Family Mediation Week 2025 participation up by a fifth on last year
Family mediators are redoubling efforts to raise the profile of the benefits of their profession, as new figures highlight increased participation in January’s Family Mediation Week.
The aggregated figure of 3,770 participants in this year’s series of 17 webinars represents a 19 per cent rise on 2024’s corresponding event, despite there being fewer webinars this year.
In the last week of January 2025, members of the public, mediators, lawyers, Cafcass officers, social workers, local authority officers and others working with families took part in the free webinars, which were organised by the Family Mediation Council (FMC). They were recorded and are now freely available to watch here: https://www.familymediationcouncil.org.uk/fmw/all-events/
Key themes covered include:
- Child-inclusive mediation
- How mediation can be undertaken in cases where there has been domestic abuse
- Mediation research findings
- Hybrid mediation
- The benefits of MIAMs
- Kinship care and mediation
- Digital solutions to improve experiences of separation
- Narcissism and mediation
- Mediation in to arbitration
The live events attracted a total of 2,370 people, with a further 1,400 watching the recordings to date.
Stephen Burke, Chair of the FMC, said: “We were delighted with the impressively high level of engagement in this year’s Family Mediation Week. What is important now is taking forward the energy from the week to help ensure that as many separating families as possible experience the many benefits of mediation.
“So we are accelerating our work with mediators and the government to further raise the profile of family mediation as a quicker, cheaper and less stressful way to make post-separation arrangements.
“This includes further pressing the case to Ministers for an overdue increase in payment rates to mediators for legally aid mediation. Legal aid rates for family mediation have not increased for more than 20 years, which means mediators cannot meet the rising costs of providing a service to families who need it.”
Family Mediation Week is an annual event that raises awareness of the benefits of family mediation, a process that can help ex-partners agree what works for them, without the additional stress, cost and time of a courtroom conflict. Legal Aid and Family Mediation Vouchers remain available to help fund the cost of family mediation.
The corresponding aggregated participation figure for 20 webinars held in Family Mediation Week 2024 was 3,163.
