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Family mediation has not been universally welcomed as a means to effect reconciliation between parents and young runaways. Alex Klaushofer examines the arguments.

For service providers looking for new strategies with which to tackle the challenge of youth homelessness, family mediation services are the latest big idea. Although they have been promoted by homelessness agencies in the voluntary sector for some time, the idea of using a professional mediator to negotiate the breach between parent and child is gaining currency as local authorities around the country are setting up new services as part of their homelessness provision.

In part the growing popularity of family mediation is due to a recognition that the causes of homelessness are complex, and are as much about individuals’ responses to difficult situations as the lack of money to pay for accommodation. A change in perception of the homeless themselves, as people with their own families and social networks, rather than alienated outsiders, has led professionals to turn their attention to family relationships as a possible solution. Last November, official sanction for the trend came from a report on young runaways published by the government’s Social Exclusion Unit,¹ which argues that family support services are an effective way of dealing with the conflicts that cause young people to leave home.

The extra burdens placed on local authorities by the Homelessness Act 2002, which came into force last July, have also contributed to the rise in family mediation services. The extension of the priority need category to 16 and 17 year olds has meant that, for some councils, the numbers of young people they have a duty to house has risen. And as all councils are looking for new, effective ways of combating homelessness as part of the homeless strategies they are required to produce by July this year, some are turning to family mediation.

Harrow Council is an enthusiastic advocate of family mediation. The housing department has experienced a fall in the number of cases it accepts as homeless due to parental exclusion. This has been attributed largely to the success of the mediation service it offers to all families presenting as homeless - 156 in 2001-2, compared with 238 the previous year when there was no such service. Since September, it has been offering a mediation service specifically for single young people up to the age of 21. "The majority of the cases are straightforward," says housing assessment manager Laurence Coaker. "Mum and dad are fed up with living at home with the applicants. Too much noise, music, and that sort of thing, have caused the breakdown in the relationship." If the reconciliation can’t be achieved, he says, at least the service can "try to get over the message to the young person that it’s probably better to stay and leave home later in a planned manner".

But some organisations working with young homeless people question how useful such professional intervention can be. "There isn’t a lot of evidence around to say that family mediation work is always that successful," says Martha Kelly, head of services at the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint. "It’s often about the poverty and deprivation that the family is experiencing. How can mediation resolve that?"

Hard evidence on the effectiveness of family mediation services is certainly difficult to find. The Young Runaways report cites individual case studies where services have been used, rather than offering any more comprehensive research. Further enquiry to the Social Exclusion Unit elicited the response that "many basic psychology texts emphasise the need to get families talking". Housing charity Alone in London, which pioneered family mediation schemes in youth homelessness, bases the need for such services on research it conducted in 1996 which found that two-thirds of homeless young people gave family breakdown as a cause. Although the charity conducts annual service appraisals using groups of young people, producing hard figures is not possible, says spokesman Mark Forrester. "Our whole focus is on practical and emotional support. How can you quantify the emotional side of things? There are no hard outcomes that we can quantify," he says.

Other concerns include the fear that in some cases family mediation services could actively do harm. "Families don’t always tell the truth - they will say they want to have them back," says Kelly. "Our evidence from young people is that they can’t go back home, that there is abuse." National homeless charity Shelter is concerned that making family mediation a first port-of-call when young people approach councils may introduce an element of compulsion, which could prove counter-productive. Spokesman Matt Cornish, who cites the new service at Harrow as a source of particular concern, says: "It’s acting as an extra hurdle which will drive people away and stop them from accessing the services they need."

But advocates of family mediation argue that recognising the limits of what it can achieve helps guard against possible dangers. "In some cases, parents don’t want to know at all. We have to deal with that with the young person; it involves coming to terms with it," says Forrester. When returning home is not possible, Alone in London offers housing advice and shared accommodation.

Martine Osmond, a senior practitioner at Checkpoint, a family mediation service for the Children’s Society based in Torquay, Devon, sees mediation in a modest light. "I’m not here as an expert on a family," she says. "A good mediation is when the family themselves come up with the solutions - they need someone objective to guide them through the process." But while she thinks mediation plays a valuable role in keeping channels of communication between families open, she feels that longer term support services for families - of which there is a shortage in her area - are also needed. "My work is only crisis work. It’s quite short. In an ideal world I’d like to be referring that family for ongoing support," she says.

Nicola Bacon, director of the homelessness charity Safe in the City, which works with 13-18 year olds in London and has been using family mediation for the past five years, argues that local authorities need to think through their new provision if they are to use family mediation services successfully. "They need to set them up properly, fund them properly and realise that they are a more substantial service than they might realise at first glance," she says. With councils under pressure to demonstrate that their services are producing concrete outcomes, targets are one danger. "It’s a bit unwise, really," says Bacon. "If they’re going to set targets, they need to do so on the basis of experience."

Targets will be a key performance indicator for Charnwood Council in Leicester, as it tests its pilot family mediation service due to start this spring. Out of the 80 cases they expect their mediation worker to see in the scheme’s first year, 10 will be expected to return home. But Charlotte Jones, the council’s Housing Strategy Officer, says that since the service will be provided by the Bridge, an independent housing advice centre, there will be no pressure on young people to return home. "If we were providing it, that would be a danger. The service will be completely independent, so the outcome will hopefully be the best outcome for the young person," she says.

¹ Social Exclusion Unit, Young Runaways, SEU, 2002, see www.socialexclusionunit.gov.uk/