Hearing children's voices in family mediation
14 August 2025
How can service providers involve children more in family mediation processes and ensure their voices are heard?
Under the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have a right to express their views and to be heard in processes affecting them. This includes in family mediation, known as family dispute resolution (FDR) in Australia. Yet children’s participation in family mediation is rare in most countries.
We recently undertook a literature review to identify and map models of children’s participation in family mediation, to help us and other service providers think about how we could all do more.
Our new research summary below outlines the findings of our review.
