Case Study 2 - Families in Crisis

Pressure on families is immense and the changing shape and patterns of family life in all our communities brings huge challenges. Peaceworks provides mediation to help families deal with conflict situations - enabling and empowering them to address issues and explore solutions that they themselves can implement.

One such example involved a mum and her teenage daughter. The very worried mum explained, "We can't be in the same room any more without having a row. I used to be so close to my child and now we cannot even speak to each other anymore.  The whole family are affected and we just can't go on living like this."

Following two mediation sessions with Peaceworks, the mum and her daughter were able to share a hug and agree on how they would like to deal with problems in the future after some very frank and painful conversations with each other during the mediation process. A betrayal of trust between them had made this look impossible before they both had the courage to agree to come to mediation.

Another example saw eight year old Bella who was so confused by the breakdown in relationship with the two main family members caring for her, that she expressed it by saying she wished she was dead. Despite concerns from the referring agency that the key family members would 'never be able to sit down and sort this out together', both adults were able to put to one side their own strong feelings in order to meet the needs of the child they both loved very much. After reluctantly agreeing to come to mediation, whilst acknowledging they would never want to spend much time in each other's company, they realised that Bella needed the whole family to work together and not against one another.

Three year old Mary who had been outgoing and confident became withdrawn and uncooperative when her parents were in a tug of war over who could prove the other to be the worst parent. Following mediation with Peaceworks, it was reported that she had blossomed as her parents discovered how to move on from acting out of a 'spirit of competition to one of cooperation', as they themselves put it.