Awareness of FDRs: The Policy Challenge

Abstract

As outlined in Chapter 2, within the neoliberal policy framework, the exercise of autonomy through freedom of choice is a key justification for abandoning more traditional and welfarist approaches to many matters, including family dispute resolution. But at the same time, as we have noted, people with family law disputes are encouraged in various ways to make the ‘right’ choices about how best to resolve their disputes – preferably out of court, and ideally by mediation. However, both these positions assume a high level of awareness of the range of options available for out-of-court dispute resolution in general, and of family mediation in particular. Such awareness needs also to include an understanding of the nature of these processes – what they involve and aim to achieve. This has proved to be a perennial problem for policy-makers. Post-separation dispute resolution options are not something to which people tend to pay much attention when their relationships are intact.