Alliance Family Mediation

Alliance Family Mediation Helping families navigate separation, child arrangements, and financial discussions with clarity, compassion, and professionalism.

Supporting constructive conversations and practical solutions outside of court.

Food has a funny way of becoming an argument long before anyone realises what is happening. A biscuit eaten before dinne...
02/09/2026

Food has a funny way of becoming an argument long before anyone realises what is happening. A biscuit eaten before dinner. A plate left unfinished. The kind of small moment that should not matter, and yet somehow it always does.

Add two homes to that, two different kitchens, two different views on what a Tuesday dinner should look like. One of you might hold firmly to the table and sitting down properly. The other might see a Friday takeaway as a hard earned treat, or simply the thing that gets everyone through a long week. Neither of you is wrong, but children notice the difference.

A few small agreements can help keep food from becoming one more thing to manage:

🍽️ Agree the non-negotiables together, such as allergies, portion sizes for very young children, or mealtimes around school nights.
🍔 Let treats stay treats in both homes, even if the treat looks completely different from one house to the other.
💬 Think twice before commenting on what happens at the other house. Criticism of a meal can land as criticism of the parent who made it, and children often absorb that as something to feel guilty about, rather than useful advice.
🏡 Focus your energy on what happens at your own table, rather than trying to manage what happens at the other one. Children can hold two different homes just fine, as long as neither one is used against the other.

You do not have to eat the same meals, or sit at the same table, to raise a child who feels steady. What matters is that food never becomes something they have to worry over, or feel caught in the middle of.

If mealtimes have quietly become a source of tension, a free ten minute consultation might be a kind place to start untangling it.

31/08/2026

It is the Summer Bank Holiday, and the summer holidays are almost at an end. But, before the school run returns, packed lunches and early alarms, this weekend is a lovely chance to simply slow down.

Whatever the last few weeks have looked like for your family, easy, hard or somewhere in between, take a moment this bank holiday to enjoy the ordinary things. A walk. A garden. A film on the sofa and nowhere else to be.

Wishing you and your family a calm and happy Summer Bank Holiday, before normal life gently starts up again.

And when it does, if there are conversations you have been putting off, I am only a phone call away.

Every family deserves equal access to mediation. Family mediators should adhere to their professional standards, to ensu...
28/08/2026

Every family deserves equal access to mediation. Family mediators should adhere to their professional standards, to ensure that all participants can engage effectively and give informed consent throughout the process.

For deaf or hard of hearing clients, this may include:

👐 Qualified BSL interpreters, arranged well in advance.
💻 Accessible online platforms, with video calls that support lip reading.
📝 Written summaries or speech-to-text support alongside spoken conversation.
💡 Good lighting and clear communication.
⏳ Extra time where needed.

Small adjustments like these help ensure everyone participates on an equal footing, preserving fairness, autonomy, and confidentiality throughout the process.

If accessibility is something you would like to talk through, whatever that looks like for your family, I am very happy to have that conversation.

Long distance co-parenting asks more of you. Staying close to a child you do not see every day takes real intention. But...
26/08/2026

Long distance co-parenting asks more of you. Staying close to a child you do not see every day takes real intention. But it is entirely possible.

Children thrive on structure. Knowing exactly when they will hear from you, whether that is every Tuesday evening or every single day, gives them something steady to hold onto in the space between visits.

Here is what that can look like in practice:
📅 Set one regular day and time each week for your call, so your child always knows exactly when to expect you, and starts looking forward to it.
⏱️ Match the length of the call to your child's age, a few focused minutes with a toddler often works better than twenty they cannot sit still for.
❓ Ask specific questions about their day, their friends, their favourite lesson, not just how was school, it shows you are genuinely part of their world.
🔄 Build in some flexibility around their routine, and if a call does get missed, follow up rather than letting it slide.
✈️ Where you can, show up in their world too, a school event, a match, a birthday, so their life is not always the one that is disrupted due to travel and distance.

Distance changes the practicalities. It does not have to change how close your child feels to you. With a little structure and a lot of intention, they can feel secure in their relationship with both of you, wherever you are.

If you are working out how contact should look across two homes, or two very different distances, a written parenting plan can make it far easier to hold onto. I would love to help you build one that fits your family.

This is one of the questions parents ask most often, and it is completely understandable why. There is no perfect way to...
24/08/2026

This is one of the questions parents ask most often, and it is completely understandable why. There is no perfect way to have that conversation. But with a little planning it can feel more manageable, for you and for them.

🗓️ Plan together how, when and what you will say, and decide whether you will tell the children at the same time.
⏳ Keep the first conversation short, children need time to absorb what has been said, not everything at once.
👀 Remember they will be watching your reactions closely, and will often take their cue from how you respond.
💛 Reassure them, again and again if needed, that you are both still their parents, and that will never change.
😢 Let them know it is okay to feel sad, that it will feel better with time, and that they can always talk to you about it.
💔Remember not to blame the other parent, you should always be on the same side when it comes to your children.

You do not need to share every detail straight away, especially anything financial. What your children need most in that moment is honesty, reassurance, and the quiet certainty that none of this is something they caused.

