Elder & Adult Mediation
Finding respectful solutions through elder and adult mediation.
What is elder mediation?
Elder mediation helps families talk through decisions affecting an older relative, such as where they live, their care and safety, their finances, and planning for the end of life. The older person’s wishes, independence and right to make their own decisions are respected throughout.
Adult mediation helps adults in the same family, such as brothers and sisters, or parents and grown-up children, sort out problems and disputes between them.
What makes Start different?
We are family mediators, civil mediators and elder mediators, and our elder mediation follows the model developed by Elder Decisions in the United States. Where it would help, we can invite medical and nursing specialists, or independent social workers, to give specialist information. Family members don’t need to live near each other: meetings can take place at our meeting rooms in Ipswich or online by Zoom.
Common problems and disputes we help with
- Family discussions about safety, finances and other daily needs.
- Appointing a Power of Attorney.
- Living arrangements.
- Planning ahead before problems become crises.
- Inheritance, estates and trusts.
- Problems and disputes over wills.
To get started, fill in our online form.
Frequently asked questions
Some of the questions people ask us most often about elder and adult mediation.
What are elder mediation and adult mediation?
Elder mediation helps families talk through decisions affecting an older relative, such as where they live, their care and safety, their finances, appointing someone under a lasting power of attorney, and planning for the end of life. The older person will usually be invited to take part, provided they want to and have the mental capacity to do so. Their wishes and independence are respected throughout.
Where it would help, we can invite medical and nursing specialists, or independent social workers, to give specialist information. This helps everyone involved understand the situation from the same starting point.
Adult mediation helps adults in the same family, such as brothers and sisters, or parents and grown-up children, sort out problems and disputes between them.
We invite family members to come to us before a problem becomes a dispute, and before a dispute becomes a crisis. Family members don’t need to live near each other: meetings can take place in person at our meeting rooms in Ipswich, or online by Zoom.
Can you help with problems and disputes over wills and inheritance?
Yes. We are family mediators, civil mediators and elder mediators, and all three are relevant to problems and disputes like these, which usually involve family members.
Like so many other problems and disputes, those over wills and inheritance are more often about poor communication than about the law. Mediation gives people who are sometimes deeply hurt the opportunity to be heard by close family members they may have fallen out with. Getting people talking, and listening to each other, is the key to sorting out most of these problems. If there were a clear answer in law, most people wouldn’t need mediators or lawyers at all.
We usually meet for around three hours at a time. Some cases are resolved in one or two meetings; others take longer. We don’t book a whole day, because a fixed time limit puts people under pressure and tends to shape the whole process.
You don’t need lawyers to take part. They can be there if we all agree they are needed and would be of value, but many people prefer to avoid the expense.
Can you help with problems during probate?
Yes. Problems often arise while an estate is being sorted out after someone dies: between executors, or between executors and the people who are due to inherit. They might be about delays, how a house or other property is valued or sold, who receives personal belongings, or how the estate is being managed.
Mediation gives executors and beneficiaries the chance to talk these through and agree a way forward, without the cost and delay of going to court. Often it isn’t the money that is hardest to agree, but the family relationships, and the belongings that carry memories.
Family members don’t need to live near each other: meetings can take place in person at our meeting rooms in Ipswich, or online by Zoom. You don’t need lawyers to take part, though they can be there if we all agree they are needed and would be of value.
Do we have to be in the same room?
Typically, yes. Mediation works best when you can talk to each other directly, with a mediator there to help. Meeting together is how we normally work.
For people who live locally, meetings usually take place in person at our meeting rooms in Ipswich. Where people live some distance apart, or one of you lives abroad, we meet online by Zoom, with everyone on screen together. We decide which is more suitable.
If you are worried about being in the same room as the other person, please tell us at your Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM). We take that seriously, and it is one of the things we consider when deciding whether mediation is suitable.
Where it is essential for the wellbeing or safety of any participant, there are other ways of working. Meeting online by Zoom can be an alternative for some people. On Zoom, we can also arrange for you to hear each other without seeing each other, or for each of you to be in a separate online room, seeing and hearing only the mediator.
Mediation can also take place through private meetings in separate rooms, with each of you talking separately with the mediator, in person or online. But mediation through private meetings is likely to take more meetings than mediation where participants can talk to each other directly.
Can mediation take place online?
Yes. We have mediated online since 2012, and Stephen Anderson was the first family mediator in the UK to offer online mediation routinely. Online meetings take place by Zoom, with everyone on screen together.
Online mediation can suit people who live in different parts of the country or abroad, who find it hard to travel, or who need to fit meetings around caring for children or their working hours. We decide with you whether meetings take place in person at our meeting rooms in Ipswich, or online.
For mediation, you need a laptop, desktop computer or tablet with a camera, propped up rather than handheld. A phone is fine for a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM). Our guide to mediating online explains how to prepare.