We fully accept that the information you share with us is of a personal nature, and we will take care to ensure that it is respected as such.

How will we use information?

When you supply information to us in advance of mediation (using the ‘pre-mediation form’ or any other method), we will use this information:

  • to respond to your request for information about the service that we provide
  • to help identify what you may need at the Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting or in mediation (MIAM)
  • to contact the person you want to mediate with. We will only do this in advance of your MIAM if you tell us we can do so.

If your contact details are provided to us by your ex-partner when they are considering mediation, then we will use this information:

  • to contact you and offer you the opportunity to find out more about mediation

If you don’t want us to retain these contact details for you, or if you want to correct them, please email us to request this.

For IT and analytical purposes we also track anonymized data of your access to the site, we do this through cookies. You have a responsibility to manage your own cookie usage through the browser settings. You can find out how to do that here.

What information will we keep?

We will keep the initial contact information provided on the pre-mediation form.
If you attend a MIAM or mediation meeting(s), we will keep brief notes of your meeting to help us to prepare for your next meeting. After mediation meetings we may also prepare a summary which we will send to you.
You can request to see any information we hold about you. Where this information is held on records which also contain information about another person (the person who you mediate with), the records will be amended so that you can only see the details about yourself.

For how long?

We will retain for up to 6 years your details and the electronic versions of documents we produce as an outcome of your mediation. This is because people find it useful to follow up with further mediation at a later date and we can provide a better service if we can refer back to previous notes.
For Legal Aid cases we are required by the Legal Aid Agency to retain paperwork for 6 years.

  • If you don’t benefit from Legal Aid, and you don’t want us to retain your information for a 6-year period, please tell us by email. We will remove any identifying details we hold, other than the basic information the Inland Revenue requires us to retain about services we have provided.

On what basis?

Data protection regulations say we must explain the lawful basis for processing your information. The basis is ‘legitimate interest’: we process it for the purpose of providing a service to you.

How will it be stored?

We will hold all of your information securely, on a password protected device or storage which encrypts information. Any paper documents will be kept in secure storage when we are not working on them or taking them to your meetings.

What will be shared?

We will not share any of your information with third parties without your express permission, except:

  • If you are a client who is funded by the Legal Aid Agency, then they have a right to see your file to ensure quality of service provision.
  • We each have a Professional Practice Consultant (PPC) who we can refer to if we need to discuss any issues arising from a case. She may review our work in order to ensure that it meets all professional practice standards.
  • If you, the person you mediate with or another participant in your mediation were to make a complaint, then your information would be made available only to those people who need to support the mediator in resolving the complaint (the PPC), or those who investigate this complaint: the Family Mediation Standards Board (FMSB).
  • Where we have safeguarding concerns (eg, if we think that a child may be at risk of harm) then we have a duty to share these with the appropriate organisation: Children’s Services
  • If we are given evidence of an offence under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
  • If, in exceptional circumstances, we are ordered to do so by a court.

Circumstances where you might give us permission to share your information with a third party could include:

  • If you would like to change your mediation location and mediator, we can share information (such as a record of your initial meeting with us) with that mediator, to avoid you having to repeat things unnecessarily.
  • If you have a solicitor, you can request that we send them information – such as the documents we produce as an outcome of your mediation – so that they can support you during mediation and in taking forward any agreed proposals reached in mediation.

Your right to be informed

In the very unlikely event that your privacy is compromised for any reason, we commit to contacting you to inform you as a matter of urgency.