Quick answer · The MIAM series
What questions are you asked at a MIAM?
The short answer
Expect questions about your situation, not a test. The mediator will ask what you need to sort out, how you and your ex partner communicate, whether there has been any abuse or safety concern, and what outcome you are hoping for. Your answers help the mediator assess whether mediation is suitable for your case.
The four groups of questions
First, background: your relationship, your children and their ages, and whether the issues are about arrangements, money or both. Second, communication: how you and your ex partner currently deal with each other, and whether you could sit in a room together or would need a different format. Third, screening: private questions about domestic abuse, controlling behaviour and safety, asked directly and sensitively because the answers shape everything else. Fourth, practicalities: your willingness to try mediation, timescales, and funding, including legal aid and the 500 pound voucher for cases involving children.
Why the questions are asked one to one
You attend a MIAM separately from your ex partner, which means you can answer every question honestly without managing anyone else’s reaction. What you say is confidential, subject to limited safeguarding exceptions, and the signed court form records only that you attended, never what you said.
What happens with your answers
The mediator uses them to assess suitability. That might mean recommending standard joint sessions, a format such as shuttle mediation where you never share a room, online sessions, or a clear conclusion that mediation is not the right route, in which case the mediator signs your court form and you can apply.
Quick questions
Do I have to answer every question?
No. Share what you feel able to share. The screening questions matter most, because they exist to keep you and your children safe, but nothing is compulsory.
Will my ex partner hear my answers?
No. MIAMs are individual meetings and your answers are not passed on. If mediation goes ahead, only what you choose to raise in joint sessions is shared.
Keep reading
Sources: Family Mediation Council standards; Family Procedure Rules Practice Direction 3A. Checked 17 July 2026.
Written by the Mediation Guide editorial team and reviewed by an FMC accredited family mediator. Part of our complete MIAM guide.