Group Work
Family Group Work
When parents die, property that is difficult to manage or divide often brings angst into sibling relationships. Conflict can arise over: family-owned lands, a family home in which one sibling lives, rental property, or an inherited business.
AFBC will work with the whole family, helping to create more effective communication and improved relationship dynamics while working through the estate settlement process. Our work with your group will help you grow stronger bonds with your siblings while taking care of the business of the estate and completing peaceful distribution. Coaching, mediation, and facilitation are blended as necessary to find the best solutions for your family.
Family Systems Coaching
AFBC adheres to a form of coaching that honors the family system (the client) as the expert in its life and work, believes that every system is creative, resourceful, and whole. Standing on this foundation, the coach’s responsibility is to:
- Discover, clarify, and align with what the system (client) wants to achieve
- Encourage client self-discovery
- Elicit client-generated solutions and strategies
- Hold the client responsible and accountable
In the process of coaching, clients deepen their learning, improve their performance, and enhance their quality of life. Coaching accelerates the client’s (the family’s) progress by providing greater focus and awareness of choice. Coaching concentrates on where clients are now and what they are willing to do to get where they want to be in the future.
Facilitation—Assisting with your Hard Conversations
A few situations where facilitated meetings are very effective:
- Family home must be sold to close the estate. One sibling lives in the home and has few resources.
- Real estate was inherited by siblings. There is disagreement on what to do with it. How will it be managed? Sold?
- Family is in discord over the best housing/care situation for elders. What care taking is appropriate? Who will do it? How will it be paid for? Is the elder capable of being involved in the decision making?
- Family business wants to bring in the next generation and wants to design a process to do so. There are many differing opinions about what is important.
- A partnership is trying to form. The potential partners need to talk about the “hard stuff”, but don’t want to get off to a bad start by hurting anyone’s feelings.
- Adult siblings cannot get along when using the family vacation home.
Family Meeting Facilitation: the AFBC Facilitator is an expert at dealing with complex family dynamics, which play themselves out in Estate Management, Caring for Your Elders and Family Enterprise
The goal is to help families communicate about difficult issues and make sound decisions while building trust.
We will help your family produce a written agreement capturing decisions and agreements made at the meeting and/or assist with a commitment calendar that outlines a schedule of responsibilities and commitments.
Family dynamics often create a “walking on eggshells” environment where the hard conversations are being avoided in favor of “keeping the peace”—while destroying trust. The neutral facilitator names the elephant in the room, keeping the space safe for the hard conversation. Truth is shared and trust is built.
Mediation/Dispute Resolution
AFBC Mediation Team practices facilitative mediation in which, as a neutral third person, they assist two or more participants to reach a voluntary agreement which resolves a dispute or provides options for the future.
- In this consensual, confidential process, AFBC helps the participants
- identify their individual needs and interests,
- communicate them to the other participants,
- listen effectively to understand each participant’s perspective,
- clarify their differences and find common ground.
Choosing mediation means choosing communication, understanding and respect. Mediation helps people in conflict find real solutions together—more than 85% of the time.
The mediator does not take sides, decide who is right or wrong or provide legal advice or therapy.
Elder Mediation is a new specialty area within the field of mediation. It is a tool to help elders and others in their lives as they progress through the difficult decisions that impact quality of life. The elder participates to the fullest extent possible, with or without a representative. This process can be remarkably transformative for the relationship.
