inclusion of children's voices in all dispute resolution processes resulting in the Advisory Group making strong recommendations about there being robust practice requirements relating to child inclusive dispute resolution processes, particularly in mediation which addresses children's issues. The FMC set up a working group on child-inclusive mediation to draft an action plan on the recommendations of the Voice of the Child Group's Final Report. In 2018, this culminated in new rules that require all mediators to attend CIM awareness training and to explain CIM to prospective clients. In 2018-19, with funding from The Legal Education Foundation, the national relationships charity and Creating Paths partner, Relate, has revised its online offer to separating families building on the evaluation of its OFDR learning referred to in earlier submissions. In February 2019, the Creating Paths academics provided detailed feedback on the high-level prototype of the full offer and on the detailed experience for several elements of the offer to ensure that the online offer is informed by the Mapping Paths findings and learning. The research has continued to inform practitioner best practice (see for example the series of articles in 2018 and 2019 in Family Law by Neil Robinson on mediation best practice, particularly in screening). The research is cited in the practitioner journal, Family Law in 2018 by Blakey (August 2018); Johnson and Robinson (July 2018) and Edwards et al. (March 2018) and in the peer reviewed Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law by Wong and Cain (2019, issue 1); Holt (2018, issue 4) and McGowan (2018, issue 2). It is also cited in the 8th edition of the leading handbook for teaching undergraduate Family Law; Herring (2017). Between March 2017-March 2018, our findings have been used in a number of additional ways both by our ESRC IAA collaborating partners in the Creating Paths to Family Justice project and beyond. We were delighted that our all our partners - government policy makers and agencies (Ministry of Justice, Cafcass, Family Justice Young People's Board), family practitioners (mediators and lawyers represented by Family Mediation Council and Resolution), and relationship research and support charities (Relate, OnePlusOne) - have continued to work with us collectively and have individually detailed our impact from their perspectives in letters of support for the ESRC Celebrating Impact Prize 2018. We have just heard that this has resulted in our being shortlisted in the Outstanding Impact in Public Policy category which we hope is an indication that our findings are indeed making a difference in shaping and influencing family justice policy and practice. In terms of concrete examples of how our findings have been put to use in 2017, a YouTube video, Considering Mediation?, was co-created with our collaborating partners following 2 half-day workshops with the aim of illustrating one of our key findings - the need for parties to both be emotionally and practically ready to successfully mediate. It was launched with our Briefing Paper on 28th July 2017. This video resource is being used in mediation training by national mediation organisations in the UK affiliated to the Family Mediation Council. It has been used for training in Denmark and Turkey, following its adoption as part of a Council of Europe Training programme for family mediators in Istanbul in November 2017. The video will be used in Turkish translation to train family mediators for the next 10 years we are informed. A Russian mediation training agency has now approached us for permission to translate it into Russian, increasing the international reach of our findings further. The Family Mediation Council and a number of its affiliated organisations have embedded the video in their own websites for use by separating parties in addition to their practitioner members. Cafcass have used the video as part of their pilot in Manchester looking to divert couples from court into the mediation process as a key way of explaining the emotional and practical readiness needed for family mediation around child arrangements before engaging in it. Relate's planned online mediation programme (see below) has been put on hold but our findings significantly informed the beta version design of this and will strongly influence the next phase when funding is available. OnePlusOne's online emotional readiness tool aimed at separating couples considering mediation is in the final stages of development and will go live as part of their digital Click Relationships portfolio in 2018. They have also embedded our co-created video on their website. The Ministry of Justice who are redesigning and refreshing their website indicate through their beta version that they will draw on our Mapping study findings more generally, but including the need for emotional readiness - see https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk/. They invited the academic team to meet with their digital and family policy teams to help shape their own policy review on the out of court pathway in July 2017 and more recently in September 2017, they invited the PI to contribute to the review of the LASPO 2012 legislation. Members of our wider pool of partners are actively considering how best to use the Creating findings and YouTube resource, including the Law Society who invited us to speak to their Family Law Committee in October 2017 and the Ministry of Justice. We were also approached by a Law Society Family Law Committee member who is both a practitioner and an academic at South Bank University who wishes to include the YouTube video in his undergraduate module on family mediation next academic year. As noted previously, between March 2016 and March 2017, building on earlier reported work, our findings have been used to achieve further impact from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice Project (Mapping) through continuing engagement with a range of family practitioners including the Family Mediation Council (FMC) and Resolution, policy makers at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and key relationship support agencies OnePlusOne and Relate. In particular, we continued the series of 5 themed workshops involving key non-academic stakeholders as part of the ESRC Impact Accelerator Account Co-Creation Award, Creating Paths to Family Justice (Creating Phase 2) between November 2015 and November 2016, in order to shape and influence policy and share and improve best practice relating to relevant digital information and family dispute resolution practice, including publicly funded mediation. The Mapping findings were used to inform the configuration of legal information and referral to Relate's Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) following the launch of their beta version modelled on the Dutch system and known as 'Relate Rechtwijzer' (RR). This was evidenced in a letter dated 23 January 2017 from Relate's Head of Innovation and Development, indicating that 'the insightful review of and extensive feedback on the prototype service and the rich discussions you facilitated in the Creating Paths workshops significantly shaped the re-design of the OFDR service. Your focus throughout on bringing in the user insight from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice research was highly effective. It allowed us to put in context and extend the user insight we were gathering in parallel from the user testing of the prototype service. I believe this approach has also embedded a stronger user-centred and evidence-based focus for the expert practitioners and service leaders present in the workshops. It has led to comprehensive and practical improvements of the tool's design itself, of quality assurance procedures in the service management specification, of the practitioner selection and training requirements, of the communication and marketing approaches, and our efforts to find a sustainable social business model that can support affordable access to justice.' The Mapping findings about poor practices for domestic violence screening in Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings and the involvement of the FMC in the subsequent Creating workshops focusing on joined-up best practice have contributed to the amendment of the FMC Code of Practice for Family Mediators in September 2016 (para. 6.1). This makes explicit that although Assessment Meetings can be conducted jointly or separately, they must include an individual element with each Participant to allow the Mediator to undertake domestic abuse screening. The FMC in their feedback to us in January 2017 indicated that awareness-raising as a result of the collaborative working in Creating has led to additions to their guidance on working online with clients and on screening. One of their member agencies, The Family Mediation Association (FMA) reported that as a result of the Mapping findings and Creating discussions, they are reviewing guidance for their members on screening processes and have scheduled a series of emotional readiness seminars for 2017. In addition, the MoJ Digital team following our Creating workshop on Domestic Violence screening in November 2016 are including our team and the Mapping findings in their domestic violence screening information and training development going forward. The Mapping project findings expressed concern about the lack of voice for children in out of court dispute resolution and this has been followed up to good effect in 2016. Our Creating Workshop 4, worked with a team of young people from the Family Justice Young People's Board on how to address the lack of online information for children of separating parents and on confidentiality and access issues for children in this situation. They also shared our ambition to include the voice of the child in out of court Dispute Resolution where children wish to contribute. We co-created ideas which are being taken on board longer term by the MoJ digital team and family mediation practitioners. Some of the FJYPB members attending have since committed themselves to continuing the work and have agreed to take a lead on advocating for the voice of the child to be heard throughout the sector at other key stakeholder events and their manifesto for 2018 reflects this commitment. In addition, Cafcass commended the Creating project in their feedback to the team in January 2017 as a 'pivotal and well timed initiative' which led them to consider the engagement aspects of all their services including information giving and assessment pathways and further developing the 'voice of the child' elements of their service. The FMA indicated that they had reviewed and made changes to their website to help clients and children understand mediation options better and to help young people understand how their voices can be heard in mediation. In addition, the Mapping findings on the marginalisation of children's voices in dispute resolution processes and the involvement of the Family Justice Young People's Board in Creating has led to CAFCASS, MoJ, and DWP agreeing to join together to provide better accessible information and support for children and young people online during parental separation to avoid duplication of effort. Two academic members of the Mapping team were invited to a workshop organised by the MoJ digital and policy teams on 23.03.16 to discuss how to address the Mapping findings on the need for 'practical readiness' prior to mediation through better signposting to and quality of digital information provision. This prompted a typology of users of family justice processes to be developed to assist MoJ in how most effectively to operationalise their plans from a multi-user perspective. The PI was also invited to attend the MoJ 'Family Justice Out of Court Pathway' showcase on 31.08.16 where the Universities of Exeter and Oxford were the only academic partners formally attributed as contributors to the design of the new pathway. The collaborative working between MoJ digital team and the Creating Paths academics and other partners has, they reported to us in January 2017, allowed MoJ 'to engage in open policy making with 3rd sector representatives and family justice academics an ongoing priority for the department and a necessary and important part of the drive for evidence based policy.' The MoJ is currently testing an 'Action Plan' with users and have asked the Creating Academics to give feedback on this when testing is completed in the first quarter of 2017 as well as feedback on the MoJ's signposting strategy. The MoJ digital delivery team are also including the Mapping Academics in their domestic violence screening information and training development going forward. We also gave an invited paper at the Resolution Conference on 17.06.16 to 150 family practitioners; 'Creating Paths to Family Justice: A collaborative approach to filling the access to justice gap' as the community wished to know how the Mapping findings were being and could further be taken forward by practitioners. Resolution further reported to us in January 2017 that the Mapping findings on emotional readiness have increased practitioner awareness and led to improvements in the quality of Resolution's materials and the information for the public on the Resolution website. We also agreed at a meeting with OnePlusOne on 17.08.16 to review the video clips for the proposed 'emotional readiness' tool. OnePlusOne now plan to launch this in 2018. As indicated the Creating team wrote a narrative for use with other aspects of the video material which is now the successful Considering Mediation YouTube video discussed above. In terms of engagement with practising family mediators and lawyers, the community has invited us to speak at a number of events and the findings from the Mapping project and now the Creating follow up projects have been reported and commented on by practitioners. Thus mediator Austin Chessell reflected on Barlow's 2015 presentation of the Mapping findings in the context of how he puts some matters identified into his own practice in Divorce Magazine - see https://www.thedivorcemagazine.co.uk/mapping-paths-to-family-justice/. The findings have begun to have international reach through presentation at academic and practitioner conferences on efforts to fill the access to justice gap internationally (e.g. Rosemary Hunter presented at the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, Working Group on Comparative Studies of Legal Professions, Andorra la Vella, July 2016). They continue to have influence regionally (e.g. Barlow and Ewing presented at Resolution: East and West Sussex, Kent and Surrey's Dispute Resolution Day, June 2016 and Hunter's presentation at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford, November 2016). The findings have been reported by family lawyers on their websites (e.g. Farrer and Co.). They continue to be relied upon by those writing in practitioner and academic journal (e.g. Treloar, CFLQ, 2016: 28(2) on screening and Walker, Family Law Journal, January 2017 on legal information and advice) as well as in the leading practitioner handbooks (e.g. Lisa Parkinson (2014) Family Mediation, 3rd edn and Marian Roberts (2014) Mediation in Family Disputes: Principles of Practice, 4th edn) and MoJ reports (e.g. Pereira et al (2015) The Varying Paths to Justice: Mapping problem resolution routes for users and non-users of the civil, administrative and family justice systems). It is hoped our findings will reach a wider international and practitioner audience through our recent and forthcoming publications as well as the Considering Mediation? video indicated above. First, our book chapter (Hunter et al (2017) Access to What? LASPO and Mediation in: A Flynn and J Hodgson, eds., Access to Justice and Legal Aid Comparative Perspectives on Unmet Legal Need) will enable our findings to be compared with developments in other jurisdictions this field. Second, our 2017 Creating Paths Briefing Paper is aimed at practitioners and policy makers and has been well received. Finally, our book of the Mapping findings (Barlow A., Hunter R., Smithson J. and Ewing J. (2017) Mapping Paths to Family Justice: Resolving Family Justice in Neoliberal Times) is to be published in the Palgrave Socio-Legal Studies series in April 2017. As noted previously, in 2014-2015 and again in 2015 and 2016, our findings had already achieved some significant impact. It was reported in an article in the March 2016 issue of the Family Law Journal (see further Brian Cantwell, 'Exploring a multidisciplinary approach to the practice of private law' (2016) 46(2)) that a family law practice in the North East of England is now offering a joined up service based on the findings of the Mapping Paths to Family Justice study. Throughout 2015, the Mapping Paths to Family Justice findings had already begun to inform and influence the development of the proto-type of Relate's online family mediation tool 'Relate Rechtwijzer'. They were also relied upon in Relate's critique of the problems facing separating couples and their analysis of the support needed by people in their policy and research report 'Breaking up is hard to do' Relate: London, November 2015. The report is available at https://www.relate.org.uk/files/relate/publication-breaking-up-is-hard-to-do-report-dec2015_0.pdf The findings were also used by the Ministry of Justice in revising their family mediation materials for separating families published in February 2016 and more recently of their clearer simplified website materials on getting help with child arrangements - https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk/ . In terms of future plans, this collaborative work with our collaborators through our Co-creation Impact Accelerator Account Award, Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2 during 2016 which was consolidated in our 2017 Briefing Paper and the subsequent working together to co-create the Consdering Mediation? video has confirmed the continued utility of this collaboration we anticipate that annual meetings will be held with this group of experts going forward to review progress in access to family justice. In addition, we have applied for further funding to focus some work on better screening for Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control relationships prior to mediation, where a further video resource based on true accounts from our Mapping research will inform the scenarios portrayed and the narrative. In 2014, our findings had already had some impact with Policy Makers and with Practitioners and we have had the support of our Project Advisory Group who represent the range of Family Dispute Resolution practitioners as well as researchers at the Ministry of Justice. Aspects of our findings have been used by the Government Task Force on Family Mediation which published its report in June 2014, in which some of our findings (reported in June 2014) were footnoted. In addition the Cabinet Office's Innovation Unit contacted us in October 2014 in order to discuss our methods and findings on the party and practitioner experience in order to inform their own research into why people do or do not take up family mediation and what makes it likely to be successful or not. The Ministry of Justice asked the PI, Anne Barlow to attend an OECD conference on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Paris on 10/11/14 in order to present the research findings on out of court family dispute resolution. Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner Professional Associations (Family Mediators Association; Resolution) have invited us to present findings on DR best practice and matching processes to parties and cases at two annual conferences and have discussed how to spread best practice and be more alert to screening power imbalance and lack of emotional readiness with us. Relevant practitioner journals have asked to publish summaries of different aspects of our findings. Practitioners writing in such journals (e.g. Bull, The Review, September 2014; Stevenson, Family Law Journal, November 2014) have separately engaged with our findings, suggesting how the research should be taken notice of and used to improve best practice. A family practice in the North East of England is currently using our findings and recommendations to pilot a model of 'joined up' service and direction of clients to the most appropriate form of dispute resolution and/other sources of support. The relationship agency One Plus One continues to work with us to develop an online tool to assist parties and practitioners to assess emotional readiness before attempting mediation with the aim of improving mediation success rates. A challenge which has been overcome is to bring a number of different agencies with similar but competing agendas together to consider the feasibility of pooling resources and expertise to use the research findings to improve family dispute resolution. Further impact work is planned with the Ministry of Justice, Department for Work and Pensions, One Plus One, Relate, Family Mediation Council, Resolution, CAFCASS to assess feasibility of further online pre-mediation screening in line with our research findings. A further current challenge is the lack of funding available to agencies such as Relate and OnePlusOne to enable them to take their planned activities informed by our findings forward in the way we all agree is most appropriate. Whilst Relate's OFDR (RR) is on hold because of financial constraints, they are in talks with potential funders about a learning event following the piloting of RR and have asked the Creating academics to be involved in this which has been agreed in principle.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Other
Impact Types Societal,Policy & public services
 
