MEDIATING FOR THE BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD

Abstract

This dissertation examines how mediation can help to diminish the divorce impacts on children, the main effects and also the benefits and differences between including or not children in divorce mediation. For this purpose, it was analysed the literature about Mediation, Divorce, Children in Divorce, children development and the impacts of a divorce in childhood. This dissertation examines the importance of mediation to reduce the divorce impacts on children, and also the benefits and differences between including or not children in the divorce mediation process. For this purpose, the author has used an inductive research methodology, using a qualitative descriptive-interpretative method for analysing and evaluating the literature about Mediation, Divorce, Children in Divorce, children development and the impacts of a divorce in childhood. The finding of this dissertation is that mediation has, in fact, contributed to better dispute resolutions in divorce for both the children and parents, diminishing the adverse effects for children in all phases of development. Also, it was perceived that even with the regulation of the Mediation process in Ireland still being recent, it has already shown significant improvement for dispute resolutions, and a prominent field for new case-studies about divorced families. This dissertation identified that even having a recent regulation of Mediation in Ireland, Mediation has been used as an important tool to diminish the impacts of the divorce process in courts that, in some cases, do not take in consideration the wishes of the children. Furthermore, this dissertation contributed to the overview of the considerable development potential of Mediation, including children in Ireland, and its range of studies