In this webinar, Kate Clark emphasizes the critical importance of conducting effective intake sessions before mediation. She outlines best practices, including building rapport, understanding disputes, and addressing safety concerns. Kate shares insights on how intake sessions can enhance communication, prepare parties for mediation, and set the groundwork for a successful mediation process. Mediators will learn valuable strategies for engaging with clients, gathering essential information, and creating a supportive and trusting environment.

Key outcomes:

1. Learn why intake sessions are essential for effective mediation, how they build rapport, screen for suitability, and prepare parties for a productive process.

2. Understand how to put parties at ease, validate their concerns, and foster trust to ensure better engagement and participation in mediation.

3. Gain insights into psychological, emotional, and physical safety planning, including trauma-informed practices and strategies to ensure a secure mediation environment.

4. Improve your ability to elicit key details about the dispute, identify parties’ perspectives, and introduce reality-testing techniques that encourage informed decision-making.

About your trainer

Kate is a highly experienced mediator and lawyer and was recognised for her leading skills as a Family Law Mediator in the Doyles Guide 2023. Pursuing her passion to change the way people resolve their disputes, Kate established Clark & Associates in 2017. Kate has extensive mediation experience in areas including interpersonal, community, workplace, corporate and government. Kate was admitted as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland and the High Court of Australia in 2009. She is a Nationally Accredited Mediator and an Accredited Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner with a strong academic background in key areas of Law and Behavioural Science (Psychology). Kate is a registered Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner with the Attorney General’s Department and can issue Section 60I Certificates. Kate engages in trauma-informed practice and resolves matters in a pragmatic, resourceful, compassionate, restorative and dedicated manner. Kate has been coaching and supervising mediators and family dispute resolution practitioners since 2019.