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Alina Gastesi-de Armas
2741 Executive Park Drive
Weston,
Florida
33331
Phone: 954-257-6393
Fax: 954-667-1021
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Alina Gastesi-de Armas, MA, MEd, LMHC,
Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator
Alina Gastesi-de Armas is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Florida Supreme Court Certified Family Mediator in Weston, Florida. She is the director of A Place for Growth a counseling office which specializes in Marriage & Relationship counseling and divorce mediation, as well as in the treatment and management of stress, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, crisis intervention and parenting. She is a graduate of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida as well as Pepperdine University in Malibu, California. She is bilingual in English and Spanish.
Alina Gastesi-de Armas is committed to providing the highest quality mediation service at a reasonable cost. She is dedicated to assisting her clients in making decisions in a manner that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the amount of stress for everyone involved. She specializes in situations where the parties have a continuing relationship. This includes divorced parents, siblings and parents, coworkers, business partners, and business associates.
The factors that are unique to her and her practice include the ability to compassionately yet firmly assist clients in setting limits for themselves, their partners, their families and/or their employers so that they can have the room to define their roles in each relationship and develop emotionally.
Alina uses many resources to help her clients, couples and/or families heal and grow in order to live better, more productive, and happier lives.
"Messages we receive from childhood, media and society confuse us. As we sift through these messages and begin to discover the truths about ourselves and what we value, we can structure our relationships and our lives so as to best meet our needs and the needs of the people around us."
Family Law Mediation
Sometimes the couple has reached a stage where the only choice
left is divorce. When this is the case one of the options offered at
A Place for Growth is divorce mediation.
Divorce Mediation
Mediation is an alternative process that separating couples may use to resolve their differences. In mediation, the couple themselves negotiates their separation agreement with the help of a trained mediator rather than have their legal counsel negotiate for them. Mediation is not marriage counseling that tries to get the parties back together. Mediation is not therapy that works to have a person accept the separation (although there are therapeutic elements to mediation). Mediation is also not an alternative to the legal system, but works within it. Lawyers are sometimes needed to give advice and to review the separation agreement. However, the process and the outcome remain in the hands of the couple.
In mediation, the spouses meet together with an independent mediator to work out a separation agreement. The mediator first ensures that all relevant facts are obtained and disclosed. Next, the unresolved issues are discussed with the couple deciding objective criteria to resolve those concerns. The mediator, without giving specific legal advice, can offer legal information about the law concerning those matters. The mediator and the couple then proceed to create different options to resolve the issues and work out the consequences of those options. The parties then, with the help of the mediator, negotiate properly and fairly to come to an agreement. If an agreement cannot be reached, then the parties are free to try to settle the matter through their lawyers or let the court decide for them. The mediator does not dictate the agreement if the parties are unable to do so.
Many advantages to mediation
- The total financial costs of mediation are far less than a legally contested dispute.
- The time period to resolve a dispute is far shorter than a legally contested dispute.
- As the parties have more of a role in arriving at their agreement, they are more likely to get along better in the future. They will, therefore, have less enforcement problems and changes to the agreement will be obtained more easily.
- The mediation process is therapeutic as a key element to ensure that the parties know and at least try to appreciate their spouses' feelings and positions on the issues.
- When lawyers negotiate, some emotional matters may never get discussed.
- Mediation can allow for compromises and more flexibility than a court decision.
- A court decision may be much more extreme than the terms that could have been mediated.
Mediation, however, is not for everyone. If there is a history of violence, then it probably would result in the violated party not being able to negotiate on an equal basis. If one party is psychologically not able to bargain as an equal, then mediation is not for that case. Mediators also believe that mediation is not appropriate where there has been child abuse. Of course, mediation is a wasted effort if one or both parties are not interested in listening and compromising so as to come to an agreement. Sometimes one or both parties use mediation as a stalling tactic or a forum to try to convince the other spouse that their stated position is right. However, that still leaves room for the greater majority of separating spouses to at least try mediation.
Please email us or visit our website for additional information.
