Our approach

As an experienced mediator and counsellor, I know how important it is to connect with the right resources when needed. I believe the right service places you in control of the process. You are the expert of your life! The services I offer and the coaches I work with are passionate and believe that we all have the potential for change.

Mediation focuses on the client's self-determination and the mediator’s remaining neutral and impartial role throughout the settlement process. I believe in these values as a mediator, extending to my teaching and training in Alternative Dispute Resolution and Family Mediation. 

I know that a sustainable parenting plan is co-created when separating parents talk and listen to each other.   No matter how challenging the conflict and issues generated by that conflict, I can support both of you to find common ground to create lasting agreements.

As a mediator and counsellor, I aim to work with you and your family’s strengths, competencies, and resources.

A strength-based approach to mediation focuses on identifying and utilizing the strengths and positive qualities of the parties involved in the conflict.

Instead of emphasizing the weaknesses or shortcomings, this approach seeks to empower individuals.

With a strength-based mediation, I will create an environment for both parents to feel heard and valued.

By emphasizing strengths, my focus is to foster a sense of empowerment and confidence with each party, which can lead to more creative problem-solving and increased cooperation. This approach encourages persons to work together in finding solutions that not only address the issues at hand but also take advantage of their individual and collective strengths.

Ultimately, a strength-based approach to mediation aims to create a positive and transformative process by helping parties discover their own abilities and capabilities, resulting in more durable and satisfying agreements for all involved.

Mediation works!  As a professor and trainer in mediation, I teach similar to how I mediate with compassion and acceptance as to where you are at.  I am fully immersed in best practices in mediation, and my style is creative, curious and unique to your needs as parents and mediators-in-training.

“I once asked my clients struggling with co-parenting their children to describe their differences like a fence. Their response was groundbreaking in terms of resolving the stalemate conflict creates.

One parent described a brick fence that was high enough, preventing the other parent's interference and judging their style of parenting. Their communication would be purposeful and facilitated. The other parent described a very different fence. Their description of a preferred fence was a chain-link fence, insisting upon a profoundly collaborative relationship with all decisions being discussed and negotiated.”

This metaphor empowered our  discussion to focus on how they see moving forward, connect on what each parent needed as co-parents and reduced the need to dismiss or blame the other, making it easier to come to agreement.

What is your metaphor for moving forward?

I hope you feel as inspired as I do and you will take this best step forward

Hayley MacPhail M.Ed, Acc. FM., Charter Mediator, ADRIO/ADRIC