Media Release

2 December 2016

FairWay welcomes more flexible approach to resolving childcare disputes

FairWay Resolution has welcomed changes to the way family dispute resolution services are provided in New Zealand, providing more flexibility for families.

The Crown-owned professional services company is New Zealand’s only national supplier of Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) Services. It provides confidential and independent mediation, through a network of specialist practitioners countrywide – achieving an 85 percent success rate in supporting families to resolve disputes and reach agreement over co-parenting of children.

The Ministry of Justice has just renewed FairWay’s Family Dispute Resolution Service’s contract to deliver these services on its behalf, with the new contract running until June 2018.

Keri Morris, Scheme Director for FairWay’s FDR Service, said: “Families eligible for a government funded service can now access 12 hours of FDR services and decide, with their supplier, how this will be best used. They can now spread their allocated hours over a 12 month period. This reduces pressure to reach swift agreement and gives families more choices and more time and opportunity to reach agreement. It also enables providers to engage with families over a longer period and put really long term plans in place for them.

“A skilled mediator can often work with families to help them to agreement in ways that courts cannot. 85 per cent of people who take part in FDR are reaching agreement and we aim for them to leave mediation, not just with a dispute solved but with tools to help them solve issues in the future.”

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