During my career, I have been involved in several research projects exploring how children have experienced their parents’ separation and divorce, including when they were caught up in legal proceedings between their parents in the family justice system. As part of these studies, information was gathered directly from children themselves. They spoke articulately and movingly about what it was like for them to live through their parents’ break-up and how much they had wanted, and needed, to be consulted and involved in the arrangements their parents made to look after them after they separated.

Mediation has long been seen by policy makers as the preferred method of resolving family disputes where parents cannot do so themselves. The research undertaken in this book, exploring how child-inclusive mediation operates in England and Wales, and how it is experienced by parents and children as well as the professionals, is therefore an immensely valuable contribution to policy debates regarding the future direction of the family justice system and the place of child-inclusive processes within it.

The research is underscored by a firm commitment to the concept of children’s rights and to the goal of incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic law. In harnessing this commitment to their study of mediation, Anne Barlow and Jan Ewing have provided us with a wealth of data as well as presenting a convincing argument for a move away from a focus on adult autonomy in decision-making towards a more relational approach which gives due weight to the perspectives of all involved – including the children. Such an approach holds the promise of bringing about a new and fairer vision of family justice, in all its forms.