Description Adoption of Considering Mediation? co-created video on Mapping study finding on need for emotional and practical readiness for successful mediation by CAFCASS in their pilot study in Manchester aimed at diverting appropriate cases from court into mediation.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact This is currently a Cafcass MoJ pre-court pilot study in Manchester aimed at diverting couples from court to mediation about parenting disputes. The video is being used by Cafcass working with parents to show couples how difficulties in mediation can be overcome and to identify if one of the couple is emotionally unready or practically unprepared, referring them to support to address this where appropriate. The feedback is so far positive and it is hoped it may be rolled out nationally.
 
Description Adoption of Considering Mediation? co-created video on Mapping study finding on need for emotional and practical readiness for successful mediation by Family Mediation Council and their affiliates.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The video is used in family mediation training by FMC members including Family Mediators Association, Resolution, The Law Society to enable them to recognise the need for both parties to be both emotionally ready and practically prepared to mediate if mediation is to be successful. This has resulted in a change in practice whereby couples are asked to view the video before mediating and the mediators refer them to further support where it is clear at initial screening that they are unequally ready for the process as that is a great predictor of mediation failure. The video was also embedded in the different websites of the different mediation associations to enable members to access it directly and also make it available to members of the public exploring dispute resolution options on relationship breakdown.
URL https://www.familymediationcouncil.org.uk/2017/08/11/creating-paths-family-justice/
 
Description Development of Relate's online family mediation programme
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Relate have written to Anne Barlow reporting the impact of the research as follows: I would like to take this opportunity to capture Relate's feedback on the Mapping Paths to Family Justice research that you and your research team led. I write in the context of a major innovation project that Relate has been carrying out: the development of an Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) service. Our ambition is for this development to help fill the gap in affordable access to justice and relationship support for separating families in the current climate of austerity and legal aid cuts. Your research has been very useful and informative throughout the entire development process. I would like here, however, to comment in particular on how it has informed the early stages of our development: Firstly, it helped us to shape our concept proposal that resulted from our initial Discovery Process (March to October 2014). The research helped us to determine the problem statement and key design requirements for our development. Here your rich insights into the experience of people going through separation were particularly helpful to identify gaps in support and unmet needs in the current landscape. This and the quantitative research also helped to inform our initial business case that secured the internal go-ahead for the development. Secondly, the research helped to drive key workstreams in our Prototyping and Proof of Concept stage (November 2014 - October 2015). This phase was funded through the Google Impact Challenge UK 2014. This rich qualitative research of the Mapping Study helped to inform the OFDR service blue-print and develop user personas. Both are critical for the successful design of a digital service. The research also helped us to establish and test the viability of developing a sustainable operating model for the service. In this way the Mapping Study contributed significantly to the successful proof of concept for the OFDR service. On behalf of Relate, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and all your colleagues on the Mapping Team. Yours, Laura Dowson Head of Innovation and Development (Relate)
URL https://relate.modria.com
 
Description Government review of impact of LASPO 2012
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statemen...
 
Description Influenced the work of the Family Justice Young Peoples Board on working with a wider range of agencies to facilitate the voice of the child within the out of court family justice system
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
Impact The Family Justice Young People's Board worked with the Creating Paths to Family Justice collaboration at a workshop to identify how to better include the voice of the child in out of court family dispute resolution. This is cited in their 2017 annual report and their Top Tips for 2018 include working beyond the court system following discussions about how private family law cases are decided out of court without children present. They had previously focused on the court system alone. Their priorities for 2018 inlcude - Our priorities for 2018 are: Work collaboratively with the Department for Education to increase awareness within schools of the issues facing children and young people in family justice and how schools can support them. Raise awareness of the impact of family breakdown on children and young people's mental health and how professionals can support children and young people to build their own resilience. Work with agencies to develop understanding and practice as to how and when a child should be involved in their case. This is as a result of our workshop drawing attention to the wider range of agencies.
URL https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/2018/01/31/beyond-2017-fjypb-set-priorities-year-ahead/
 
Description Membership of Government Task Force on Family Mediation by PI Anne Barlow
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
Impact The Task Force advocated that as failure of a partner to attend the pre-mediation MIAM was a key reason for family mediation to fail and subsequently the Minister for Justice Rt Hon Simon Hughes MP announced legal aid funding for both parties (rather than just the legally aidable party) to attend the MIAM free of charge. This aspect of our research was discussed in the Task Force meetings by Anne Barlow the PI who was a member of the Task Force.
URL http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/family-mediation-task-force-report.pdf
 
Description Participation in Ministry of Justice seminars on support for separating families
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
Impact Revised leaflets and guidance to web information for those involved in family disputes about family mediation.
URL https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/family-mediation
 
Description Participation in Ministry of Justice's workshop on out-of-court pathways
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
Impact Discussions helped to refine a typology of users of family justice processes that was subsequently adopted in the Ministry of Justice's 'Family Justice out-of-court Pathway Showcase' in August 2016.
 
