Child Custody & Parenting Mediation
A calm, child-centered way to build a parenting plan that fits your children's lives, without turning co-parenting into a contest.
When parents live apart, almost every ordinary moment becomes a question that has to be answered. Who has the children on Tuesday. How the holidays are divided. Who decides about the new school, the specialist appointment, the summer away. Left to a courtroom, those questions are handed to a stranger who meets your family for an hour and then sets the rhythm of your children's childhood. Child custody and parenting mediation offers a different path: a confidential, structured space where you and your co-parent design that rhythm yourselves, with the guidance of a neutral, law-trained mediator.
Chen Mediation approaches parenting arrangements the way the subject deserves to be approached, with patience and with the children kept firmly at the center. Marissa Chen, J.D. brings the discipline of a legal education to a process that is, above all, about people: helping two parents who may disagree about a great deal still agree on how to raise the children they share. The aim is not to prove one parent right. It is to build a plan durable enough to hold up through the ordinary changes of family life.
This is voluntary and private work. Nothing is imposed on you, and no outcome is dictated. You keep control of the decisions, and you shape a plan you can both live with and, just as importantly, one your children can rely on. For many families, a parenting plan built together lowers the conflict that children feel most, and that difference tends to matter for years.
Child custody mediation is a confidential process in which a neutral mediator helps co-parents design their own parenting plan, covering schedules, holidays, communication, and decision-making, rather than having those terms imposed by a court. It is voluntary, private, and centered on the children's wellbeing.
What child custody mediation can help with
A parenting plan has to work on ordinary weekdays and on the days that matter most. Mediation is flexible enough to cover the whole of family life, and it is well suited to questions such as:
- The regular parenting schedule. Building a weekly rhythm that reflects the children's ages, school, activities, and each parent's real availability, so daily life is predictable rather than negotiated anew each week.
- Holidays, birthdays, and vacations. Dividing the days that carry the most meaning, agreeing how travel and time away are handled, and setting a fair rotation everyone can plan around in advance.
- A communication framework. Deciding how the two of you will share information, coordinate logistics, and raise concerns, so the children are never asked to carry messages between homes.
- Decision-making authority. Clarifying how choices about education, health care, religion, and activities will be made together, and what happens when the two of you see a question differently.
- Transitions and exchanges. Agreeing where, when, and how the children move between homes, so handoffs are calm, consistent, and easy for the children rather than a recurring flashpoint.
- Adjusting the plan over time. Setting a considered way to revisit and update the arrangement as children grow, schools change, and family circumstances shift, without returning to conflict each time.
Why mediation, not the courtroom
A custody dispute in court is public, adversarial, and slow. It invites two parents to build cases against each other and asks a judge who has never met your children to set the terms of their upbringing. Children are remarkably attuned to that conflict, and the fallout from a bruising fight often outlasts the ruling that ends it, shaping how two parents work together for the whole of a childhood.
Mediation is different in every one of those respects. It is confidential, so your family's private life stays private. It keeps the decisions in the hands of the two people who know the children best rather than a court's. It moves at a considered pace. And because it is designed to lower the temperature rather than raise it, it tends to protect the working relationship that co-parents will need long after the plan is signed.
None of this makes mediation soft. It is a rigorous, structured process led by a law-trained mediator who helps both parents see the full picture, weigh their children's needs honestly, and arrive at arrangements that will actually hold in practice. It simply pursues a parenting plan through understanding rather than through conflict. Mediation does not determine legal custody, which a court decides; it helps you reach an agreement you can take forward with confidence.
Fighting over custody in court means paying two sides to argue while a judge decides your children's schedule. Mediation means sitting down with one neutral guide, keeping things private, and building the parenting plan yourselves. It is usually calmer, more private, and far easier on the children caught in the middle.
What working together looks like
The children at the center
Every conversation returns to the same question: what serves the children well. Their stability, not either parent's position, is the measure that matters.
Complete confidentiality
Your family's matters stay private. California law provides specific protections for communications made during mediation, and discretion is central to how the practice works.
A law-trained perspective
Marissa Chen, J.D. brings legal literacy and structure to the conversation, helping both parents understand the full picture before deciding anything.
A plan built to last
The goal is a workable, written parenting plan clear enough to prevent tomorrow's disputes, not a fragile truce that unravels at the first disagreement.
How a child custody mediation matter unfolds
Every parenting matter follows a considered process, so both parents always know where they are and what comes next.
A private consultation
We begin with a confidential conversation about your family, your children, your priorities, and whether mediation is the right fit. There is no obligation.
Confidential preparation
Each parent shares context privately, including schedules, concerns, and hopes for the children, so the real issues are organized before anyone sits down together.
Guided parenting sessions
Respectful, structured sessions where both parents are heard, options for schedules and decisions are explored, and misunderstandings are worked through with care.
Building the parenting plan
As agreement emerges, the arrangement is drafted in clear language, covering the schedule, holidays, communication, and decision-making, so both parents understand exactly what has been decided.
Clear next steps
You leave with a written parenting plan and a clear sense of what follows, including where independent legal review may help before anything is finalized.
Child custody mediation across Los Angeles' private communities
Chen Mediation serves families throughout the West San Fernando Valley and the Conejo Valley, communities where privacy is valued and where a discreet, child-focused process matters. Whether your family is in Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills, or beyond, parenting sessions are arranged by private appointment and, when preferred, conducted securely online, which many co-parents find lowers the tension of meeting in person.
The practice is intentionally boutique. That means unhurried attention, careful preparation, and a parenting plan shaped around your children rather than a factory calendar. It is the level of care that a decision about your children's childhood deserves.
Chen Mediation works with individuals and families across Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Westlake Village, Thousand Oaks, Porter Ranch, and greater Los Angeles, in person and securely online. Calabasas, Hidden Hills, Woodland Hills, Encino, and the surrounding communities are all within the practice's service area.
Child Custody Mediation: common questions
No. Mediation does not determine legal custody, and Chen Mediation does not award custody or decide the outcome. A court determines legal custody. Mediation helps you and your co-parent design your own parenting plan and reach an agreement together, which you are encouraged to have reviewed by an independent attorney before it is finalized.
The plan itself is an agreement the two of you shape together. Whether and how it becomes legally enforceable depends on your circumstances and the steps you take afterward. Chen Mediation provides mediation, not legal advice, and you are encouraged to have any agreement reviewed by an independent attorney before signing.
Usually not. The work is between the two parents, and the aim is to keep children out of the conflict, never in the middle of it. How your children's voices are considered is something the two of you can discuss thoughtfully during the process, always with their wellbeing first.
Those are exactly the questions mediation is built to work through. Rather than leaving decision-making authority undefined, the process helps you agree in advance how choices about education, health, and activities will be made, and what the two of you will do when you see a question differently.
No. Marissa Chen, J.D. is a law-trained mediator and is not a licensed attorney. The practice provides a neutral process to help both parents reach their own decisions, and it does not offer legal representation or legal advice. Independent legal counsel is encouraged whenever you need it.
Build a parenting plan in confidence
Schedule a private, no-obligation consultation. Everything you share is treated with discretion, and nothing is decided until you are ready.
Confidential. By appointment. In person across the West Valley and Conejo Valley, or securely online.