Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
This concluding chapter summarizes the monograph’s key findings. It reiterates the lack of transparency around contemporary family mediator practice. The chapter then considers three broad implications of the monograph. First, it returns to the question of whether family mediation has become an apparatus of family justice. Second, the chapter considers some alternative ways to understand contemporary mediator practice. Finally, it calls for further research into family mediation and other procedures in the post-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 landscape.
Chapter 4 shifts focus to the contemporary family justice system after the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). It first argues that a new type of family mediator – the flexible mediator – has emerged in light of two factors caused by LASPO: first, the withdrawal of legal support and, second, the subsequent diversification of mediation clientele. Section 2 considers the increasing demand after the LASPO reforms for mediators to become more flexible, but ultimately argues that this adaptability is not possible if the limited mediator archetype continues to underpin the dominant conceptualization of family mediation. A debate on whether mediators should be permitted to draft consent orders then reveals the stagnancy of the current discussions on mediation reform. However, evidence discussed in section 3 shows that mediators adopt a flexible archetype as they regularly go beyond their neutrality and provide more evaluative support. The chapter considers how mediator neutrality can be reimagined in order to openly recognize the flexible mediator type, before concluding that further research is needed to confirm these developments. Part II of the monograph is subsequently justified.
Chapter 6 builds on the previous chapter by considering the ability of the flexible mediator type to support family justice. Through an analysis of empirical data, it again shows that family mediators have expanded their role in response to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 reforms. The chapter begins by considering the interview data on mediators’ approaches to screening, arguing that recent reforms have not stopped cases involving domestic abuse from being mediated. Section 2 considers how regulatory bodies and their members perceive mediator neutrality, particularly when a case involves a difficult party dynamic. The empirical data uncovers a dominant view among mediators that they are permitted, if not required, to respond to power imbalances, even if they see their neutrality as unconditional. The final section relates these practices to the ability of flexible mediators to support family justiceand reveals a general view throughout the mediator sample that mediation should ensure settlement of a certain quality. This section builds on prior literature around the use of legal norms in family mediation and argues that mediators now mediate in the shadow of the law. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of flexible mediators’ often quasi-legal role.
Chapter 5 is the first chapter of Part II, which examines the flexible mediator type through a dual-methods empirical study. It identifies four mediator functions: helpers, referrers, assessors and intervenors. After summarizing the methods of the two-stage study, each section of this chapter considers a different mediator function. Altogether, this new theoretical framework demonstrates the breadth of work conducted by flexible mediators. Furthermore, it shows how this archetype is tacitly accepted by both family mediators and their regulatory bodies. The final section of this chapter considers the value of the four mediator functions in the post-Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 landscape. It concludes that it is the lack of transparency surrounding contemporary mediator practice, not the flexible mediator archetype itself, that is problematic. The need for further recognition and regulation of the flexible mediator archetype is reinstated as a result.
This introductory chapter sets out the objectives of Rethinking Family Mediation: to uncover the development of family mediation in England and Wales and explore the value of contemporary mediator practice in supporting a contemporary vision of family justice. The first section summarizes the monograph’s core argument: that there has been a transition from a limited mediator archetype to a flexible mediator archetype, and that this development has implications for the meaning of family justice. The second section provides a definition of (family) justice, and considers how the concept has developed over time. The chapter argues that family mediation may have developed to become an apparatus of family justice, justifying the remainder of the monograph. Section 3 then outlines the methods behind the two-stage study, considered in Part II. Finally, the Introduction provides summaries of each chapter.
Chapter 3 considers the original conceptualization of family mediation through the limited mediator archetype. It begins by examining the key theory on family mediation, namely the concept of mediator neutrality and the continuum of facilitative to evaluative mediator practice. While the combination of these two theories is supposed to provide mediators with a broad skillset, it is argued that family mediation’s traditional conceptualization confines mediators. It is this restriction that gives rise to the limited mediator archetype: a strictly neutral professional bound to a facilitative framework. The second section of this chapter explores the limited mediator archetype through late 20th-century empirical research, revealing that there was little to no appraisal of the profession during this period. This discussion also considers how the limited mediator was a logical, and perhaps even welcome, archetype during this period. However, the final section critiques the traditional understanding of the family mediation process, arguing that the limited mediator archetype is unable to respond to the various neutrality dilemmas that arise in the mediation setting.
Over several decades, policies have made mediation a key part of the English and Welsh family justice system. As the process faces increasing demand from a diverse and complex client base, some argue for a return to a fully funded court system. However, this dominant view overlooks the longstanding problems with the court process, as well as the potential value of mediation.
This book, based on original research, highlights the evolving role of mediators who assist families without legal support. By doing so, it reveals a contemporary vision of family justice that addresses some of the challenges in today’s landscape.
This contextual chapter tracks the development of family mediation in English and Welsh policy from the late 20th century. It begins by considering the main concerns in family law policy from the 1970s to 1990s, including cost of the legal aid scheme. The chapter reveals that family mediation was regarded by successive governments as the perfect solution to these concerns. The discussion considers how family mediation was slowly seen as a replacement for, rather than an alternative to, court and adversarialism. Attention then shifts to the promotion of family mediation through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). The final section reflects on the common criticism of mediation as a neoliberal tool, though argues that it is the state’s misappropriation of mediation, not the process itself, that is neoliberal. Chapter 2 concludes by reiterating the need for a full investigation into the value of family mediation in supporting justice after LASPO.
