The National Audit Office (NAO) report confirms what CWFM and all professionally trained mediators have known for some time - MEDIATION is worth trying and it can WORK.

The report suggests that mediation provides a less adversarial route than the courts for many families involved in a breakdown and results in savings in legal aid of over 10 million pounds a year. We would suggest that clients who are not eligible for legal aid also save substantial legal costs.

The NAO report "Legal aid and mediation for people involved in family breakdown" published today. says that only 20% of families involved in dispute use mediation to resolve the difficulties and a further third are never told about mediation as an alternative to the Court process.

Jenny Lewington, Manager of Coventry & Warwickshire Family Mediation, was invited to participate in a discussion on BBC Coventry & Warwickshire Radio, on 8th February, along with the author of The Divorced Dad's Handbook - Steve Davis; Dr Angharad Rudkin a clinical child psychologist and Rebecca Probert - professor of Law at Warwick University, about the difficulties that absent dads have establishing quality contact with their children after separation and the impact this can have on the children.

Says Jenny "It was a very interesting discussion and great that Steve was so positive about trying mediation before resorting to the Courts. We (the participants) all agreed that parents need to be able to communicate as parents in the best interests of their children, but that they don't need to "like" each other."

We are keen for people to get the information they need when experiencing relationship breakdown, whether they live locally to our service or not.

If you have any information or can recommend other websites that we can provide a link to or books that you have used that would help us do this we would be pleased to hear from you.