Description Providing critical evidence to policy makers which is assisting and influencing their development of routes to and through online information about family dispute resolution.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact The Ministry of Justice has indicated the influence of our research and our subsequent impact activity with them and other collaborators within the family justice field. The beta version of their new website refers to the need for emotional readiness in mediation and reflects our analysis in the Mapping study of the strengths and weaknesses of Family Dispute Resolution options. In a letter to us of the 22/11/17 supporting our ESRC Celebrating Impact 2018 nomination, they stated - 'The Mapping report has supported the evidence on the need for clear information and signposting to support newly separating couples using online sources of advice. Its contribution to knowledge was that it identified the need for couples to reach a state of emotional-readiness before being able to embark on alternative family dispute resolution, successfully. As part of the initial discovery phase for private family law reforms the Mapping report and the partners involved helped increase our understanding of this area, define user needs and, develop concepts for testing with users. The Creating Paths briefing paper and event helped the Private Family Law Reform team as it supported our own internal research and findings. The team are exploring different areas in which we can use the mediation video and where it would generate most views. Future collaboration with Creating Paths partners through workshops will be beneficial to develop rationale for any future reform, and to build and test new solutions. This will allow us to develop policy using the partners group's expertise and experience to add to our knowledge of existing evidence on private family justice policy reform.'
URL https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk
 
Description Refinement of Relate's online family dispute resolution (OFDR) programme
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Relate wrote to Anne Barlow on 27.01.17 reporting the impact of the research as follows: I am writing to summarise the impact the Creating Paths to Family Justice programme has had on Relate's development of an Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) service. Your insightful review of and extensive feedback on the prototype service and the rich discussions you facilitated in the Creating Paths workshops significantly shaped the re-design of the OFDR service. Your focus throughout on bringing in the user insight from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice research was highly effective. It allowed us to put in context and extend the user insight we were gathering in parallel from the user testing of the prototype service. I believe this approach has also embedded a stronger user-centred and evidence-based focus for the expert practitioners and service leaders present in the workshops. We have provided more detail in the attached impact form. I hope you can see from this the extensive impact your Creating Paths to Family Justice project has had to shaping Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) service. It has led to comprehensive and practical improvements of the tool's design itself, of quality assurance procedures in the service management specification, of the practitioner selection and training requirements, of the communication and marketing approaches, and our efforts to find a sustainable social business model that can support affordable access to justice. We regret we were not able to complete the full programme originally planned. Unfortunately, we have experienced ongoing delays with the public launch of the ODFR service. The delays are primarily due to: 1) Managing the risks of Relate's planned substantive investment in the public launch of the service at a time of consultation about a major structural change in the Relate Federation; 2) Protracted contract negotiations with our technology suppliers; and 3) Securing partnerships that bring co-investment and additional know-how - in particular legal and commercial expertise - in order to sustainably offer an affordable service and to manage the larger than anticipated costs of developing a well-designed tool appropriate for the England & Wales jurisdiction. On behalf of Relate, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and all your colleagues on the Creating Paths to Justice project team. We would be very happy to respond to any questions your funder has about the impact of the project and contribute to case studies or similar. Yours, Laura Dowson Head of Innovation and Development (Relate)
 
Description Rosie's Story PSHE lesson plan and video
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to new or Improved professional practice
 
Description Shaping recommendations in the 'Family Justice Out-of-Court Pathways' Showcase
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
Impact Mapping Paths to Family Justice was cited in the 'Family Justice Out-of-Court Pathways' Showcase presentation at the Ministry of Justice in August 2016 and the University of Exeter was one of only 2 universities that the MoJ acknowledged partnering with on the development of their 'Family Justice Out-of-Court Pathways' plans.
 
Description The 'Screening Appropriately' practitioner training video and the 'Kim's Story' talking head was used in the Family Mediation Association's Foundation Course training as well as in its Family Mediation Refresher course
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Use of the compelling stories of interviewees from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project (as voiced by actors) in the Family Mediation Association's foundation and refresher training helped to ensure best practice in screening appropriately for mediation for new and experienced mediators.
 
Description The Mapping and Creating research has facilitated and influenced collaborative policy development between policy makers, stakeholders and users at a time when Ministry of Justice was consulting users and stakeholders through their own research
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact The Ministry of Justice wrote to us on 22/11/17 supporting our ESRC Impact Prize nomination 2018 stating - Thank you for your engagement with the Private Family Law Reform team at the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) as one of your research partners over the last few years. You have provided an opportunity for organisations with an interest in family justice to meet regularly to discuss changes and reforms, such as the move to digital services and facilitating the voice of the child. Working with the Creating Paths partners allowed for a new collaborative way of working with academics and third sector colleagues which we hope will continue in the future. For example, it provided an opportunity for digital experts in the MoJ to meet and interact with family justice academics, building a relationship for development work, engaging in open policy making. This is an ongoing priority for the department and a necessary part of the drive for evidence based policy with stakeholder engagement.
 
Description The Rights Idea? Children's rights when parents separate: Tom's story
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The video of Tom's experience of child-inclusive mediation (Tom's Story) has been viewed 244 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation Week 2021 featured Tom's Story. It is also available on the Family Mediation Council's website and mediation organisations' websites (see, for example, Devon and Exeter Mediation and Wells Family Mediation). It has been used in child inclusive mediation training in Liverpool and internationally in Madrid and Italy, with plans to use it in Argentina.
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-JteJOTjQ&t=1s
 
Description The research findings from Mapping Paths to Family Justice helped to inform the Gov.UK's 'Get help with child arrangements' web page on options and on emotional readiness
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
URL https://helpwithchildarrangements.service.justice.gov.uk/
 
Description Translation and Adoption of Considering Mediation? co-created video on Mapping study finding on need for emotional and practical readiness for successful mediation by by Council of Europe Training Programme for Turkish Family Mediators
Geographic Reach Europe 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact The video was used in family mediation training and a Council of Europe programme at which Lisa Parkinson a Family Mediators Association mediation trainer was lecturing. The organisers on seeing our video immediately asked for it to be translated into Turkish for use in the programme in November 2017 and they have indicated it will be used in family mediation training 'for the next 10 years in Turkey'. This will train mediators to screen out and address a member of a couple who is emotionally unready for mediation and also ensure that in their system, both parties are equally emotionally ready and practically prepared for mediation process before it begins, postponing the making of decisions in the first mediation session and referring them to appropriate support if this is not the case.
 
Description An Evaluation of 'Mediation in Mind'
Amount £23,872 (GBP)
Organisation Department for Work and Pensions 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 06/2019 
End 06/2020
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice - Phase 3
Amount £18,544 (GBP)
Organisation University of Exeter 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 05/2018 
End 03/2019
 
Description ESRC Impact Accelerator Account Project Co-Creation Award, University of Exeter
Amount £19,961 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 11/2015 
End 11/2016
 
Description Impact Accelerator Account Award, (Social Policy Network Funding), University of Exeter
Amount £3,000 (GBP)
Organisation Economic and Social Research Council 
Sector Public
Country United Kingdom
Start 04/2015 
End 09/2015
 
Description Transforming Relationships: The Healthy Relationship Transitions (HeaRT) and Education (HeaRE) Project
Amount £85,000 (GBP)
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2019 
End 06/2021
 
Description University of Exeter Open Innovation Impact Fund
Amount £2,775 (GBP)
Organisation University of Exeter 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 10/2017 
End 02/2018
 
Title Mapping Ominbus 
Description A nationally representative survey on awareness and experiences of the three out of court family dispute resolution processes - mediation, solicitor negotiations and collaborative law was conducted on our behalf by tns-BNRB and has been deposited in the UK Data Archive. This is the first survey of its kind on these issues. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact Some aspects of the research have been used in the Report of the Government Task Force on Mediation, June 2014. The report is available at http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/family-mediation-task-force-report.pdf . 
 
Title Phase 2 Party and Practitioner Interviews 
Description Transcripts of anonymised semi-structured interviews with parties and practitioners about their experience of out of court family dispute resolution in England and Wales. The interviews have been uploaded to the UK Data Archive. 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The data collected were analysed alongside Phase 1 and 3 project data and summarised in our Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings. As a whole, aspects of the analysis within the project findings were used by the Government Task Force on Family Mediation, which reported in 2014. 
 
Title Phase 3 Recorded Sessions 
Description Transcriptions of 13 sets of recorded sessions of out of court family dispute resolution processes. These comprised - 5 completed mediations (4 on children's matters; 1 on financial matters. Of these, 4 were sole mediations and 1 a co-mediation); 3 complete collaborative law processes (all on divorce and financial matters). The number of sessions recorded in each completed set varied as this depended on how long the matter took to resolve or the process break down. In addition we recorded 5 solicitor-client first interviews (2 on children matters and 2 on divorce and financial matters. 1 focused primarily on the divorce). 
Type Of Material Database/Collection of data 
Provided To Others? No  
Impact The data collected were analysed alongside Phase 1 and 2 project data and summarised in our Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings. As a whole, aspects of the analysis within the project findings were used by the Government Task Force on Family Mediation, which reported in 2014. The methods used to analyse the data from the recorded sessions drew on conversation analysis approaches and an article is forthcoming in Discourse Studies about our approach. 
 
Description Collaboration with National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) 
Organisation National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC)
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Ewing worked with representatives from the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) on support services for young people as part of the Family Solutions Group. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, which considered the barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation and improved online information for children experiencing parental separation, it was agreed that there was a need to empower young people by educating them in schools on their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Updated DfE guidance and changes to the PSHE Association Programme of Study, require schools to teach Key Stages 3 and 4 students' skills 'to manage grief about changing relationships, including the impact of separation [and] divorce and sources of support and how to access them.' With the support of DfE and the PSHE Association and collaborating with the NYAS and NACCC, Ewing has written lesson plans on young people's rights, including the right under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to information, consultation and where needed representation following parental separation. The two-part lesson plan, 'The Rights Idea', have passed the first stage of scrutiny for quality mark approval jointly from the PSHE Association and the Association of Citizenship Teaching. The lesson plans will be launched in May 2021. To accompany the lessons, Ewing has worked with a production company to co-create a video and infographic (The Rights Idea?). These follow two fictitious children, Tom and Chloe and their respective experiences following parental separation; Tom through child inclusive mediation and Chloe through court proceedings. The video, launched on 1 December 2020, has been viewed 240 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation practices are using the infographic. The video and infographic are in the process of being translated into Welsh and will be used by Cafcass Cymru. A shorter video of Tom's experience of child-inclusive mediation (Tom's Story) has been viewed 244 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation Week 2021 featured Tom's Story. It is also available on the Family Mediation Council's website and mediation organisations' websites (see, for example, Devon and Exeter Mediation and Wells Family Mediation). It has been used in child inclusive mediation training in Liverpool and internationally in Madrid and Italy, with plans to use it in Argentina.
Collaborator Contribution NYAS and NACCC contributed fully to the development of the video and infographic and have commented on the lesson plans.
Impact Video: The Rights Idea? available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4e83WKzw4 Video: The Rights Idea? available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-JteJOTjQ
Start Year 2020
 
