Family Mediation South Australia: FDR Providers, Costs, and What to Expect

You Can't Skip Mediation

Before you can file a parenting application with the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA), you need a Section 60I certificate. That certificate comes from completing — or attempting — Family Dispute Resolution (FDR) with an accredited practitioner.

This isn't optional. Without the certificate, the court won't accept your application. The exceptions include cases involving family violence, child abuse risk, extreme urgency like abduction, severe physical or cognitive incapacity of a party, or where the other parent has breached a court order within the past 12 months.

For most separating parents in South Australia, FDR is where the real work of building a parenting arrangement happens.

Where to Go in Adelaide and SA

Legal Services Commission of South Australia (LSC SA). The LSC runs a subsidised family dispute resolution service. Eligibility is means-tested, and the service is free or heavily discounted for concession card holders. The trade-off is waitlists — booking to first session can take several months.

Relationships Australia SA (RASA). RASA operates multiple locations across metropolitan Adelaide and offers regional services. Their FDR program uses sliding-scale fees based on household income. Eligible participants may be able to access the first three hours at no cost. RASA also runs specialised programs including child-inclusive mediation, where a trained child consultant speaks with the children separately and feeds their perspectives into the mediation process.

Centacare Catholic Family Services Adelaide. Centacare provides FDR and counselling services across Adelaide. Their programs are available to all families regardless of religious affiliation. Fees are income-assessed.

Private mediators. If you want faster scheduling, private FDR practitioners in Adelaide may offer faster appointments. Expect to pay $175–$200 per person for the individual intake session, then $500–$1,000 per person for a four-hour joint mediation session. The Section 60I certificate, if needed, is usually an additional $150–$400.

What Happens in FDR

The process runs in three stages:

Intake. Each parent meets the practitioner separately. The mediator assesses whether FDR is safe and appropriate — screening for family violence, power imbalances, and mental health concerns that might make joint mediation unworkable. This is also where you outline your goals and concerns about the parenting arrangement.

Joint session. Both parents sit down with the mediator (sometimes in the same room, sometimes in separate rooms with the mediator shuttling between — called "shuttle mediation"). The focus is on practical arrangements: who the child lives with during the week, how weekends and holidays are divided, how major decisions get made, and how communication between households works.

Outcome. If you reach agreement, the mediator helps you draft a parenting plan — a written, signed and dated document that captures everything you've agreed to. If agreement isn't possible, the mediator issues a Section 60I certificate recording the outcome (genuine effort made, one party failed to attend, or inappropriate to continue), which allows you to proceed to court.

Child-Inclusive Mediation

Standard FDR focuses on what the parents want. Child-inclusive mediation adds a step: a trained child consultant meets with the children (usually aged five and older) in a separate, confidential session. The consultant doesn't ask children to choose sides or make decisions. Instead, they explore how the child is experiencing the separation — what worries them, what matters to them, what they'd want their parents to understand.

The consultant then feeds themes (not specific statements) back into the mediation to inform the parents' discussion. Research consistently shows that children who feel heard during the separation process adjust better, and parents who understand their child's experience make more durable arrangements.

RASA and some private practitioners in Adelaide offer child-inclusive mediation. It's worth asking about if your children are school-aged and articulate enough to participate.

How to Prepare

Parents who walk into FDR with a clear picture of what they want — and evidence to back it up — get better outcomes than those who wing it.

Before your first session:

• Map out your proposed weekly schedule. Include school days, overnights, pickup and drop-off times, and who handles transport.
• List the school holidays and how you'd split them. South Australia has four term breaks plus the long Christmas summer holiday. Think about ANZAC Day, Adelaide Cup Day, and other SA-specific public holidays.
• Document your child's routine. Activities, medical appointments, school commitments, friendship groups, and anything that anchors the child to a particular schedule.
• Gather financial information. Child-related expenses, income details, and any existing child support arrangements — these inform discussions about how costs are shared.
• Write down your non-negotiables. What are the things you won't compromise on? Knowing this in advance prevents reactive decisions under pressure.

The South Australia Child Custody & Parenting Plan Guide includes a dedicated Mediation Preparation Worksheet designed for exactly this — structured prompts that help you organise your proposals, anticipate the other parent's likely positions, and walk into your FDR session with a workable plan rather than a wish list.

If Mediation Fails

FDR doesn't work for everyone. If the practitioner determines FDR is inappropriate, or the parents cannot resolve the dispute, the practitioner issues a Section 60I certificate, allowing an application to proceed to court.

That certificate is your ticket to file an Initiating Application with the FCFCOA. The court process is slower, more expensive, and less flexible than mediation — but it exists precisely for cases where parents can't reach agreement on their own.

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