For children involved in an international abduction by one of the parents, there is a real risk of losing their right to contact with the other parent for an extended period of time and sometimes forever. A number of international legal remedies have been created that should provide a solution to these often traumatising experiences. However, their application in an international context often takes a particularly long time and the procedures remain painful and difficult for the families involved. The various players working in the field of international child abductions recognise the importance of preventing international child abductions. The requirement here is that the people involved in the field are well informed of the available and most desirable prevention mechanisms. Therefore Child Focus, in cooperation with the European Commission, developed a prevention guide with information on the phenomenon of international child abduction, prevention mechanism, intervening organizations and flow charts.

On 21 May 2008 the European Directive on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters was adopted. The directive will have to be implemented in Dutch legislation before 21 May 2011. The objective of the Directive is to facilitate access to alternative dispute resolution and to promote the amicable settlement of disputes, by encouraging the use of mediation and by ensuring a balanced relationship between mediation and judicial proceedings (Article 1(1)). As a result of the arrival of the European Mediation Directive mediation the Netherlands will get a legal basis and thereby recognition. This article inter alia discusses the Mediation Directive from the NMI's perspective and discusses the articles from the Directive relevant to NMI step by step.

The Interdisciplinary Project for the Optimization of Separation Trajectories in Flanders, IPOS, collected a unique Belgian data set of divorcing people and their children. All aspects of the innovative, process orientated and multidisciplinary model of quality of life are longitudinal examined. The methodology and first results of this IPOS-study are presented. Special attention is paid to mediation.