Description Collaboration with National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) 
Organisation National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS)
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Ewing worked with representatives from the National Youth Advocacy Service (NYAS) and the National Association of Child Contact Centres (NACCC) on support services for young people as part of the Family Solutions Group. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, which considered the barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation and improved online information for children experiencing parental separation, it was agreed that there was a need to empower young people by educating them in schools on their rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Updated DfE guidance and changes to the PSHE Association Programme of Study, require schools to teach Key Stages 3 and 4 students' skills 'to manage grief about changing relationships, including the impact of separation [and] divorce and sources of support and how to access them.' With the support of DfE and the PSHE Association and collaborating with the NYAS and NACCC, Ewing has written lesson plans on young people's rights, including the right under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to information, consultation and where needed representation following parental separation. The two-part lesson plan, 'The Rights Idea', have passed the first stage of scrutiny for quality mark approval jointly from the PSHE Association and the Association of Citizenship Teaching. The lesson plans will be launched in May 2021. To accompany the lessons, Ewing has worked with a production company to co-create a video and infographic (The Rights Idea?). These follow two fictitious children, Tom and Chloe and their respective experiences following parental separation; Tom through child inclusive mediation and Chloe through court proceedings. The video, launched on 1 December 2020, has been viewed 240 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation practices are using the infographic. The video and infographic are in the process of being translated into Welsh and will be used by Cafcass Cymru. A shorter video of Tom's experience of child-inclusive mediation (Tom's Story) has been viewed 244 times as at 06.03.21. Mediation Week 2021 featured Tom's Story. It is also available on the Family Mediation Council's website and mediation organisations' websites (see, for example, Devon and Exeter Mediation and Wells Family Mediation). It has been used in child inclusive mediation training in Liverpool and internationally in Madrid and Italy, with plans to use it in Argentina.
Collaborator Contribution NYAS and NACCC contributed fully to the development of the video and infographic and have commented on the lesson plans.
Impact Video: The Rights Idea? available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx4e83WKzw4 Video: The Rights Idea? available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo-JteJOTjQ
Start Year 2020
 
Description Considering Mediation Video collaboration 
Organisation Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Having completed our series of a total of 7 workshops involving these partners as part of Creating Paths to Family Justice IAA projects (Phases 1 & 2) previously reported on, which had focused on a range of themes which were challenging the Family Justice environment and its desired move to greater use of online information and online and offline mediation, we concluded that the collaboration was useful to all partners. We agreed that we wanted to continue to try and improve best practice within and understanding of successful family mediation. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, we had looked at the need for emotional and practical readiness, barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation improved online information for children experiencing parental separation; problems with online information and the challenges of online mediation as well as difficulties in mediating abusive or high conflict relationship breakdowns. Using unneeded footage which OnePlusOne had funded and filmed of mediation situations for their online emotional readiness tool and website relaunch. We decided in summer 2017 to review these and then use some of it in edited form to produce a video, Considering Mediation? for use in mediator training and for public information around the issues of the need for emotional readiness and practical preparedness of both parties. Funding was obtained to take advantage of this opportunity and a video made. Based on our research findings, it focused on the options appropriate for Dispute Resolution on relationship breakdown and then the need for both parties to be emotionally and practically ready to mediate disputes successfully. The first cut of the video was reviewed by all the collaborators and edits made to shorten and enhance its impact as a training tool and for use by potential mediation clients who wanted to understand the process better before attempting it.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners provided their time and expertise. Resolution and OnePlusOne provided London meeting rooms for the workshops. Ministry of Justice provided some digital expertise. CAFCASS provided information about government piloting of dispute resolution for which the video would be useful. The Family Mediation Council members (through Resolution, Family Mediators Association, The Law Society, National Family Mediation members) provided feedback on the video used with their clients and in their mediator training. One Family Mediators Association member was invited to train mediators in Turkey and Denmark in November and December 2017 under a Council of Europe funded training programme. As a result the video has been adopted for training and translated for use with mediators in Turkey over the next 10 years they say.
Impact Considering Mediation? Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTz_9AM3Mo ; TBarlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186; Barlow, A., Ewing, J., Hunter, R. & Smithson, J. (2017) Creating Paths to Family Justice: Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings, University of Exeter: pp. 28. Law Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Considering Mediation Video collaboration 
Organisation Family Mediation Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Having completed our series of a total of 7 workshops involving these partners as part of Creating Paths to Family Justice IAA projects (Phases 1 & 2) previously reported on, which had focused on a range of themes which were challenging the Family Justice environment and its desired move to greater use of online information and online and offline mediation, we concluded that the collaboration was useful to all partners. We agreed that we wanted to continue to try and improve best practice within and understanding of successful family mediation. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, we had looked at the need for emotional and practical readiness, barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation improved online information for children experiencing parental separation; problems with online information and the challenges of online mediation as well as difficulties in mediating abusive or high conflict relationship breakdowns. Using unneeded footage which OnePlusOne had funded and filmed of mediation situations for their online emotional readiness tool and website relaunch. We decided in summer 2017 to review these and then use some of it in edited form to produce a video, Considering Mediation? for use in mediator training and for public information around the issues of the need for emotional readiness and practical preparedness of both parties. Funding was obtained to take advantage of this opportunity and a video made. Based on our research findings, it focused on the options appropriate for Dispute Resolution on relationship breakdown and then the need for both parties to be emotionally and practically ready to mediate disputes successfully. The first cut of the video was reviewed by all the collaborators and edits made to shorten and enhance its impact as a training tool and for use by potential mediation clients who wanted to understand the process better before attempting it.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners provided their time and expertise. Resolution and OnePlusOne provided London meeting rooms for the workshops. Ministry of Justice provided some digital expertise. CAFCASS provided information about government piloting of dispute resolution for which the video would be useful. The Family Mediation Council members (through Resolution, Family Mediators Association, The Law Society, National Family Mediation members) provided feedback on the video used with their clients and in their mediator training. One Family Mediators Association member was invited to train mediators in Turkey and Denmark in November and December 2017 under a Council of Europe funded training programme. As a result the video has been adopted for training and translated for use with mediators in Turkey over the next 10 years they say.
Impact Considering Mediation? Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTz_9AM3Mo ; TBarlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186; Barlow, A., Ewing, J., Hunter, R. & Smithson, J. (2017) Creating Paths to Family Justice: Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings, University of Exeter: pp. 28. Law Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Considering Mediation Video collaboration 
Organisation One Plus One
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Having completed our series of a total of 7 workshops involving these partners as part of Creating Paths to Family Justice IAA projects (Phases 1 & 2) previously reported on, which had focused on a range of themes which were challenging the Family Justice environment and its desired move to greater use of online information and online and offline mediation, we concluded that the collaboration was useful to all partners. We agreed that we wanted to continue to try and improve best practice within and understanding of successful family mediation. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, we had looked at the need for emotional and practical readiness, barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation improved online information for children experiencing parental separation; problems with online information and the challenges of online mediation as well as difficulties in mediating abusive or high conflict relationship breakdowns. Using unneeded footage which OnePlusOne had funded and filmed of mediation situations for their online emotional readiness tool and website relaunch. We decided in summer 2017 to review these and then use some of it in edited form to produce a video, Considering Mediation? for use in mediator training and for public information around the issues of the need for emotional readiness and practical preparedness of both parties. Funding was obtained to take advantage of this opportunity and a video made. Based on our research findings, it focused on the options appropriate for Dispute Resolution on relationship breakdown and then the need for both parties to be emotionally and practically ready to mediate disputes successfully. The first cut of the video was reviewed by all the collaborators and edits made to shorten and enhance its impact as a training tool and for use by potential mediation clients who wanted to understand the process better before attempting it.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners provided their time and expertise. Resolution and OnePlusOne provided London meeting rooms for the workshops. Ministry of Justice provided some digital expertise. CAFCASS provided information about government piloting of dispute resolution for which the video would be useful. The Family Mediation Council members (through Resolution, Family Mediators Association, The Law Society, National Family Mediation members) provided feedback on the video used with their clients and in their mediator training. One Family Mediators Association member was invited to train mediators in Turkey and Denmark in November and December 2017 under a Council of Europe funded training programme. As a result the video has been adopted for training and translated for use with mediators in Turkey over the next 10 years they say.
Impact Considering Mediation? Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTz_9AM3Mo ; TBarlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186; Barlow, A., Ewing, J., Hunter, R. & Smithson, J. (2017) Creating Paths to Family Justice: Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings, University of Exeter: pp. 28. Law Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Considering Mediation Video collaboration 
Organisation Resolution
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Having completed our series of a total of 7 workshops involving these partners as part of Creating Paths to Family Justice IAA projects (Phases 1 & 2) previously reported on, which had focused on a range of themes which were challenging the Family Justice environment and its desired move to greater use of online information and online and offline mediation, we concluded that the collaboration was useful to all partners. We agreed that we wanted to continue to try and improve best practice within and understanding of successful family mediation. Drawing on our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study findings, we had looked at the need for emotional and practical readiness, barriers and solutions to greater inclusion of the voice of the child in family mediation improved online information for children experiencing parental separation; problems with online information and the challenges of online mediation as well as difficulties in mediating abusive or high conflict relationship breakdowns. Using unneeded footage which OnePlusOne had funded and filmed of mediation situations for their online emotional readiness tool and website relaunch. We decided in summer 2017 to review these and then use some of it in edited form to produce a video, Considering Mediation? for use in mediator training and for public information around the issues of the need for emotional readiness and practical preparedness of both parties. Funding was obtained to take advantage of this opportunity and a video made. Based on our research findings, it focused on the options appropriate for Dispute Resolution on relationship breakdown and then the need for both parties to be emotionally and practically ready to mediate disputes successfully. The first cut of the video was reviewed by all the collaborators and edits made to shorten and enhance its impact as a training tool and for use by potential mediation clients who wanted to understand the process better before attempting it.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners provided their time and expertise. Resolution and OnePlusOne provided London meeting rooms for the workshops. Ministry of Justice provided some digital expertise. CAFCASS provided information about government piloting of dispute resolution for which the video would be useful. The Family Mediation Council members (through Resolution, Family Mediators Association, The Law Society, National Family Mediation members) provided feedback on the video used with their clients and in their mediator training. One Family Mediators Association member was invited to train mediators in Turkey and Denmark in November and December 2017 under a Council of Europe funded training programme. As a result the video has been adopted for training and translated for use with mediators in Turkey over the next 10 years they say.
Impact Considering Mediation? Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkTz_9AM3Mo ; TBarlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186; Barlow, A., Ewing, J., Hunter, R. & Smithson, J. (2017) Creating Paths to Family Justice: Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings, University of Exeter: pp. 28. Law Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology.
Start Year 2017
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Department for Work and Pensions
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Family Justice Young People's Board
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Family Mediation Council
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Ministry of Justice
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation One Plus One
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Relate
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice 
Organisation Resolution
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Following on from 2 workshops in May and July 2015 where we, policy makers and family practitioners commented on the ongoing work by third sector relationship support and innovation agencies OnePlusOne and Relate in providing online resources for separating families in our IAA Social Policy Network Award Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 1, we went on to successfully apply for further funding (IAA Co-Creation Award) awarded in December 2015 to continue the collaboration (Creating Paths to Family Justice Phase 2). This enabled us to organise a total of 5 further themed workshops and extend our network of collaborating agencies. We devised these themes based on areas where our Mapping research findings showed that improvement needed to be made to access to family justice following legal aid cuts. In particular, how could we help couples find their way to family mediation - offline and online - following withdrawal of legal aid for solicitor advice through better online information? Could we help inform the development of an online mediation system intended to extend access to this service as envisaged within Relate's pilot project on this? Our specific workshop themes were - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for users at the point of separation; High conflict and Domestic Abuse cases and online Dispute Resolution (DR) ; The voice of the child in online (and offline) DR. In addition, workshops were used to facilitate discussion between ourselves and our partners around the ongoing development of better online materials and tools being undertaken by Relate and the Ministry of Justice as follows - • Discussion of user responses to Relate's prototype online tool in pre-mediation and mediation (Online family dispute resolution - (OFDR)) in the context of Mapping findings about offline mediation • Discussion of configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in the Relate tool - how best to present and target legal material and refer/signpost to appropriate DR here and on key government websites • Discussion of neutral review by a lawyer in the Relate online tool to include analysis of the required reform of professional conduct rules for lawyers advising both members of a couple following mediation. As academics we drew up a Briefing Paper and Report on Key Findings from these impact workshops published and launched in July 2017. We also consulted our partners on whether a continued Creating Paths collaboration to practically address some of the issues raised in the Mapping findings in the context of the new family justice landscape through our joined up expertise was a worthwhile next step.
Collaborator Contribution All our partners gave their time freely over the year. In addition, Resolution, Relate and Oneplusone provided London meeting space and catering for our workshops. CAFCASS provided information about proposed government piloting of dispute resolution for which a video would be useful and crticially liaised with the Family Justice Young People's Board in order to facilitate a workshop discussion with their members (young people aged 11-21 who had had various experiences of the family justice system) of how to better include the voice of the child in family dispute resolution and provide them with access to information. Ministry of Justice gave digital expertise around website development as well as family policy expertise. Relate shared their pilot and feedback data on the beta version of their planned Online Family Dispute Resolution platform which were analysed in the context of the Mapping project findings. OnePlusOne indicated the lessons learned in their ongoing development of an Emotional Readiness online tool. All partners kindly reviewed and commented on the materials and notes of the workshops which led to the Briefing paper and agreed actions for future collaborations with us, using our findings to spread best practice. In particular, it was noted that a new collaborative way of working was established between the different agencies who indicated it was of real benefit to work in a joined-up way to get feedback and input for their own aspects of this work in the new family justice landscape.
Impact Main outputs were: Creating Paths to Family Justice - Briefing Paper and Key Findings (University of Exeter, 2017); Barlow, A., Ewing, J. (2018) 'Creating paths to family justice: online dispute resolution processes and the access to justice gap' Family Law, 181-186. The Briefing Paper was launched on the 28th July 2017 in London. The collaboration is interdisciplinary. It has primarily involved Law, Socio-Legal Studies and Psychology in terms of the academics. A successful further application for funding to the University of Exeter Open Innovation Fund was made to continue the collaboration's work on co-creating a YouTube video Considering Mediation? on family dispute resolution options and the need for emotional and practical readiness in order to mediate successfully.
Start Year 2015
 
