Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

The family mediation process involves a cycle of interviews for parents undergoing separation, together with a qualified family mediator, with the aim of:

• govern the separative conflict and the difficult family changes that follow;
• seek support and satisfactory solutions for themselves and their children, through the comparison of multiple points of view;
• establish understandings and agreements, long-lasting and sustainable, which allow children to grow up peacefully and adults to responsibly carry out their common task as parents.

The mediation process is confidential, protected by professional secrecy and completely independent from the legal process of separation. Any integration and legal verification of the agreements reached in mediation is the responsibility of the trusted lawyers. Children do not participate in interviews.

Disorientation, fears, conflicts: separation and divorce are difficult transitions for adults and children. But allowing girls and boys to grow up in the safety, respect and love of both parents is possible. Adults must not lose confidence in their own resources and receive guidance and support.

The Gea Irene Bernardini Centre, the first Italian public family mediation service, is aimed at separating parents to encourage communication and support them in finding concrete understandings and agreements in favor of their children.

The Gea Irene Bernardini Center is also aimed at all those who, in various capacities, have emotional and educational responsibilities towards children who experience the separation and/or new unions of their parents: new partners in reconstituted families, grandparents, teachers and in general to all those who have educational roles or emotional ties towards children.

The interventions proposed by the Center are:

• routes of family mediation with the help of a qualified operator, the separating parents meet (maximum 10/12 interviews) to identify satisfactory solutions and agreements for themselves and their children. The meetings take place independently of the legal and judicial process and with a guarantee of confidentiality;
• orientation interviews e parenting support in separation: for mothers and fathers who, even individually, wish to discuss and receive support in their emotional and educational tasks;
• orientation meetings e support for care responsibilities in reconstituted families for the protagonists (new couples and/or new partners) of families who are formed after a separation and who wish to receive support in the not simple task of integrating new emotional bonds while respecting the sons and daughters involved;
• orientation meetings e support for care responsibilities for grandfathers and grandmothers who contribute to the care of grandchildren involved in separative conflicts: to support their precious affective function as a potential conflict-free zone;
• comparison groups and mutual help to overcome isolation, to share difficulties but also creative solutions. They are aimed at: separated fathers and mothers, grandparents, new partners;
• support and consultancy for educators e teachers on the subject of family conflict and transformation;
• meetings with parents to be organized at nurseries and schools;
• coaching.

Orientation and support for individual parents who do not intend or cannot undertake family mediation: to also seek "on their own" ways to meet their responsibilities and share them.

Counseling for reconstituted families (new couples, new partners) and extended families (grandparents, uncles...): to discuss the new emotional and educational tasks that complex families impose.

Discussion groups for separated mothers and fathers: to overcome isolation and strengthen parenting resources and skills.

Awareness-raising, consultancy and updating actions aimed at educators, teachers and students: to better guide educational practices in light of the changes taking place in families.