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Children and Families Act 2014, Section 10 — Family Mediation Information and Assessment Meetings (MIAMs)

Jurisdiction: England & Wales · Citation: Children and Families Act 2014 (c. 6), section 10 · Authoritative source: legislation.gov.uk — s.10

The statutory pre-action requirement that a prospective applicant in family proceedings must attend a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (MIAM) before issuing. Critically relevant in parental-alienation cases because (a) it can delay urgent applications, and (b) the s.10(2)(a) exemptions — set out in Family Procedure Rules Practice Direction 3A — include domestic abuse and child-protection concerns, providing the procedural bypass for genuinely-protective parents whose alienating counterpart would use the MIAM to delay or sabotage proceedings.

Verbatim text (current consolidated)

10 Family mediation information and assessment meetings.

(1) Before making a relevant family application, a person must attend a family mediation information and assessment meeting.

(2) Family Procedure Rules—

(a) may provide for subsection (1) not to apply in circumstances specified in the Rules,

(b) may make provision about convening a family mediation information and assessment meeting, or about the conduct of such a meeting,

© may make provision for the court not to issue, or otherwise deal with, an application if, in contravention of subsection (1), the applicant has not attended a family mediation information and assessment meeting, and

(d) may provide for a determination as to whether an applicant has contravened subsection (1) to be made after considering only evidence of a description specified in the Rules.

(3) In this section—

"the court" means the High Court or the family court;

"family mediation information and assessment meeting", in relation to a relevant family application, means a meeting held for the purpose of enabling information to be provided about—

(a) mediation of disputes of the kinds to which relevant family applications relate,

(b) ways in which disputes of those kinds may be resolved otherwise than by the court, and

© the suitability of mediation, or of any such other way of resolving disputes, for trying to resolve any dispute to which the particular application relates;

"family proceedings" has the same meaning as in section 75 of the Courts Act 2003;

"relevant family application" means an application that—

(a) is made to the court in, or to initiate, family proceedings, and

(b) is of a description specified in Family Procedure Rules.

(4) This section is without prejudice to sections 75 and 76 of the Courts Act 2003 (power to make Family Procedure Rules).

Why this matters for PA

  • MIAM is a gateway delay. A targeted parent racing to court because contact has just stopped must first attempt a MIAM unless an exemption applies. The exemption list in FPR PD 3A includes "evidence of domestic violence or abuse" and "child protection concerns" — but does not yet expressly include parental alienation as a stand-alone exemption.
  • Alienating-parent weaponisation: The alienating parent can refuse to attend the MIAM, forcing the targeted parent to obtain a mediator's certificate confirming non-attendance — adding days to the timeline during which the alienation deepens.
  • Practitioner guidance (Resolution, Family Mediators' Association) recognises that PA cases require careful screening because the mediation environment can be re-traumatising when one party is using the process to maintain control over the child.
  • The 2024 Pathfinder Pilot (Dorset, North Wales, expanding 2025-2026) replaces the traditional MIAM-first model with an inquisitorial early-investigation approach, partly in response to evidence that mediation-first delays were harming children in PA cases.

Sources & authoritative references

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