Description Ministry of Justice - Separating Families Campaign 
Organisation Ministry of Justice
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Anne Barlow was invited as a member of the Mapping Research Team to join an MoJ Advisory Group around the Separating Families Campaign aimed at educating the public and separating couples in particular about their dispute resolution options when they couldn't agree arrangements for children. Anne Barlow or another member of the Mapping Team attended 3 meetings leading to the campaign with family mediation providers and other relationship agencies to highlight the dispute resolution option of mediation and advised on the content of the campaign leaflets, drawing on lessons from our research findings around the types of parties or cases where family mediation may not be suitable and flagging the importance of indicating this in the campaign leaflets. In particular, the availability of legal aid and the fact that domestic violence may require a different dispute resolution approach were inserted after we referred to aspects of our research findings.
Collaborator Contribution The MoJ hosted a series of 3 meetings from September 2015 - January 2016 which brought together the Mapping Paths to Family Justice Research Team with a range of agencies to draw lessons from our research to improve the public information around support for separating families and in particular, family mediation alongisde other appropriate related services. They also set up a digital information exchange platform for contributors to work together on and paid for the design and launch of the new leaflets and online materials aimed at raising awareness of family mediation among a wider range of separating couples.
Impact Leaflets Family mediation: Sorting out family disputes without going through court, (London: Ministry of Justice & Family Mediation Council, December 2015). Posters Family Mediation Works (London: Ministry of Justice & Family Mediation Council, December 2015). Website Improvements still in process at https://www.gov.uk/family-separation-support
Start Year 2015
 
Description One Plus One 
Organisation One Plus One
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Our research findings identified the lack of emotional readiness by one party as a key reason why family dispute resolution and family mediation in particular is often unsuccessful. Our data are a rich source of party feedback on the process and why family mediation and other Dispute Resolution processes did or did not work for them, which enabled us to map which parties and cases suit which processes and to work with other agencies to find mechanisms to help identify and address the lack of emotional readiness before dispute resolution is attempted. Following the extension of the project by ESRC to 31/03/15, the project team at the University of Exeter entered into a contract with One Plus One as notified to the ESRC to work together with them and with other experts and service users to develop an online tool to assist parties to assess their emotional readiness to attempt to resolve their dispute with their former partner and provide support to enable parties to become emotionally ready to resolve such disputes, through family mediation or otherwise. At two workshops with One Plus One and through correspondence, we contributed to the development of a series of questions to feed into the online tool to assess emotional readiness for beginning negotiation of family law issues around children on separation, with the aim of resolving issues out of court. A method of working was agreed, whereby One Plus One, building on the findings from our research around the importance of emotional readiness, would take forward the commissioning of short videos and work with software experts, psychologists and service users to develop appropriate material for the online tool. The Mapping Paths to Family Justice research team commented on the pilot phase of One Plus One's commissioned work when the developments undertaken for the Emotional Readiness tool were presented at a Creating Paths to Family Justice ESRC IAA award workshop in London on the 21st July 2015.
Collaborator Contribution Following the extension of the project by ESRC to 31/03/15, One Plus One entered into a contract with the project team at the University of Exeter as notified to the ESRC to work with our research team and other experts and service users to develop an online tool to assist parties and practitioners to assess the emotional readiness of parties to participate in resolution of family disputes through family mediation or otherwise. One Plus One had previously developed online educational tools, working with DfE and MoJ in the past and have access to software experts, psychologists and service users. As per the schedule in the contract One Plus One (OPO) have directly invested a minimum of £15,000 and have carried out the following work:- Participated in two initial workshops with Mapping Team, OPO staff and OPO Associate experts where it was agreed OPO would develop three short videos to demonstrate the different types of negotiation that separated parents might experience for inclusion in the online tool. This was a part of the wider emotional readiness work that had been discussed in our workshops; Carried out a scoping phase followed by scriptwriting and recruitment of actors and experts for the videos; Shot three videos of alternative forms of dispute resolution which could later be edited and placed within the emotional readiness tool once the three pathways had been designed and tested; Undertaken the first editing phase which was completed at the end of July 2015; Undertook an assessment of emotional states which was then tested for validity and reliability over the summer of 2015; Reported on the piloting of the Emotional Readiness tool to the Mapping Research Team and other collaborators involved in the Creating Paths to Family Justice ESRC IAA Social Policy Network in London on 21st July 2015; Funded all work after end of March 2015, including initial design of the pathways for the emotional readiness tool, preparation of the formulation of a technical specification ready for commissioning digital development; Due to a combination of events including future funding uncertainty and imposed evaluation conditions for One Plus One arising out of Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) requirements not to change OPO online programmes pending evalutation, the plan for the Emotional Readiness Tool to go live as part of the One Plus One portfolio of programmes had to be postponed. However, the Emotional Readiness tool should now go live in mid-2016, with funding authorised by One Plus One regardless of any DWP funding decision due to be notified in April 2016. Ultimately the tool will be situated on the OPO digital platform and be available for use by separating couples.
Impact Production of videos for use as part of the online tool on the One Plus One platform which will be publicly available for use by separating couples as part of their 'Splitting up: put kids first' programme by the end of 2016. There has been a delay in One Plus One's ability to make the emotional readiness online tool live within their intended programmes for the extraneous reasons outlined above. We are advised it will go live during 2016.
Start Year 2014
 
Description Relate 
Organisation Ministry of Justice
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Public 
PI Contribution Relate's feedback on the Mapping Paths to Family Justice research indicates that we made a significant contribution to a major innovation project that Relate has been carrying out: the development of an Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) service. It is hoped this development will help fill the gap in affordable access to justice and relationship support for separating families in the current climate of austerity and legal aid cuts. We met Relate at an Innovation Unit event relating to Family Mediation and cemented our collaboration in our initial ESRC IAA Social Policy Network Award, although they had already been using the Mapping research. Their Head of Innovation and Development has confirmed to us that our research has been very useful and informative throughout the entire development process. Relate have commented in particular on how it has informed the early stages of our development: 1. it helped them to shape their concept proposal that resulted from their initial Discovery Process (March to October 2014). The research helped to determine the problem statement and key design requirements for their development. Here our rich insights into the experience of people going through separation were particularly helpful to identify gaps in support and unmet needs in the current landscape. This and the quantitative research also helped to inform their initial business case that secured the internal go-ahead for the development. 2. the research helped to drive key workstreams in their Prototyping and Proof of Concept stage (November 2014 - October 2015). This phase was funded through the Google Impact Challenge UK 2014. This rich qualitative research of the Mapping Study helped to inform the OFDR service blue-print and develop user personas. Both are critical for the successful design of a digital service. 3. The research also helped them to establish and test the viability of developing a sustainable operating model for the service. In this way the Mapping Study contributed significantly to the successful proof of concept for the OFDR service.
Collaborator Contribution Relate attracted significant funding from the Google Impact Challenge UK 2014 fund to develop 'Relate Rechtwijzer' (known as 'RR'), an online family mediation platform based on a Dutch model already in operation in The Netherlands. They introduced the Mapping Team to their partners Hill and Modria who respectively designed and operate the Dutch Rechtwijzer 2 programme. It was agreed following discussions in early 2015 that our findings should be used to inform the development of the content of the RR mediation model. This is in addition to the initial contributions the research made to the preliminary 'explore and diagnose' phase of RR, assessing people's respective positions and issues before negotiation or mediation begins.
Impact Family mediation leaflet - Family mediation: Sorting out family disputes without going through court, (London: Ministry of Justice, December 2015)
Start Year 2015
 
