Child Inclusive Mediation
Your Children Deserve to Be Heard
When parents separate, the decisions made about parenting arrangements have a profound and lasting impact on children. Yet in most dispute resolution processes, children’s voices go unheard.
Child Inclusive Practice (or Child Inclusive Mediation) is a specialist approach that changes that. It provides a structured, safe process through which a trained Child Consultant meets individually with your children, understands their experience, and brings their perspective — with their permission — into the mediation room.
The result: parents make better-informed decisions. Agreements are more durable, and children feel seen and heard.
“Parents who engage in Child Inclusive Mediation consistently report making decisions they feel more confident and settled about — because they’re grounded in what their children actually need, not assumptions.”
At Brisbane Mediations, our Child Inclusive process is led by Evie Morgan, a nationally accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner, trained Child Consultant, and Parenting Co-ordinator with deep experience in child-focused family law practice.
How the Process Works
Assessment & Preparation
Before any child sessions occur, we assess whether Child Inclusive Mediation is appropriate for your family and your children. This involves separate conversations with each parent. If there are safety concerns or other risk factors, we discuss alternatives.
Parent Preparation Sessions
Each parent meets individually with the Child Consultant to discuss the child’s world, personality, and any concerns. This ensures the consultant can engage meaningfully with the child and prepares parents to truly listen.
The Child Consultation
The Child Consultant meets privately with your child in an age-appropriate, child-led session. The child chooses what they share. They are never asked to make decisions or take sides. The focus is on their feelings, hopes, and experience of the family situation.
Feedback to Parents
With the child’s consent, the Child Consultant shares key themes and messages with both parents — in a format both parents can hear and absorb. This is not a report; it is a bridge between your child’s world and your mediation.
Mediation with Child’s Perspective
Armed with a genuine understanding of their child’s experience, parents enter mediation ready to make decisions that truly reflect their children’s needs — not just competing adult positions.
Why Child Inclusive Mediation Works
Research and practice consistently show that children’s involvement — done safely — improves outcomes for whole families.
Children Feel Less Invisible
Many children in separated families feel powerless and unheard. Knowing someone listened — and that their parents listened — is itself healing, regardless of the outcome.
Better Agreements
Parents who understand their child’s actual experience — not just what they assume — reach agreements that are more tailored, more realistic, and less likely to break down.
Reduced Conflict
Hearing their child’s voice — through a neutral professional — often shifts parents out of positional conflict and into a more child-centred, cooperative mindset.
No Pressure on Children
Children are never asked to choose between parents or make decisions. They share only what they want to. The Child Consultant carefully manages everything they disclose.
More Durable Parenting Plans
Agreements informed by children’s real needs are less likely to need renegotiation. This protects your children from repeated disruption and reduces the risk of returning to court.
Improved Co-Parenting
The process builds parents’ capacity to reflect on their child’s inner world — a skill that continues to improve their co-parenting relationship long after mediation ends.
Is Child Inclusive Mediation Right for Your Family?
This process is powerful — and it is not for every family at every stage. We assess carefully.
It may be appropriate when…
It may not be appropriate when…
What About the Children? A Note on Safety and Consent
Children are never the decision-makers in this process — that is always the parents’ responsibility. They are never put under pressure, never asked to choose between parents, and never confronted with adult conflict.
Before any session, the Child Consultant explains clearly to the child that they are “the boss” of their own session — they share only what they feel comfortable sharing. With the child’s agreement, key themes are communicated to parents in a way that is constructive, not exposing.
If any safety concerns emerge during the child consultation, they are handled immediately and carefully by trained practitioners. The welfare of the child is the non-negotiable priority at every stage.
In situations where Child Inclusive Mediation is not assessed as appropriate, Child-Enhanced Mediation offers an alternative: the mediator incorporates a child-focused lens into the process without a direct child consultation.
Meet Evie Morgan
Principal Mediator • FDRP • Child Consultant • Parenting Co-ordinator
Evie is Brisbane Mediations’ lead practitioner in Child Inclusive and child-focused family dispute resolution. A nationally accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP), she specialises in Parenting Mediation, Child-Inclusive Practice, and therapeutic-style FDR.
She is also a trained Co-parent Coach and Parenting Co-ordinator — working long-term with high-conflict families to reduce re-litigation and improve how parents show up for their kids. Evie brings both clinical skill and genuine warmth to some of the most sensitive family work there is.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
If you think Child Inclusive Mediation might be right for your family — or if you’re not sure — we’re here to talk it through. No commitment, no pressure.
Talk with us
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