My previous article raised the question ‘What sort of mediation do you want?’. Of course, prior to posing this question the decision to engage an independent third-party mediator will have been taken by all the parties involved.

So, what does a mediator do, and who needs them anyway?

This is a common question, as people try to understand the distinctions between terms such as mediate, conciliate, facilitate, or simply advise? At the core of the decision to engage a mediator is always a wish to find a solution to what the parties determine is, in some way, an intractable issue. I think a good description as to what a skilled mediator brings is “Any process for