Description Relate 
Organisation Relate
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Relate's feedback on the Mapping Paths to Family Justice research indicates that we made a significant contribution to a major innovation project that Relate has been carrying out: the development of an Online Family Dispute Resolution (OFDR) service. It is hoped this development will help fill the gap in affordable access to justice and relationship support for separating families in the current climate of austerity and legal aid cuts. We met Relate at an Innovation Unit event relating to Family Mediation and cemented our collaboration in our initial ESRC IAA Social Policy Network Award, although they had already been using the Mapping research. Their Head of Innovation and Development has confirmed to us that our research has been very useful and informative throughout the entire development process. Relate have commented in particular on how it has informed the early stages of our development: 1. it helped them to shape their concept proposal that resulted from their initial Discovery Process (March to October 2014). The research helped to determine the problem statement and key design requirements for their development. Here our rich insights into the experience of people going through separation were particularly helpful to identify gaps in support and unmet needs in the current landscape. This and the quantitative research also helped to inform their initial business case that secured the internal go-ahead for the development. 2. the research helped to drive key workstreams in their Prototyping and Proof of Concept stage (November 2014 - October 2015). This phase was funded through the Google Impact Challenge UK 2014. This rich qualitative research of the Mapping Study helped to inform the OFDR service blue-print and develop user personas. Both are critical for the successful design of a digital service. 3. The research also helped them to establish and test the viability of developing a sustainable operating model for the service. In this way the Mapping Study contributed significantly to the successful proof of concept for the OFDR service.
Collaborator Contribution Relate attracted significant funding from the Google Impact Challenge UK 2014 fund to develop 'Relate Rechtwijzer' (known as 'RR'), an online family mediation platform based on a Dutch model already in operation in The Netherlands. They introduced the Mapping Team to their partners Hill and Modria who respectively designed and operate the Dutch Rechtwijzer 2 programme. It was agreed following discussions in early 2015 that our findings should be used to inform the development of the content of the RR mediation model. This is in addition to the initial contributions the research made to the preliminary 'explore and diagnose' phase of RR, assessing people's respective positions and issues before negotiation or mediation begins.
Impact Family mediation leaflet - Family mediation: Sorting out family disputes without going through court, (London: Ministry of Justice, December 2015)
Start Year 2015
 
Description 'Creating Paths to Family Justice: A collaborative approach to filling the access to justice gap' presented by Anne Barlow and Jan Ewing to the Resolution East and West Sussex, Kent and Surrey's Dispute Resolution Day 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Drawing on key findings of the Mapping Paths to Family Justice Project, this paper outlined the innovative collaboration of key stakeholders in family justice ('Creating Paths to Family Justice') and their work to inform the development of online family dispute resolution (OFDR) tools that address the need for parties to be emotionally ready to engage in OFDR processes. The paper discussed the collaborating partners attempts to stem the proliferation of online information through a coordinated approach to provide a cohesive pathway to and through appropriate interventions and DR for those separating and unable to resolve disputes, ensuring that the voices of young people are not marginalised in the move to OFDR processes.

This provided a timely opportunity to present the Mapping Paths to Family Justice findings to a wide audience of professional practitioners (lawyers and mediators), including the innovative collaborative work of the Creating Paths partners to maximise impact of the Mapping findings.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description 'Creating or obstructing paths to family justice: an update from the UK' presented by Rosemary Hunter to the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, Working Group on Comparative Studies of Legal Professions, Andorra la Vella, July 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Rosemary Hunter was invited to give a paper to the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, Working Group on Comparative Studies of Legal Profession in Andorra la Vella in July 2016. Her paper, 'Creating or obstructing paths to family justice: an update from the UK' discussed the needs of separating parties, sources of support, type of support provided, DR options and the potential outcomes, pre- and post-LASPO and the various attempts to fill the access to justice gap following LASPO.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Children's voices: Centre-stage or side-lined in out-of-court dispute resolution in England and Wales? Paper given at the XVth ISFL conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact The paper explained ways in which children's voices continue to be marginalised in three out-of-court family dispute resolution processes in England and Wales and was followed by discussions and questions from academics, practitioners and policy makers.

The New Zealand government are looking at reform and are interested in the research and the New Zealand government's academic consultant on that project Nicki Taylor of Otago University agreed to come to Exeter to discuss it further with the research team. This meeting took place in December 2014.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Considering Mediation? Video Co-Creation Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Using footage filmed by OnePlusOne of mediation based on real cases and a narrative written by the academics based on our findings about family dispute resolution options we presented the first cut of a video to our collaborator partners from policy, professional practice and relationship support charities. In particular, the need to ensure 'emotional readiness' and practical readiness before attempting to resolve a dispute on relationship breakdown in order to optimise chances of successful resolution through family mediation were highlighted and drawn from the findings of our Mapping Paths to Family Justice study.Our collaborators included the Family Mediation Council, Resolution and the Family Mediators Association (FMA), all of which have embedded the video on their website and are using it in mediator training. The Ministry of Justice (both digital and family policy teams) participated in our workshops and are considering including the video on their website which is being refreshed and redesigned. One FMA mediator went on to use the video in training of Turkish mediators in a programme funded by the Council of Europe in November 2017 in Istanbul, organised by the Turkish Ministry of Justice and attended by senior judges, university professors and lawyers. It has now been translated by the Council of Europe-funded programme to train mediators in Turkey over the next 10 years. She has used in again in mediator training in Denmark and we have just been approached for permission to translate into Russian for mediator training there. Cafcass are also using the video in a pre-court pilot aiming to divert couples away from courts into mediation as part of their parenting plan preparation support process and as part of Family Court Advisor learning to assist in identifying cases which may or may not be suitable to be referred to mediation from court.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/law/research/groups/frs/projects/creatingpathstofamilyjustice/
 
Description Creating Paths To Family Justice Workshop 1 - 05/02/16 - The configuration of legal information and referral to online and offline Dispute Resolution or legal services in Relate Rechtwijzer 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact A discussion between policy makers, practitioners and third sector organisations on how to effectively signpost and convey legal information for use by separating couples in an online mediation tool, including the advantages and disadvantages of online delivery.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/exclusive-relate-to-launch-uks-first-divorce-odr-system
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice Workshop 2 -08/03/16 - The neutral review by a lawyer of agreements reached using the Relate Rechtwijzer tool 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact A discussion between Relate, Law Society, Resolution and attended by policy makers and arbitrators about the proposed neutral review by a lawyer of agreements reached using the Relate Rechtwijzer online family mediation tool. Best practice and the required reforms (if any) of professional conduct rules for lawyers to facilitate the neutral review were debated.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/exclusive-relate-to-launch-uks-first-divorce-odr-system
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice Workshop 3 -10/06/16 - Domestic violence screening and high conflict in online Dispute Resolution 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact A discussion between academics and third sector organisations and some policy makers and practitioners on how to effectively screen for domestic violence and high conflict where couples are attempting mediation and the particular issues where online mediation is being offered as intended by the Relate Rechtwijzer tool.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice Workshop 4 - 01/09/16- The voice of the child in online Dispute Resolution 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact This was an interactive workshop with members of the Family Justice Young People's Board (aged 11-21) who represented views of those children who had experience of parental separation and how digital information for children and a greater voice in the online and offline process of mediation could be achieved. Policy makers, Cafcass (Children and Families Courts Advisory Support Service), practitioners, Family Mediation Council, Relate and One Plus One also attended with members of the Mapping Paths to Family Justice academic team to discuss these new and difficult issues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Creating Paths to Family Justice Workshop 5 -09/11/16 - Effective signposting of appropriate online information for separating couples 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact This discussed plans for the Ministry of Justice's 'Out of Court Pathway' for family dispute resolution and how best to ensure that key information around the need for and tools to help achieve practical and emotional readiness were signposted effectively to separating couples.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description DV Screening Video Scoping Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Two workshops to scope a video aimed at best practice in screening for domestic violence and coercive control relationships before mediation. At the first workshop on the 3/11/17, the findings from the Mapping study were presented and discussed with our wider audience. The academic team then wrote a draft narrative based on the discussion for a video aimed at mediator training and then a second shorter video aimed at separating parties considering mediation. It was agreed by all participants that such videos were a valuable resource and that funding should be sought to produce the video materials which would complement the already successful Considering Mediation? video which the group had previously developed and launched.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017,2018
 
Description DV Screening Video Showcasing and Feedback Workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Final workshop to showcase two videos aimed at best practice in screening for domestic violence and coercive control relationships before mediation. The first video ('Screening Appropriately?') is aimed at mediation practitioner training and the second ('Mediating Safely') is aimed at separating parties considering mediation.Both videos drew on the stories, voiced by actors, of individuals interviewed in the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project. Feedback from the partnership of policy makers, practitioners and third sector organisations was incorporated into the final versions of the videos. In addition the attendees agreed that some 'talking heads' of the mediation experiences of individuals featured in the 'Mediating Safely' would be useful and these have now been produced as 'Is mediation for me?' The public facing videos are available on YouTube and on the Creating Paths to Family Justice website. The Ministry of Justice has indicated that they will be linking to 'Kim's story'- the main story featured in 'Is mediation for me?'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description DV Screening Video Showcasing at Mediation Annual Update Conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The afternoon of this annual update day held in London and organised by Neil Robinson, was given over to showcasing the two videos 'Screening Appropriately' (aimed at practitioner training) and 'Mediating Safely' (aimed at individuals considering mediation) leading to a discussion of how the experiences of individuals interviewed as part of the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project should impact the training of mediators, particularly around screening for domestic violence and coercive control to ensure best practice in every cases.The attendees requested links to the videos to use in their training and practice.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Evidence given to House of Commons Justice Committee 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Barlow and Ewing submitted written evidence to the House of Commons Justice Committee on 02/11/20 and Barlow was invited to give further evidence at a Committee roundtable event on The future of legal aid on the 14/12/2021. She drew on the Mapping findings about experiences of difficulties of those separating to access legal advice, their lack of awareness of family mediation and inability to proceed with it where their partner refused to cooperate and their confusion with the vast array of legal information on the internet which they found difficult to navigate and were unsure what to trust.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Invited Presentation to Family Mediators Association Annual Conference, London - 'Towards a Positive Future for Mediation' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation provoked discussion around best practice and screening for emotional readiness, mental health and domestic violence prior to family mediation.

