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Description
The project contributes to the programme outcome "Enhanced wellbeing of children and youth”. The project will support the establishment of a renewed system for professional family mediation and increase accessibility aimed at settling disputes out of court. In 2018, 1234 lawsuits were submitted to the courts on the custody issues of a child and 2544 lawsuits on alimony issues. In a research study conducted among judges and attorneys involved in these cases, it was revealed that in a majority of cases disputes came down to personal conflicts between parents. The advantages of family mediation have been established as follows: a) a greater chance of reaching an agreement that will be honoured, b) lesser financial costs in comparison to litigation and c) greater consideration of the well-being of a child.
Main obstacles at present are that there is no standardised system in place, the service is scarce and poorly regionally available, it is quite expensive as well as little awareness of the opportunities the service could offer amongst the social workers and child protection workers.
The direct target group are the family mediators, i.e. the project will train at least 40 professional family mediators.
Project activities shall include:
- Awareness-raising on family mediation in the general population and as well as among child protection specialists and court personnel;
- The expansion of the system of family mediation to ensure state-wide coverage, including by training mediators among the Russian speaking minority in East-Estonia and promoting the mobility of mediators;
- The streamlining of the system, including its working principles, financing and regulation, to apply the same model across Estonia;
- Capacity-building of mediators through international exchanges and regular job counselling;
- Analysis and adaption of internationally used models of mediation in co-operation with Norwegian mediators and Estonian universities.
Summary of project results
The project supported the establishment of a renewed system for professional family mediation and increase of accessibility aimed at settling disputes out of court.
The direct target group are the family mediators, i.e. the project will train at least 40 professional family mediators.
Project activities shall include:
- Awareness-raising on family mediation in the general population and as well as among child protection specialists and court personnel;
- The expansion of the system of family mediation to ensure state-wide coverage, including by training mediators among the Russian speaking minority in East-Estonia and promoting the mobility of mediators;
- The streamlining of the system, including its working principles, financing and regulation, to apply the same model across Estonia;
- Capacity-building of mediators through international exchanges and regular job counselling;
- Analysis and adaption of internationally used models of mediation in co-operation with Norwegian mediators and Estonian universities.
The direct target group were the family mediators, i.e. the project trained least 56 professional family mediators (of them 30 people in Russian language).
Project activities included:
- Developing and piloting family mediation as a national service;
- The streamlining of the system, including its working principles, financing and regulation, to apply the same model across Estonia;
- Analysis and adaption of internationally used models of mediation Great Britain, Germany, Finland, Lithuania and Norway);
- Capacity-building of mediators through international exchanges and regular job counselling;
- Awareness-raising on family mediation in the general population (newspapers, social media, national radio and television, informational events and brochures etc.) and as well as among child protection specialists and court personnel.
A national Family Mediation Act came into force on Sept 1, 2022. The service in now provided now as a part of national services. For year 2024, 1,3 million euros has been foreseen in the state budget for service provision.
43 mediators have passed a qualification exam, approx. 40 of them have contracts with the Social Insurance Board. There are family mediators present in 14 towns all over Estonia. During the project period 1033 mediations took place.
Tight and regular cooperation is continuing with the judges and law enforcement officers. Additionally, impact analysis of the service provision will be carried out in 2024.