Strategic Planning for Divorce Mediation

Mediation is a process by which an impartial third person (sometimes more than one person) helps parties to resolve disputes through mutual con-cessions and face-to-face bargaining.... The mediator does not force parties to settle their dispute but tries to convince them that they and their family will benefit from reaching an agreement. The mediator helps the parties under-stand what is happening to them... and encourages the parties to negotiate in good faith and to enter into arrange-ments that will be enforceable in future years.' FOR A SIGNIFICANT portion of adultsand children, marital and family rela-tions are neither straightforward nor stable. In the United States, 12.1 million children, 20 percent of those under the age of 18, are living with only one parent. Further-more, another 5 million children in two-parent homes live with a biological parent and a stepparent. It is estimated that almost half of the marriages undertaken in this country in 1984 will end in divorce. If divorce and remarriage trends continue, by 1990 about 50 percent of all children under 18 will have lived with only one parent for at least several months, and about 25 percent of all children will be living in single-parent homes at any given point in time. In addition, although the numbers are proportionately small, the rate of divorce is increasing rapidly for couples who have been married for 25 years or more. 2 Clearly, the problem of family disruption is widespread. The question of how to minimize the pain of that disruption is one that growing numbers of professionals from legal and mental health disciplines are seeking to answer through the devel-opment of divorce mediation services. Di-vorce mediation is a relatively new mode of intervention, with its theory, underlying psychology, and principles of practice at an early stage of development. Nonethe-less, currently, there are 150 minor dis