I was asked to allow my slides to be posted on the FMA website which I agreed to.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.thefma.co.uk/Annual_Conference
 
Description Invited Presentation to London Resolution family law practitioners (solicitors, collaborative lawyers and mediators) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation of research findings with interactive discussion of how to move towards best practice in mediation and collaborative law.

My presentation was reported on by one solicitor in the Solicitors' Journal and I was asked to present again at the London Family Mediation Group in March 2015.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/litigation/adr/path-family-justice
 
Description Invited presentation to Law Society Family Law Committee on need for emotional and practical readiness to mediate including our Considering Mediation? Video 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The Creating Paths to Family Justice academics were invited to present our work on the need for emotional and practical readiness to the Law Society for England and Wales' Family Law Committee. This body trains mediators and lawyers and is affiliated to the Family Mediation Council. One member also taught mediation to undergraduates at a London university and asked to be able to use the video for his module next year. The Law Society are discussing the use of the video in training.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Invited presentation-\'Lessons from Family ADR Research in England & Wales\' to international audience at OECD workshop on \'Trust in Justice Institutions\', Paris, France 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The PI was invited by OECD to participate in and present on the project research findings at a meeting held on 12 November 2014, at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, on the theme 'Fostering Inclusive Growth and Trust in Justice Institutions: Access, Performance and Alternatives'. Delegates from the Ministries of Justice all over the world discussed alternative dispute resolution. The presentation 'Lessons from Family ADR Research in England & Wales' prompted questions around the client and practitioner experience of different forms of out of court family dispute resolution.

It was stated that it was likely that this work would be progressed in further workshops to take different aspects forward and the PI was likely to be contacted about this in the future.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.slideshare.net/OECD-GOV/tag/justice
 
Description January 2021 - Webinar hosted by ThoughtLeaders4 on the Report of the Family Solutions Group 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Approximately 100 family law solicitors, barristers and mediators working with high net worth clients attended a webinar on the Report of the Family Solutions Group hosted by ThoughtLeaders4. Four members of the Family Solutions Group, included Ewing, then outlined the key recommendations of the Report, which drew heavily on the Mapping Findings. The event was followed by a Q and A session which invited much discussion and debate.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Mapping Paths to Family Justice - some preliminary findings - Presentation at Resolution (First for Family Law) Dispute Resolution Practitioners Conference, Nottingham University in Le Cafe Session. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Around 25 practitioners came to the table in the Le Café session and discussed the findings of our national study and how they could potentially participate or assist in the next phase. The presentation reports on the preliminary findings of the first phase of this study, a nationally representative omnibus survey examining awareness and experience of three major forms of out of court family dispute resolution (FDR)- mediation, collaborative law and solicitor negotiation. Whilst mediation is the FDR of which most people are aware, it has the lowest satisfaction rate for both process and outcome as judged by those who had experienced family breakdown between 1996-2011. Users were far more positive about process and outcomes for the partisan options of solicitor negotiation and collaborative law. A gender dimension to the findings was noted and will be explored in more depth in phase two of the study. The PI also participated in workshops on domestic violence screening in mediation, discussing best and poor practice that was emerging from Phase 2 of the project.

The presentation was written up for a Review Mailing to all Resolution members. The PI was asked to join Linked In Groups of mediators and other Family Practitioners to debate these issues. It led to participant recruitment for Phase 2 practitioner and client interviews and Phase 3 recording of mediation and co-mediation sessions for the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.resolution.org.uk/trainingandevents/events/?e_id=4B1DDFD5-C2D6-4D2B-A985-C647E613278F
 
Description Mapping Paths to Family Justice - some preliminary findings- Resolution (First for Family Law) Collaborative Practitioner Conference (Family Lawyer Practitioners) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact A paper given to the Collaborative Practitioners' Conference, Winchester, 2012 which 80 practitioners attended from around the South and South West of England, reporting on the findings of the two national surveys looking at awareness and experience of three major forms of out of court family dispute resolution - mediation, collaborative law and solicitor negotiation - engaged practitioners in discussing and thinking how they conducted collaborative law sessions and solicitor negotiation for divorcing/separating couples, given the findings of our national surveys.

Practitioners volunteered to participate in phase 2 of our research and agreed to advertise our project to their clients who had participated in collaborative law sessions or solicitor negotiation processes in order to resolve their family law disputes without going to court.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
URL http://www.collaborativefamilylawyers.co.uk/collaborative-divorce-news/review-of-the-winchester-coll...
 
Description Member of the Private Law Working Group 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Rosemary Hunter was appointed as a member of the Private law Working Group chaired by Mr justice Cobb. The Working Group's interim report is dated June 2019.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Member of the Private Law Working Group's 'Family Solutions Sub-group' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact In February 2020, Mr Justice Cobb set up a Private Law Working Group 'Family Solutions Sub Group' with the purpose of looking at the pre-court space to consider how to support parents to address their dispute collaboratively and make sustainable child arrangements. Dr Jan Ewing, Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, has been appointed as a member of the sub group.

The sub group was only convened in February 2020 so it is too early to report impact. However the sub group will make recommendations to the Private Law Working Group for inclusion in the final PLWG report.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Ministry of Justice: Participation at a further Separating Families network meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Meeting of policy-makers, members of the legal and mediation professions and third sector organisations regarding the 'Separating Families' campaign and making important recommendations for changes to an agreed narrative for separating families to be adopted by key stakeholders relating to information for victims of domestic abuse which were adopted
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Ministry of Justice: Separating Families network meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Meeting of policy-makers, members of the legal and mediation professions and third sector organisations regarding the 'Separating Families' campaign, helping to frame the campaign material.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description November 2019- Presentation on experiences of family mediation in the UK at the University Centre for Family Studies and Research, Milan, Italy. 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Seminar attended by community and family mediators and academics with an interest in how family mediation can prepare parents for better co-parenting and better communication after separation. The Italian researchers expressed an interest in collaborating in future projects.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Out of Court Family Dispute Resolution: Justice by Agreement?- Presentation to Family Justice Council Biennial Conference, London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Over 100 judges, legal practitioners and policy makers attended a conference where academics and practitioners were invited to consider the changing Family Justice Landscape under the theme 'Family Justice Redefined'.
Drawing on the preliminary findings of the three year ESRC-funded Mapping Paths to Family Justice research project, this paper will consider the perceived strengths and weaknesses of three forms of out of court family dispute resolution - solicitor negotiation, mediation and collaborative law - as indicated by parties and practitioners. It will go on to consider how far traditional or changing notions of justice are embodied within these different processes. In particular, is the delegated empowerment to reach agreement out of court - now overtly encouraged by recent reforms - displacing the need for such disputes to be negotiated in the shadow of the law? What might this mean longer term for the concept of justice in family matters? The paper will argue that whilst out of court dispute resolution can often be beneficial, more attention needs to be placed on gender and power issues alongside assuring the quality of practitioner. In addition, the presentation of real and appropriate choice of dispute resolution process to parties is critical to its likely success or failure.

My paper was requested for inclusion in a Special Issue of the Family Law Journal aimed and Family Practitioners and Policy Makers. We were asked to add our findings to the Research Hub of the Ministry of Justice. The PI was asked to Join the Government Taskforce on Family Mediation which later drew on this research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/family-justice-council-interdisciplinary-conference?#.VC...
 
Description Paper - 'CLIENTS' VIEWS OF FAMILY DISPUTE RESOLUTION' - presented at Research Committee on Sociology of Law Biennial Conference, Toulouse, France 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact The authors are currently engaged in an ESRC-funded project, 'Mapping Paths to Family Justice', which is investigating the comparative merits of three forms of out-of-court family dispute resolution: solicitor negotiations, mediation and collaborative law. The first phase of the project involved a national survey designed to gauge levels of awareness of the three forms of dispute resolution among the general public. Those who had experienced separation or divorce since 1996 were also asked about their use of and satisfaction with these processes. The survey indicated that while mediation is the most widely recognised of the three processes, it is less likely to be taken up when offered to divorcing or separating parties than solicitor-led forms of dispute resolution. Among those who did take up one or more of these dispute resolution options, levels of satisfaction were also higher for solicitor-led processes than for mediation. The second phase of the study, involving semi-structured interviews with parties who have used one or more out-of-court dispute resolution processes, puts flesh on the bones of the survey's statistical findings. In this paper we will present our initial qualitative data on clients' comparative satisfaction with mediation and solicitor-led negotiations to develop an understanding of the benefits and disadvantages, from the client's perspective, of each form of family dispute resolution.

The international perspective on out of court dispute resolution and on-going international trends and academic research on these issues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://2013rcslcongress.sciencespo-toulouse.fr/IMG/pdf/RCSL_Working_Group_-_Comparative_Studies_of_L...
 
Description Paper - 'Dispute resolution, children's voices and domestic violence' - presented as part of 'Critical Conversations: Issues in Health and Family Law' seminar, Law School, Queen Mary University of London 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Rosemary Hunter was invited to speak at this seminar to share recent research with colleagues and visiting scholars. The paper drew upon data from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project to demonstrate the ways in which out-of-court dispute resolution tends to exclude both children's voices and experiences of domestic violence. There was a good discussion of both policy and methodological issues

The specialist adviser to the parliamentary joint committee on human rights' inquiry into violence against women and girls, who also spoke at the seminar, requested a copy of the Mapping Paths to Justice briefing paper to inform the committee's inquiry in relation to mediation and domestic violence.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Paper - 'Legal Aid Lawyers and Family Mediation' - presented by Rosemary Hunter to International Legal Aid Group conference, The Hague, The Netherlands. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The presentation was well-received and prompted comparative discussion of how alternative dispute resolution is being used to replace traditional family justice in times of austerity.

Links were made with academic and professional colleagues, including Dutch policy makers who are planning different ADR initiatives.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.internationallegalaidgroup.org/images/publications/thehague2013/ILAG_Conference_2013_-_Fi...
 
