Tara Fass, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

Child Custody Mediator, Parenting Plan Advisor

Tara has been a child custody mediator since 1994, and before joining Peace Talks Mediation Services she was a Los Angeles Superior Court Child Custody Mediator and Child Custody Evaluator in the Los Angeles Conciliation Court Office. She has also taught a Co-Parent Education Program with the Los Angeles Superior Court and maintains a private psychotherapy practice.

In addition to her professional divorce and custody mediation and training experience, Tara also has taught classes for parents going through divorce on how to negotiate the best possible divorce from a child's point of view. Tara has lectured on the subjects of co-parenting and blended families on the graduate school level and has presented on the topic of "Transformational Mediation" and "Preparing Clients for Custody Mediations" for therapist and attorney professional organizations. Family law and custody mediation is Tara's second career; she previously taught elementary school.

Professional Background:

• Child custody mediator and parenting plan advisor with Peace Talks Mediation Services and National Mediation Centers, 2000 to present.
• Los Angeles Superior Court Child Custody Mediator and Child Custody Evaluator, Conciliation Court Office 1994-2001.
• Co-Parent Education Program, Los Angeles Superior Court, 1998-2001
• Tara Fass, LMFT, private psychotherapy practice.

Mediation Training

Los Angeles Superior Court Child Custody Mediator and Child Custody Evaluator training, 40 hours per year, 1994-2001. Clinical training through Counseling for Kids and the Department of Mental Health, 20 hours per year. Internships: The Women's Clinic in Beverly Hills and Cedar Sinai Hospital's therapeutic nursery school's Brief Evaluation and Intervention Program.

Mediation Experience

As a child custody mediator with the Los Angeles Superior Court, Tara has mediated over 4,000 cases. She has experience working with diverse ethnic, cultural and religious groups with family law issues of custody and visitation.

Tara's specialty is child custody mediation and developing parenting plans for children, from infancy through adolescence, including special needs children. Her areas of expertise include:

• divorce and paternity mediation
• mediating parenting plans for same-sex partnerships
• adoptions and surrogate births
• guardianships
• parent/child reunification mediation and counseling
• domestic violence mediation issues

Mediation Style:

• Transformative and Facilitative
• Child-centered
• Solution-oriented and reality-based
• Direct and probing manner

Tara acknowledges that sometimes mediation is not easy, and while it is not therapy, it can be therapeutic. Much progress and healing occur when parents are willing to truly work in their children's best interests and to explore their own motivations. Tara believes that there are neither "devils" nor "angels" in relationships, but parents must learn to work with each other's differences and shortcomings so that their children will benefit from the best of both parents. Her goal is to help parties learn to be better co-parents and to help them mediate a parenting plan that works for them as well as their children.

Personal Values in Mediation:

My experience as a mediator within the court system is that while court services are fine, they largely operate in a "crisis mode" and are unlikely to result in long-lasting peace. Private mediation gives parents the option to work at their own pace, try out new ideas, and tailor their parenting plans to their lifestyles as well as their children's. Mediation also helps parents keep their children as the focus of their worlds, as opposed to the legal process, and to focus on their children's best interests, both for their initial separation and divorce as well as when their children's developmental needs change.

Mediation gives parents the tools they need to create a positive co-parenting environment, no matter how rocky the marriage or previous relationship.

Education:

B.S.,Goucher College, 1977-1981, Towson, Maryland
M.S., California State L.A., 1989-1993, Los Angeles, California

Other Qualifications:

Member of Association of Family and Conciliation Courts
Member of California Association of Marriage & Family Therapists

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