Mediation

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Family Advocacy

Neutrality

Each individual is going to experience shifts along the lifespan, so it is inevitable that an intimate partnership is going to also shift. An intimate relationship is an organic entity of its own that requires tending, weeding, re-mapping, re-planting, and fertilization. The soil needs to be turned or replaced. In viticulture, whole lots of grapevines have to be torn out and replaced to ensure healthy, juicy crops. This can be stressful to partners.

With over 20 years of child development, family advocacy, guardian ad litem work, and mediation experience, Amy’s attention to detail and ability to create community, even amongst parties in conflict, leave clients with resolution, often with lines of communication better understood and with greater empathy.

DIV Design Agency helps couples identify the underlying needs in themselves and each other, and respond to those needs in a new way. With skillful agility, conversations happen in a way that is most appropriate to the needs and desires of the people who use our services. In this way, each family member involved self-determines the outcomes.

It may seem easy to dismantle a relationship, but it is far more rewarding to successfully learn how to be in one and how to learn one another, even after the initial bloom has waned. After the honeymoon phase, couples can find themselves in less than “happily ever after” and think that something is wrong. This is the part of the story where intimacy and relationship are developed, and these are the parts that are left out of romantic movies. Couples Mediation is direct, action-based, and is focused on three components: each participant in the relationship, as well as the relationship itself. Our clients identify problems and talk to each other about creative solutions, and decide how to develop and grow together.

D-I-V Design Agency is committed to families, parent education, relational problem-solving skills, and conflict resolution. Amy Baker provides highly ethical service with integrity, recognizing the dignity and worth of each individual.

With over 20 years of child development, family advocacy, guardian ad litem work, and mediation experience, Amy’s attention to detail and ability to create community, even amongst parties in conflict, leave clients with resolution, often with lines of communication better understood and with greater empathy.

Marital & Relational Mediation

Marital & Relational Mediation

Issue-oriented problem-solving
Couples who opt for marital mediation in lieu of or in addition to couples’ therapy work on an as-needed basis to resolve issues that typically center around communication and unmet (and often unnamed) needs and wants. 1.5 hours are blocked out for booking.

Family Mediation

Learning to Listen to the Underlying Ask
Family mediations may include one or both parents and children who are in conflict. This might be conflict around schedules, opposing needs, work-life/school-life balance, and other stressors, and is designed to be a safe place for family members to create actionable items once individual interests are uncovered. A 2-1/2-hour block of time is scheduled for a family mediation.
Family Mediation
Parent-Adolescent or Sibling Mediations

Parent-Adolescent or Sibling Mediations

Pathways to Empathy and Understanding

Parent-Adolescent and Sibling mediations typically cover aspects of a relationship that are out of balance. Sometimes parties are at the end of their rope, and other times, parties come in because they don’t want to get there. Two hours are blocked for these types of mediation.

We understand how important it is to feel cared for when family dynamics are in conflict, so we invest the time and energy necessary to be well prepared for any unique requests or special concerns our clients may have.

Divorce Mediation

Navigating your dissolution

In Divorce Mediation, we provide neutral assistance in navigating all of the pieces of the emotional, financial, and custodial arrangements of dependent children. In an already emotionally challenging time, creating more conflict and expense is the last thing a couple needs, but litigating dissolutions tend to do just that. I became a mediator for that very reason–to offer couples a way to be dignified and feel respected and heard, and to learn to hear one another and maintain one another’s dignity with integrity and truth. Thus the name of the firm: Dignitas – Integritas – Veritas.

Divorce mediations may take several sessions, with each lasting 3-4 hours, depending on the parties. Sessions are booked in 3-hour increments and cost $425 per session, which includes prep time and additional convening efforts. Should the mediation session go over three hours, time is billed at $150 per hour rounded up in 15-minute increments.

Divorce Mediation
Parent Education

Parent Education

Group Series, Office Sessions, and In-Home Observations

Human development is an exciting field. It carries both overriding arched pathways and is unique to each individual’s temperament and genetic code. The age-old question of Nature or Nurture is never asked so frequently as it is when a person becomes a parent. And the question is useful and a good sign that your parenting skills are on the right track.

But we all need some help sometimes and we could all use a support network.

We offer ongoing enrollment in 8-week courses for parents of Newborns, Toddlers, First Siblings, Children with Learning Challenges, and Tweens & Adolescents. The idea here is that you gain some information and start a Tribe.

For a comprehensive listing of our parent education series and individual offerings, please go to our Parent Education page.

Family Advocacy & Dependent Services

Parenting Plans, Parent Evaluations, Guardian ad Litem: Weighing the Best Interests of the Children

The best interests of children is represented in different ways, but a main tenet is that parents limit or eliminate conflict. The higher the conflict between splitting parents, the more adversely the children experience the split.

When parents decide to terminate their relationship, a written agreement for residential schedule, decision-making, how costs of raising children are split and agreed to, and any additional provisions or considerations for parents or children need to be taken into account.

A Parenting Plan that is written by the parties and agreed to by them without court-ordered intervention is the best way to ensure compliance by both parties–and less future conflict around it. It is both financially cheaper and costs less in emotional capital.

Sometimes parents have a concern around additional issues that one or the other or both may be having. When this happens, it is in the parties’ best interest to come to agreement jointly on a skilled Parent Evaluator. It puts self-determination into the hands of the parents, which is surprisingly comforting in the face of what is often a highly stressful time, and it keeps choice in the hands of the parents even in the face of uncertainty around difficult issues.

Finally, it may become necessary to assign a person to determine what exactly is in the best interest of the child or children. In this case, it is truly a selfless act to have parents decide together on a person to represent the best interest of their child or children.This person is known as a Guardian ad Litem. Finding a third-party to represent the best interests of the child, gather information on all aspects of the child’s life, and make recommendations to the court during contentious dissolution can happen by having one assigned randomly by the court, or by the parties selecting one and putting forth their own choice to the court.

Family Advocacy
Other Family Court Services

Other Family Court Services

Post-Decree Resolution Management and Visitation Supervision

Families needing help implementing a parenting plan or finding ordered services post-decree benefit from a resolution manager to help them wrap up their case and get on track for a longer term co-parenting solution. Email or call about case management.

For existing Family Advocacy clients and in limited circumstances, we offer visitation supervision. Please call or email with more specific information regarding your family’s needs.

Relationship & Intimacy Training

Open & Vulnerable Communication

Through a holistic, loving and systematic approach to sex and relationship consulting, you are invited to move beyond shame, clarify your needs and boundaries, live emotionally connected and erotically embodied lives, and experience the joy and satisfaction of great sex and authentic relationships. The skills required for success in sex and relationships are learnable. Vulnerability and deep connection with others provide the pathway to create profoundly fulfilling and passionate relationships.

We’re committed to providing consistently reliable service in a timely and professional manner.

Contact us today for more details about the services we offer.

Relationship & Intimacy Training

Need to talk?

We provide highly ethical service with integrity, recognizing the dignity and worth of each individual.

Other Services

Parent Education

Parent Education

The future depends on good parenting There are things that, even if you babysat every free second of your teenaged life, you would not know

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Sex & Relationship

Sex and Relationship

INTIMACY, SEX AND RELATIONSHIP The Pleasure Principal Getting the love you want, starting with yourself “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything

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Mediation

Family Advocacy

Empowering families of varying architecture with the framework to self-determine Marital Mediation Family Mediation Parent-Child Mediation Parenting Feedback Dissolution Mediation Parenting Plan Support GAL Parenting

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