Description Paper - 'Online Family Mediation: Progress or Panacea?' presented by Anne Barlow to the SLSA Annual Conference, Family Law and Policy Stream, University of Lancaster 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Drawing on impact work undertaken with Relate, One Plus One, MoJ, DWP, Family Mediation Council, Resolution and Cafcass in the Creating Paths to Family Justice project, this paper considered the extent to which the development of online tools through which divorcing couples can agree issues around their divorce or mediate such as the proposed Relate Rechtwijzer platform can be viewed as progress for post-LASPO family justice or rather a panacea where notions of justice are shifted away from the shadow of the law.

This prompted a discussion about the role and potential of digital tools to fill the access to justice gap post-LASPO.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
URL http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-university/content-assets/documents/law/SLSA2016-Programm...
 
Description Paper - 'The role and construction of 'the other side' in family dispute resolution' - presented to SLSA conference Family Law and Policy Stream, University of Warwick 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Prompted an interesting discussion on the 'need' for family disputes to be conceptualised adversarially.

This was a work in progress paper and led to consideration of other disciplinary literatures on conflict resolution and a comparative discussion of practices elsewhere.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/events/conferences/slsa/streams/flap/
 
Description Paper -'Paths to justice in divorce cases in England and Wales' - presented to International Workshop on Delivering Family Justice in Late Modern Society, Onati, Spain 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Rosemary Hunter was invited to contribute to this international comparative workshop. The paper set out findings of the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project in relation to pathways taken by parties to resolve their disputes, and the suitability of different kinds of parties and cases for different forms of family dispute resolution. This prompted a comparative discussion.

The paper contributed to comparative discussion of the delivery of family justice under conditions of austerity.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Paper- 'Children's voices: Centre-stage or side-lined in out of court dispute resolution in England and Wales? - presented by Jan Ewing to SLSA conference Children's Rights Stream, University of Warwick 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact A discussion of the tension between permitting children to participate in family justice processes as a right and the desire to avoid damaging their relationship with either parent post-separation. The merits of child inclusive versus child focused mediation were debated.

There was a good discussion about practices in other jurisdictions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/events/conferences/slsa/streams/cr/
 
Description Plenary Presentation to Kent Family Justice Board Annual Conference - 'Adversarial mythologies: policy assumptions and research evidence in family law - revisited' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact As a member of the Kent Family Justice Board, Rosemary Hunter was invited to address the Board's annual conference on recent research in family law relating to current practice issues. The paper drew upon data from the Mapping Paths to Family Justice project to debunk a number of myths about adversarialism in private family law practice.

Lawyers and judges were interested in the interrelationships identified between legal advice, mediation and court proceedings.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Presentation - 'Following Rechtwijzer: adventures in web-land' - paper presented to the International Legal Aid Group conference, Edinburgh 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact The paper reported to an international audience of legal aid practitioners, policy-makers and academics on the project team's work around emotional readiness being undertaken with One Plus One, with particular reference to the use of interactive, internet-based diagnostic and information tools in an era when people with family disputes no longer have relatively ready access to a solicitor.

There was great interest in the issue of emotional readiness as a factor which must be considered as a prelude to entering any form of dispute resolution, yet which has often been ignored or underestimated in a range of practical contexts, including the provision of online services.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://ilagnet.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=171&Itemid=280
 
Description Presentation and Poster at British Psychological Society conference QUALITATIVE METHODS IN PSYCHOLOGY SECTION (QMiP), Huddersfield, UK 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Shared and developed thinking around methodology based on the experiences of analysis of project recorded sessions. This strengthened links with other qualitative researchers and disseminated project findings.

This improved our approach to analysis of our recorded sessions data. It also led to further methodological developments e.g. Invited to host experimental Narrative Workshop by Ann Phoenix of NOVELLA (Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Approaches). See further www.novella.ac.uk.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
URL http://www.bps.org.uk/qmip2013
 
Description Presentation and discussion of research and best practice with London Family Mediators 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Presentation followed by interactive discussion around what research indicated is best practice in family mediation as seen from client perspective.

Some mediators indicated that they would adopt new practices to ensure clients were both emotionally ready and to improve the screening for power imbalances where people are often reluctant to disclose.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.citypulse.io/event/3000158/family-education/wedlake-bell-llp/london-family-mediation-grou...
 
Description Presentation at conference on children's health and custody conflicts in alternative dispute resolution processes, Lund, Sweden 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Anne Barlow and Rosemary Hunter were invited to present to a mixed interdisciplinary academic and practitioner audience looking at children's health and custody disputes.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2018
 
Description Presentation to an International Academic Workshop on Law, Discretion, Gender and Justice in Out-of-Court Financial Settlements 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact An international academic workshop hosted by the Universities of Cambridge and Melbourne,for academics engaging students and with policy makers on Family Law Reform relating to Financial Dispute Resolution on Divorce and separation. The paper was titled 'Law, Discretion, Gender and Justice in Out-of-Court Financial Settlements'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
 
Description Presentation to the Childrens Rights Stream of the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, April 2017, University of Newcastle 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A presentation was given to a mixed audience including academics, PGRs and some local local practitioners at the Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, April 2017, University of Newcastle by Dr Jan Ewing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2017
URL https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/9fec2a_cbcf6c7c5b574eab864544371b6dc0f6.pdf
 
Description Presentations at Centre for Law and Social Justice University of Leeds 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Third sector organisations
Results and Impact Two papers were presented by Anne Barlow and Rosemary Hunter in October 2015 to a mixed audience of academics, postgraduate students, the Legal Action Group and some practitioners based on the project findings and their implications for understanding the present and future needs of those involved in family law disputes where legal aid is largely only available for mediation. The papers were
Rosemary Hunter (QMUL) What Happened to Mediation After LASPO?
Anne Barlow (University of Exeter) What Should Happen to Mediation After LASPO?
A panel debate followed.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.law.leeds.ac.uk/events/2015/the-post-laspo-landscape-challenges-for-family-law
 
Description Resolution Annual Dispute Resolution Conference, October 2014, Nottingham 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I gave an invited Keynote address on the findings of our project entitled 'Mapping Paths to Family Justice - Challenges and Choices to an audience which included solicitors, mediators, collaborative lawyers from the UK and Canada. This drew on our findings around the need to introduce a more robust and neutral triage system as well as combine dispute resolution with other expert assistance, especially where one of the parties was not emotionally ready. In break out sessions which discussed some of the ideas in my address, the findings were discussed and the possibilities of moving towards more consistent best practice were discussed with UK and Canadian practitioners.
A number of the audience tweeted about my presentation and I increased my followers on Twitter among the practitioner community.


After my presentation, I was approached by a practitioner member of the Civil Justice Council to indicate whether we could do similar research around civil mediation and collaborative law. A Canadian practitioner tweeted that this research needed to be replicated in Canada as there is so little research evaluating the client experience of out of court dispute resolution.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL http://www.resolution.org.uk/site_content_files/files/booking_form_and_flyer_combined.pdf
 
Description Staff seminar on 'The neoliberal transformation of family justice and the law of unintended consequences'' presented by Rosemary Hunter to the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford, November 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A paper entitled 'The neoliberal transformation of family justice and the law of unintended consequences' was presented by Rosemary Hunter in November 2016 to an audience of academics and postgraduate students. The paper outlines the neoliberal push for parties 'to take responsibility for the consequences of their relationship breakdown' by withdrawing legal aid for most family law cases, anticipating that those who were unable to negotiate direct would turn to mediation rather than litigate. The paper outlines the unintended consequence of the removal of solicitors as gatekeepers to mediation; the dramatic fall in mediation and corresponding increase in litigants in person.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description Staff seminar on 'The neoliberal transformation of family justice and the law of unintended consequences'' presented by Rosemary Hunter to the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford, November 2016 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact A paper entitled 'The neoliberal transformation of family justice and the law of unintended consequences' was presented by Rosemary Hunter in November 2016 to an audience of academics and postgraduate students. The paper outlines the neoliberal push for parties 'to take responsibility for the consequences of their relationship breakdown' by withdrawing legal aid for most family law cases, anticipating that those who were unable to negotiate direct would turn to mediation rather than litigate. The paper outlines the unintended consequence of the removal of solicitors as gatekeepers to mediation; the dramatic fall in mediation and corresponding increase in litigants in person.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2016
 
Description The end of voluntary mediation? Paper presented to Socio-Legal Studies Association, York University 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other academic audiences (collaborators, peers etc.)
Results and Impact Academic paper presented to an international audience of 30+. This paper draws on interview data from our ESRC-funded 'Mapping Paths to Family Justice' project. The project as a whole aims to investigate and compare three forms of out-of-court family dispute resolution: solicitor negotiations, mediation and collaborative law. In interviews with parties who have experienced one or more of these forms of dispute resolution, important findings are emerging relating to negative as well as positive aspects of the user experience within all three processes. One theme that has emerged prominently is that entry into mediation appears in many cases to have been far from voluntary. Interviewees have reported that if they are eligible for legal aid, solicitors will not offer the option of solicitor negotiations but simply advise them to attend mediation; that they have been told that they must go to mediation (not simply attend a MIAM) before commencing court proceedings; and that screening for suitability for mediation is perfunctory, with parties not seen separately or asked about any issues of violence in the relationship. The paper documents these experiences and the outcomes of mediation in these cases, and considers the possible implications of these findings in a post-LASPO world.

International comparisons were made by members of the audience which fed into thinking around policy issues.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Webinar - Hosted by the Designated Family Judges of Beds, Bucks and Herts on the Family Solutions Group's Report, "What About Me?" Reframing Support for Families Following Parental Separation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Over 100 family lawyers, mediators, judges and academics attended a webinar hosted by the Designated Family Judges of Beds, Bucks and Herts on the recommendations of Family Solutions Group's Report. Three members of the Family Solutions Group, included Ewing, outlined the key recommendations of the Report, which drew heavily on the Mapping Findings. The event was followed by a Q and A session which invited much discussion and debate and requests that similar events be hosted by Designated Family Judges in other areas, including South Wales, Manchester and the North East.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Webinar - Launch of the Family Solutions Group's Report, "What About Me?" Reframing Support for Families Following Parental Separation 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Approximately 500 family lawyers, mediators, policy makers, judges and academics attended the launch event of the Report of the Family Solutions Group, introduced by the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane and the Chair of the Private Law Working Group, Mr Justice Cobb. Four members of the Family Solutions Group, included Ewing, then outlined the key recommendations of the Report, which drew heavily on the Mapping Findings. The event was followed by a Q and A session which invited much discussion and debate.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021