Why a California Divorce Mediator Recommends TalkingParents
Renee Shaffar is a Certified Divorce Mediator in Long Beach, California. She has successfully mediated over 100 family law cases over the years, and she specializes in divorce and separation, child custody and support, property division, spousal support, and domestic partnership dissolution. Shaffar also serves as a volunteer mediator for the Los Angeles Superior Court and is an associate of the Long Beach Bar Association.
- 2 min read
How TalkingParents is implemented through mediation
As a Divorce Mediator, Shaffar operates a privately owned business that helps people settle out of court. Shaffar says she recommends TalkingParents to divorcing couples in various situations.
“Sometimes they don’t have good communication skills and they can’t communicate effectively, or they don’t want to,” she explains. “Maybe one person’s hurt and doesn’t want to talk to the other person while they’re still healing, so they choose to use TalkingParents.”
Other times, Shaffar says her clients come to her for recommendations.
“They may just be looking for a program to help them communicate or organize better,” says Shaffar. “It’s not always high-conflict. Sometimes clients are just looking for a tool to make coordination easier.”
Shaffar’s clients decide whether or not they want to use TalkingParents. It is not mandated or ordered through the mediation process in any way. She says she recommends TalkingParents to those it might help, gives them a brief description and a pamphlet of information, and then let’s them explore the service on their own.
“They go home, research it, and decide if they want to use it,” she explains. “If they come back to me and say, yeah, we want to use it, then we implement it into their divorce agreement.”
How TalkingParents helps mediation clients & mediators
Outside of Secure Messaging, Shaffar says the Shared Calendar and Accountable Payments are the two features her clients tend to utilize the most.
“TalkingParents is great for exchanging receipts and sharing expenses for things like medical costs, clothing, and so forth,” she says. “It also has a color-coded calendar that’s easy for parents to use together to organize schedules and things like that.”
Shaffar says TalkingParents also helps simplify her job as a mediator.
“It gives communication capabilities to those who do not wish to talk to the other party for various reasons,” she says. “So that makes the clients’ lives easier.”