Benefits of court‐sponsored divorce mediation: A study of outcomes and influences on success

Abstract

Each of seventy‐six divorcing couples and individuals was assigned by court intake officers to either mediation or litigation interventions to resolve child‐related disputes. No formal decision‐making procedure was used for group assignment. Measures assessing initial dyadic, co‐parenting, and family functioning, and dispute characteristics were completed by all subjects before intervention and by mediating couples after intervention. No differences in initial functioning of the two groups were found, but mediating couples presented more disputes and more noneconomic issues. Most mediating couples (69 percent) resolved one or more disputes. Following mediation, women and mediators reported more positive changes than did men. Success in mediation may be linked to the content and importance of the disputes and to the willingness to compromise.

Research in family mediation: Review and implications

“…Further, the majority of clients who reached agreements reported that mediation was the main reason for the perceived changes and that these resulted from an increase in communication, trust, and understanding. Similar sorts of changes have been reported by others (Camplair and Stolberg, 1990;Pearson and Thoennes, 1985;Waldron and others, 1984;Emery and Wyer, 1987a;Frontenac Family Referral Service, 1984;Girdner, 1985;Johnston, Campbell, and Tall, 1985;Kelly, 1989b).…”

“…Thus, overall agreement rates varied between 50 percent and 80 percent, with most studies closer to the higher than the lower figure. Further, these rates tend to be quite consistent, whether the cases involve court-based (Irving, Bohm, Macdonald, and Benjamin, 1979;Irving, Benjamin, Bohm, and Macdonald, 1981; Pearson and Thoennes, 1985;Richardson, 1988;Salius, 1977;Wagner, 1990) or private mediation (Davis and Roberts, 1988;Irving and Benjamin, 1992;Kelly, 1989b;Pearson, 19911, whether they were voluntary (Camplair and Stolberg, 1990;Slater, Shaw, and Duquesnel, 1992) or mandatory (Cohen, 1991;Duryee, 1992;Kelly and Duryee, 1992: Saposnek, Hamburg, Delano, and Michaelson, 19841, and whether they involved couples with histories of marital violence (Chandler, 1990) or intense marital conflict (Johnston, Campbell, and Tall, 1985).…”

“…As for the experimental studies (Camplair and Stolberg, 1990;Emery and Wyer, 1987a;Irving, Bohm, Macdonald, and Benjamin, 1979;Irving, Benjamin, Bohm, and Macdonald, 1981;Pearson and Thoennes, 1985), their rarity is evidence of the extraordinary difficulties associated with mounting such projects. Even so, adherence to an experimental design might suggest greater rigor in data collection and thus less cross-study variation.…”

“…Finally, Camplair and Stolberg (1990) compared mediation and litigation groups in a single location. The number of service sessions (one to five) was typical of court-based services.…”

Discriminant function analysis of faces III and family satisfaction questionnaires to predict outcome in divorce mediation

“…Unfortunately, although the Circumplex Model has been proposed as a theoretical platform for divorce mediation (Gaughan, 1982), the field has been slow to adopt any mainstream models from family theory and therapy. Except for isolated researchers, standardized family assessment instruments have seldom been used (Camplair & Stolberg, 1990;Mathis & Yingling, 1990). Further exploration of the utility of such models and instruments is needed.…”