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This program is for young people and their parents (or care givers) who are in conflict over issues such as:
Background Information on Parent/Adolescent Mediation
The Parent/Adolescent Program is a federally funded scheme to provide early intervention into family difficulties with a view to preventing youth homelessness and/or keeping open lines of communication when young people have left home. Fees are negotiated according to a families annual income. The Family Mediation Centre will not refuse service on the basis of inability to pay fees.
Principles of the Program:
Empowerment: We believe people are in the best position to make the decisions that affect their lives. We seek to provide a service that strengthens people’s decision-making ability and control over their own lives.
Neutrality: Mediators do their best not to take side and to remain neutral.
Confidentiality: While records are kept for statistical purposes, no identifying information is kept on file. We do not, however, protect abusive situations and under the State’s mandatory reporting provision may need to inform authorities of abuse.
Voluntariness: We believe people have the right to choose to participate in mediation.
Typical Process:
First Visit: You can expect to be meeting with a mediator who will explain the nature of the service and then meet individually with each person to hear their perspective on the dispute. Typically this process results in a further appointment for a family mediation session, for which we allow two hours if necessary.
Second and Subsequent Visits: Although the process may vary from family to family, the mediation process involves four steps; families making statements, developing options, negotiating together and reaching agreements. This is done between family members in the company of one or two mediators who act to facilitate the process.
Range of Services:
We believe mediation provides an effective means for the resolution of many family difficulties. We recognise, however that other forms of assistance are also useful at times. While mediation is future focussed, we recognise in many instances the past needs to be discussed before decisions are made about the future. The Program offers various forms of therapeutic interventions such as short term individual counselling, parent education, couples counselling and family therapy.
Evaluation:
As part of our commitment to providing a quality service, some sessions may be video taped in your consent. This is part of our funding agreement with the Federal Attorney-General’s Department. Tapes are used internally to assist in on-going supervision of mediators. You will be asked to sign a consent form if your session is to be recorded. If you are at all uncomfortable with this, there is no need to agree to the taping.
We are constantly seeking to improve our service and look forward to any feedback you might wish to give us. Following your visit, you may be sent an evaluation form.
Program History and Information:
The Parent/Adolescent Program began in 1990 and is one of ten agencies Australia-wide. It is a social justice initiative of the Federal Attorney-General’s Department.
Its mandate is “to assist in the prevention of youth homelessness by intervening in the early stages of family conflict”, or where this is not appropriate, “to ensure lines of communication are sufficiently open to maintain a support link between the family and the young person”. The program offers family mediation and counselling.
Fees for this program are based on a sliding scale according to the family's gross annual income.