For family mediators
Sameside: a private check-in for parents, before their first session
One page: what the parent does, what you receive, and what Sameside is not.
What the parent does
On their own phone, on their own, over the days before a first joint session: five short check-ins, about forty minutes in all, paced to the session date.
- Where things are now
- The children
- What you’re hoping for
- The hard parts
- Safety and practicalities
At the end they have a one-page summary in their own words. The other parent is never contacted and never sees it. Nothing they write is sent to an AI model.
What you receive
Nothing, unless the parent decides to share. If they do, they choose section by section, then either bring a printout or PDF, or send you a private link themselves. The link needs no account, expires after 30 days, and the parent can turn it off at any time. Sameside never sends you anything directly.
The sections: how things are now; the children; what i’m hoping for; where i can be flexible, and where i can’t; what i find hard to raise; for the mediator: safety and practicalities. The last is left out unless the parent ticks it. It is one parent’s own account, unedited: not an assessment, not a score, and the other parent has not seen it.
What Sameside is not
- Not care, not legal advice, and not a mediation service. It is a private check-in tool.
- Not a substitute for the MIAM or for your own safeguarding and domestic abuse screening. It doesn’t assess risk, and nobody at Sameside reads what parents write. A parent whose answers suggest fear or harm is shown specialist routes (Refuge, Women’s Aid, Respect, Samaritans, 999, and the NSPCC for concerns about a child) and encouraged to tell you before any joint session.
- Not a voice on the outcome. It never tells anyone to stay, leave or reconcile, and never says whose proposal is fair.
- Not affiliated with the Family Mediation Council or the voucher scheme. Parents pay £39 themselves (£69 to cover both); the voucher doesn’t cover it.
What we’d ask of you
Nothing formal. If you think it would help a client arrive better prepared, mention it. If you’d like a link with your practice name, so we can tell whether it’s helping, or you have a concern about anything above, write to hello@sameside.co.uk. A person reads every message.