If you met online, and are divorcing online, why not mediate online? It makes more sense than trying to sort things out through correspondence.

In April 2013, USA Today reported that, since 2007, 33% of USA citizens who had married had met online. I was blown away by this statistic. It seemed barely feasible, but there it was. And then I read that the UK online dating industry was worth £170m.

Next I learned that, of the roughly 100,000 divorces in England and Wales in 2013, 25% of them were started online. That’s 25,000 people who, barely 12 years previously, would have had no choice but to have gone to a lawyer or bought a DIY divorce book from WHSmith.

With Facebook increasingly mentioned in the media as a place where thoughts of infidelity are stirred, a pattern seems to be developing. We shop, bank and talk online. We arrange holidays, write restaurant reviews and read recipes online. We meet, cheat and divorce online. But on the whole we don’t mediate online. But you can because online mediation is available. I was the first family mediator in the UK to routinely offer online mediation to my clients.

Mediate Online

What is online mediation? It’s like mediating in the usual way except the mediator is in one room, and the participants are in their own individual rooms, and they are all linked by webcams over the Internet. It allows mediation to take place when the those with a problem to solve live live far away from a mediator. It enables mediators to help people who may live some distance apart from each other – maybe in different countries.

It enables a mediator to help where the only non-DIY alternative might be for one person to go to one lawyer; the other person to go to another lawyer; and for the lawyers to then grapple with the problem through correspondence.

You can call me a sceptic, but as a mediator who practised as a solicitor for 19 years, I know that correspondence very rarely works. I cannot remember when I last saw correspondence work effectively and efficiently to solve a problem or end a dispute. Whereas mediation? Well, it’s rare when it isn’t effective and efficient at solving problems and ending disputes.

Online Parenting Planning

Online mediation is particularly suited to helping parents overcome co-parenting problems. Once separated, parents get few opportunities to improve their communication. When the relationship ends acrimoniously, they might not communicate at all. And be under no illusion, there is plenty of  research which shows that this will have a significant effect on children – of any age.

Working together online, with a mediator, provides opportunities to communicate safely and effectively. It gives the time and space necessary to create effective parenting plans. These help avoid future flashpoint and lead to fewer misunderstandings. Children can better adjust to new arrangements.

Whether you consider yourself young or old, if you are looking for help with a problem, if you own a laptop, desktop, tablet, iPad or Smartphone, and you can open an account with Skype, you probably have all the IT skills you need to mediate online.

I am Stephen G Anderson. I am a professional mediator.

Stephen G Anderson, family mediator

stephen@andmediation.com

www.andmediation.com