Having this conversation well often starts with a calmer one between the two of you first. Mediation can help you get there. A free ten-minute consultation is a confidential first step.

Children do not always tell you how they are feeling. Not in words, anyway. Most of the time, you will see it in how the...
21/08/2026

Children do not always tell you how they are feeling. Not in words, anyway. Most of the time, you will see it in how they play.

When parents separate, that play can quietly change. Children become more watchful, more careful, more eager to keep the peace than to simply be themselves. Play is one of the gentlest ways to have a conversation with your child, that does not feel like a conversation for them at all.

That looks different at every age.
🧸 Toddlers open up through repetition. The same game, the same stack of bricks, again and again. Sit alongside them and narrate what you see, and the words often start to come on their own.
🐻 Pre-school and infant age children live inside imaginative play. Let them lead the story. You may hear more than you expect slip quietly into the game.
🎨 Junior school age children often talk more easily side by side than face to face. Drawing, building, or a board game gives conversation somewhere safe to land, without the pressure of eye contact.
🎮 Secondary school age children may not want to play in the traditional sense anymore. But cooking together, gaming, or simply walking side by side often opens the very same door.

Some days, your child will just want to switch off and play, and that is enough on its own. Stay close, stay present, and in time the conversation tends to find its own way in.

For some children, that space to be heard can go a step further. Child inclusive mediation gives them a voice of their own, gently and entirely at their own pace, away from the adult conversations happening around them. If that sounds right for your family, I would love to talk you through how it works.

A fifty-fifty shared care arrangement often gets described simply as week on, week off. In practice, it rarely stays qui...
19/08/2026

A fifty-fifty shared care arrangement often gets described simply as week on, week off. In practice, it rarely stays quite that neat.

For a lot of families, it does mean a direct split, Monday to Sunday with one parent, then the following week with the other. But real life has a way of asking questions a simple pattern cannot always answer.

📆 What happens to the routine over the school holidays, does the pattern stay the same, or change shape?
🎄 Does Christmas need its own separate agreement, alternating years, or splitting the day itself?
🎂 What happens if a birthday falls in the middle of the other parent's week?
🌱 Will this arrangement still work as your children grow, or will it need to bend along the way?

There is no single template that works for every family, and the plan that suits you when your child is five may look different by the time they are 11. What matters is having something clear enough to reduce conflict, and flexible enough to adapt when life asks it to.

If you are working out what a fair, workable arrangement looks like for your family, a free ten-minute consultation is a good starting point.

A family home is often full of photographs. Holidays, birthdays, ordinary Tuesday afternoons that somehow got captured t...
17/08/2026

A family home is often full of photographs. Holidays, birthdays, ordinary Tuesday afternoons that somehow got captured too. When you separate, deciding what to do with those photos can feel surprisingly difficult, in a way nobody quite warns you about.

If one of you is staying in the family home, it is worth considering whether some photos stay up for a while, to keep a sense of familiarity for your children while so much else is changing. It is also worth letting your child keep photos of their other parent in their own room, wherever they are living.

However you may feel personally, your ex is still an important part of your child's life. That familiarity can offer real comfort while they adjust, and taking it away rarely makes anything easier for them.

Let your child choose a few photos for their own space. Keep some shared ones up for a transitional period, rather than removing everything at once. And build new photos and new memories in your new home too, alongside the old ones, not instead of them.

You cannot, and should not, try to write the other parent out of your child's life. Holding space for those memories, even when it is hard, is one of the kindest things you can do for them.

These are the kinds of details mediation can help you think through together, calmly and with clarity. A free ten-minute consultation is a confidential first step.

14/08/2026

Separation is one of those experiences that can make you feel very alone, even when people are around you.

The admin is relentless, the emotions are unpredictable, and in the middle of all of it, it can be hard to know what to ask for.

Friendship matters enormously at times like these. Not because friends can fix anything, but because being truly known by someone who is simply there, without an agenda, is one of the most steadying things there is.

Good friends do not need to understand the legal process. They just need to show up. To check in. To remind you that you are more than this chapter.

If you have people like that around you, let them in.

On the practical side, there are professionals who can help with that, too. A mediator creates a calm, structured space for the conversations that need to happen, so that weight does not have to fall entirely on the people closest to you.

A free 10-minute consultation is always available if you would like to understand what that support looks like.

12/08/2026

It might still feel like the middle of the summer holidays, but the new school year is only a few weeks away, and for a lot of families, that quietly changes the mood of August.

Your child might be starting a new school, moving into a new class, or beginning school for the very first time. It is a big moment for them, and it matters just as much to both of you.

So how do you make sure you are both part of it, without the day itself becoming complicated?

🎒 Some parents choose to attend the first drop off together, giving their child one steady, united moment before the day begins.
🚗 Others split it naturally, one parent doing the drop off, the other collecting at the end of the day, so both are involved without added pressure.
📞 A simple phone call after school can matter just as much, giving your child the chance to share their day with both of you.

Whatever you choose, agreeing to it in advance means nobody is left guessing on the morning itself. A little planning now can make that first day run far more smoothly.

If you need help making these kinds of arrangements, mediation can help. Book in for a 10 minute conversation, and see how communication, and organisation in your family life can improve.

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