About the FMA

About Us

The Family Mediators Association is a registered charity (No. 1002971) and Company Limited by Guarantee. We are governed by a Board of Trustees who are elected by our members. A list of our current Trustees can be found here.

The FMA was founded in 1988 by a group of six family lawyers and family therapists in order to offer family mediation to private clients outside the court system. (For more background details, see section The beginnings of the FMA) Prior to this, mediation had been available only in a limited number of circumstances to clients within the court systems. This progressive initiative greatly advanced the development of family mediation and to this day, the FMA remains at the vanguard. Many of our mediators are contracted to the Legal Services Commission to provide mediation for publicly funded clients.

The FMA provides training, supervision and other services to its members. We take standards and regulation seriously and work to a Code of Practice. We have a network of Professional Practice Consultants who are able to advise our mediators, and who have their own training requirements. The FMA is a lead body of the Family Mediation Council (FMC) which co-ordinates regulation and develops common standards.

The FMA is an education charity whose work is important in reducing the personal and societal cost of family breakdown. In 2001, we contracted our administration to the ADR Group which provides mediation in other areas of the law, while retaining our charitable status.

Our Mission is to:

• train and support family mediators from a range of occupational backgrounds to mediate competently and sensitively with people facing separation, divorce and other forms of relationship breakdown.
• help separating people to find skilled family mediators in England and Wales
• promote the value of mediation at a national level, as an effective dispute resolution process for families, especially those with dependent children.

Beginnings of FMA