Steve Erickson is a full time mediator and one of a small group of early practitioners who first attempted to apply a mediation process to divorce conflict. Working with others around the country who were frustrated with adversarial divorce in the courts, Steve helped professionalize the field by co-founding the Academy of Family Mediators in 1981, serving as its second president. Active for the past 40 years as a trainer, author and professional family mediator in Minneapolis, he continues to work full time at bringing peaceful change to families in crisis. He was one of the first to teach and write about creative re-framing of typical divorce problems, urging couples to consider parenting plans instead of custody, use of a joint checkbook to manage shared children’s costs, and other innovative changes in the approach to separation and divorce.
Steve currently chairs the Standards of Practice and Ethics committee of the Academy of Professional Family mediators. In addition to his practice and training and writing activities, for the past three years, he has worked to pass a legislation in Minnesota that would allow divorcing couples as well as never married parents a choice to opt out of the court system and avoid the need to commence an adversarial lawsuit against their intimate partner or spouse when divorcing or separating.