Family Mediation Service

DONALD T. SAPOSNEK, Ph.D. is a clinical-child psychologist, child custody mediator, and family therapist in private practice for over 44 years. He is the author of the classic 1983 book, Mediating Child Custody Disputes (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; revised in 1998), and co-author of the 2012 book, Splitting America: How Politicians, Super PACs and the News Media Mirror High Conflict Divorce (Scottsdaly, AZ: HCI Press,. As director of Family Mediation Service of Santa Cruz, he managed the family court services for 17 years and has mediated more than 5,000 child custody disputes in both the public and private sectors since 1977. He is the past editor of the international Academy of Family Mediators’ Mediation News, the international Association for Conflict Resolution’s Family Mediation News, and is the current editor of the international Academy of Professional Family Mediators’ The Professional Family Mediator.  He has published extensively in the professional literature on child custody and child psychology and serves on the editorial boards of the Family Court Review and Conflict Resolution Quarterly journals. He is a national and international trainer of mediation and teacher of child development, Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University School of Law’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution and, for the past 38 years, has been teaching on the psychology faculty at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Dr. Saposnek is the 2002 recipient of the Association for Conflict Resolution’s John M. Haynes Distinguished Mediator Award, the 2002 recipient of the Monterey Bay Psychological Association’s Outstanding Psychologist Award, and the 2003 recipient of the California Psychological Association’s Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology as a Profession.