This is the authoritative textbook on family mediation. As well as mediators, this work will be indispensable for practitioners and scholars across a wide range of fields, including social work and law. It draws on a wide cross-disciplinary theoretical literature and on the author's extensive and continuing practice experience. It encompasses developments in policy, research and practice in the UK and beyond. Roberts presents mediation as an aid to joint decision-making in the context of a range of family disputes, notably those involving children. Mediation is seen as a process of intervention distinct from legal, social work and therapeutic practice, drawing on a distinctive body of knowledge across disciplinary fields including anthropology, psychology and negotiation theory. Incorporating empirical evidence, the book emphasises the value of mediation in mitigating the harmful effects of family breakdown and conflict. First published in 1988 as a pioneering work, this fourth edition has been fully updated to incorporate legal and policy developments in the UK and in Europe, new sociological and philosophical perspectives on respect, justice and conflict, and international research and practice innovations.

Marian Roberts is qualified as a barrister and a social worker and has been in continuous practice as a family mediator since 1982 at the South East London Family Mediation Bureau, one of the first family mediation services in the UK. She is a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science and Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where she teaches Alternative Dispute Resolution on their respective graduate programmes.