Parenting & Children
Decide it between you, before a stranger decides it for you.
Family dispute resolution for parenting matters — living arrangements, schooling, health and travel — conducted by a registered practitioner and documented so it holds.
If you intend to apply for a parenting order, a section 60I certificate from a registered practitioner is a precondition to filing. We issue them.
What's covered
Six things that get settled.
Parenting disputes almost never turn out to be about the headline issue. They turn out to be about the detail nobody wrote down.
- 01
Living arrangements
Where the children live, the pattern across the fortnight, and how school terms, holidays and public holidays are handled. Specific dates, not "as agreed between the parties".
- 02
Handover
Time, place, who does the driving, who waits where, and what happens when someone is late. More post-mediation conflict starts at handover than anywhere else.
- 03
Decisions and consultation
Which decisions are made jointly — schooling, elective medical treatment, religion, changing a surname — and which each parent simply makes during their own time.
- 04
Communication
How the two of you communicate, through which channel, and how quickly a reply is reasonable. Children are not messengers, and an agreement can say so in terms.
- 05
Travel and relocation
Passports, interstate and overseas travel, consent and notice periods. The clause most often left out, and the one that causes the most trouble when it is.
- 06
Review and change
What happens when a child starts school, starts high school, or a parent repartners or moves. An arrangement with no review mechanism is an arrangement with a built-in dispute.
The sequence
From first call to signed plan.
The pre-meetings are not a formality. They are where the practitioner establishes that mediation is safe and appropriate, and where most of the preparation actually happens.
- 01 20 min
First call
No charge. What the dispute is, who is involved, whether anything makes mediation unsafe, and whether you need a certificate.
- 02 1 hr each
Pre-meetings
Each parent, separately and confidentially. Preparation, document list, and a frank assessment of what a court would and would not do with this matter.
- 03 3–7 hrs
Joint session
One room, or shuttled between two where that is safer. Issues, then options, then negotiation — in that order, because reversing it is what makes mediations fail.
- 04 1–2 weeks
Documenting
A parenting plan under s63C, or instructions to draft consent orders. A certificate is issued where one is needed, whatever the outcome.
What it costs
Fixed fees, agreed before you book.
Mediation is quoted as a fixed fee for the whole process, not billed by the hour. You know the number before you commit, and it does not move.
- First call
- Twenty minutes to establish whether mediation suits your matter at all. No obligation to book anything afterwards.
- No charge
- Intake & pre-meeting
- Per party, held separately and confidentially, and scheduled around both diaries once a joint session is confirmed. Charged on its own so that if either of you decides not to continue, there is no cost for a joint session that was never going to work.
- $385
- Parenting-only session
- Three hours, children’s matters only, no lawyers attending. Includes both pre-meetings and reading time.
- $2,200
- Half-day mediation
- Four hours. Suits a focused dispute, or parenting and property together where the asset pool is straightforward.
- $2,650
- Full-day mediation
- Seven hours. The usual choice where lawyers attend, where a business or trust is involved, or where you want everything resolved in one sitting.
- $4,950
- Section 60I certificate
- Issued where required, under whichever of the five subsections applies to what actually happened.
- Included
- Consent orders
- Drafting an Application for Consent Orders and minute of order once agreement is reached. Optional.
- Quoted
All figures include GST and cover the practitioner’s reading time and both pre-meetings. Fees are shared equally between the parties unless you agree otherwise, and are payable before the joint session. Room hire is paid to the venue and is separate — currently $460 to $500 for the day, depending which of the three you choose, and nothing at all if the session runs online. Everything is confirmed in writing in your costs agreement before anything is booked.
When it does not apply
Mediation is not always the right instrument.
A practitioner who takes every matter that walks in is not assessing suitability. These are the circumstances in which we will tell you to go elsewhere, or straight to court.
-
Family violence
Section 60I(9)
Where there has been family violence or a risk of it, a certificate is not required before filing and mediation may be inappropriate. Where it can proceed safely, it proceeds shuttled or online — never in one room.
-
Risk to a child
Section 60I(9)
Where there are reasonable grounds to believe a child has been abused or is at risk, the exception applies and the matter belongs before the court. We will say so at intake, not after taking a fee.
-
Urgency
Section 60I(9)
Recovery of a child, an imminent unlawful relocation or a passport about to be used are not mediation problems. They are injunction problems, and delay is the damage.
-
Incapacity
Section 60I(9)
Where a party cannot effectively participate — through disability, distance or incapacity — the exception applies. Participation means more than being physically present.
-
A genuine deadlock
Realism
Occasionally one party simply needs a decision imposed, usually because a point of principle is involved that no compromise reaches. Mediation will not manufacture agreement that is not there.
-
Already in court
Still useful
Being in proceedings does not close mediation off. Matters settle at mediation after filing all the time, and the court will often order dispute resolution before it lists a hearing.
Questions
What people ask before they book.
What exactly is a section 60I certificate?
Under s60I(7) of the Family Law Act you generally cannot apply for a parenting order unless you file a certificate from a registered family dispute resolution practitioner. Section 60I(8) sets out five kinds: the other party refused or failed to attend; the practitioner assessed the matter as unsuitable; both attended and made a genuine effort; both attended but one did not make a genuine effort; or mediation started and the practitioner decided it was inappropriate to continue. The certificate records what happened — it is not a finding against anyone.
How long is a certificate valid for?
An application for a parenting order must be filed within 12 months of the date the certificate was issued. Leave it longer and you will need to return to dispute resolution before you can file.
Can I be made to attend mediation?
Mediation itself is voluntary — nobody can be compelled to agree to anything. But the practical position is firmer than that sounds: without a certificate you generally cannot file for a parenting order, and the court can order parties into dispute resolution before it will list a matter for hearing. Refusing to attend also produces a certificate recording that refusal, which the court sees.
Is what I say in mediation confidential?
Yes, and in two separate ways. Section 10H makes communications in family dispute resolution confidential, so the practitioner cannot disclose them. Section 10J makes them inadmissible in court. Both have narrow exceptions — the most important being a serious threat to someone’s life or health, or an admission or disclosure indicating a child has been abused or is at risk. Those must be disclosed, and we tell you that at intake rather than afterwards.
How long does it take?
Intake and both pre-meetings usually take two to three weeks to arrange around everyone’s availability. The joint session is a single day, or a half day. Simple parenting matters resolve in one session; where there is a large asset pool or valuations are in dispute, a second session is sometimes needed. From first call to signed plan is commonly four to six weeks, against a year or more for a defended hearing.
Is a parenting plan enforceable?
Not in the way a court order is. A parenting plan under s63C is a written, dated and signed agreement, and a court must consider the most recent one when making a parenting order — but you cannot bring a contravention application on it. If you want it enforceable, the agreement goes into consent orders, which we can draft from the mediated outcome. Many parents deliberately start with a plan precisely because it can be changed without going back to court.
Do the children attend?
Not in the room, no. Where it would help, a child’s views can be gathered by a suitably qualified child consultant and brought into the mediation — child-inclusive practice. That is a separate engagement and a separate cost, and it is a decision both parents have to make together.
What if we have already started court proceedings?
Mediation is still available and still worth doing. A large share of filed matters settle at mediation rather than at a hearing, and the court will frequently order the parties into dispute resolution before it lists anything. Settling after filing is later and more expensive than settling before, but it is a great deal cheaper than a trial.
Book the first call. It costs nothing and it is twenty minutes.
We will tell you whether mediation suits your matter, what a certificate would mean for you, and what the whole thing would cost — before you commit to any of it.
Property and financial mediation