Providing Litigation Services Throughout Nevada
Free Initial Consultations

Mediation Through the Family Mediation Center

Can you update or change a Parenting Plan without filing a Motion? Yes!

The Family Mediation Center (“FMC”) is a program in Clark County where a third party neutral is present to help work through the issues that need to be addressed. If anything is resolved in mediation, the mediator prepares a Parenting Plan which then both parents sign (if you have an attorney, it should be reviewed by the attorney before being signed) and can be submitted to Judge and once signed becomes and enforceable Order. A Parenting Plan can be resolve all or part of the custodial issues.

A Parenting Plan is not one size fits all! A Parenting Plan should be specific to the parent-child situation. Below, we have provided examples which our clients have included in their Parenting Plans through FMC.

What should be addressed at FMC mediation:

  1. Legal custody- which is decision making for the minor children including how do we select a doctor, daycare provider, school or therapist -OR- what information will be shared for activities.
  2. Timeshare- who the child is going to be with or what the schedule with each parent will be.
  3. Holiday timeshare- which holidays are going to be celebrated, which parent will celebrate and what times will be celebrated. We had a case a while back where the child loved raccoons, a parent found out there was a racoon day and asked that this be built into the Parenting Plan.
  4. Vacations- what reciprocal time should each parent have with the child to be able to take a vacation and what parameters or information should be exchanged. We had a case where each parent took thirty (30) days during the summer because their families lived outside the United States so one parent took all of June and one parent took all of July.
  5. Exchanges- where are they going to occur, who can be present and are we using a specific protocol for the exchange.
  6. Miscellaneous- sometimes, parents are able to include miscellaneous provisions in the Parenting Plan such as selection of extracurricular activities or how the child’s birthday will be celebrated.