What if I Don’t Have Children?
Mediation can still help you. FDR practitioners are highly skilled and trained to assist you in resolving your disputes, whether it be about your children, your property or your finances. They are solution and future focused.
Who Can Provide FDR?
Only an accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner can provide the necessary certificate in terms of the Family Law Act, 1975 so check with your mediator to ensure that they are accredited.
Who Can Attend FDR?
The people having the disagreement. A support person can be present if no-one objects and some mediators allow lawyers to be present.
Are Children Included in FDR?
No, but it can be helpful for your children to see a counsellor or child consultant. This will only be done with your consent.
Are the things you tell your FDR practitioner confidential?
What if FDR doesn’t work?
Mediation can still help you. FDR practitioners are highly skilled and trained to assist you in resolving your disputes, whether it be about your children, your property or your finances. They are solution and future focused.
Who Can Provide FDR?
Only an accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner can provide the necessary certificate in terms of the Family Law Act, 1975 so check with your mediator to ensure that they are accredited.
Who Can Attend FDR?
The people having the disagreement. A support person can be present if no-one objects and some mediators allow lawyers to be present.
Are Children Included in FDR?
No, but it can be helpful for your children to see a counsellor or child consultant. This will only be done with your consent.
Are the things you tell your FDR practitioner confidential?
- Your FDR practitioner is impartial and will not take sides.
- Everything you say in front of them is confidential – except in special circumstances such as to prevent a serious threat to someone’s life or health or to prevent the commission of a crime.
- Anything said in FDR cannot be used in court. However, an FDR practitioner is obliged to report child abuse or if a child is at risk of abuse and this may be used as evidence in certain circumstances.
What if FDR doesn’t work?
- The process of mediation may still assist you and your former partner in learning to communicate better.
- If you can’t reach agreement and still need to go to court regarding the children, you will need a certificate from a registered FDR practitioner to say that you made a genuine effort.
- If you do not attend FDR or do not make a genuine effort, this can affect the timing of your court hearing and it can effect the court’s decisions on court costs. Section 60I of the Family Law Act 1975 (the Act) as amended by the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Act 2006 provides that all persons who have a dispute about children (under Part VII of the Act) must make a genuine effort to resolve that dispute by family dispute resolution before they can litigate.