Icarus Mediation And Therapy

Icarus Mediation and Therapy (Icarus MT) is an organization of Social Workers that was appointed by the Children’s Court, Randburg is owned and managed by Ms Yulanda Kruger.
 
Which commenced as a very promising process, plated with promises of an independent ‘proffesional’ investigation to protect the best interest of our minor child, turned out to be the total opposite.
 
I experienced the following, which I can only describe as absolute unsatisfactory, unprofessional services rendered by the Social Workers of Icarus:
 
1. Social workers failed/refused to return telephone calls not just to me but also to my legal team despite numerous attempts to have matters resolved and or tasks completed.
 
2. Correspondence was not sufficiently attended to and if it was replied to at all, the reply consisted mostly of a one-liner. Contents of e-mails were not properly addressed and the excuse of “I cannot find that e-mail in my inbox” became a cliché. Worse was that it became apparent that most emails are not even read at all despite Icarus requesting for mails to be sent.
 
3. No direct contact details of the social workers are available, and you are left to leave messages at reception which are seldom, if ever, returned. Most often you are directed by reception to please send an email;
 
4. Social workers are most often unavailable as they are “too busy” to attend to your calls and queries. In order to just speak to them I had to book a session and fly to Johannesburg for something that could have been done in a matter of minutes over the phone.
 
5. When meetings were scheduled it became the norm for social workers to arrive late. Yet they always billed for full sessions;
 
6. Over a year and various mediation sessions and Court postponements (5 court dates over more than a year) to compile and simply amend our parenting plan with no solutions and the Children’s Court still needed to determine what is in our minor child’s best interest;
 
7. Mediation sessions were conducted in an emotional manner by the social worker whom I expected to remain independent and professional when the arguments between the parties became heated;
 
8. Decisions made by the social workers chopped and changed from meeting to meeting. There were no proper control and consistency (depending on who was the favor of the day);
 
9. Proposals made by the parties were simply copied and pasted by the social workers;
 
10. Long and regular postponements were requested by the social workers at Court to “finalize the parenting plan”. No attention was given to the matter until two/three days prior to Court appearances, causing the social workers to scramble around which led to further postponements as “no agreement could be reached”. Upon the final appearance date the social workers once again failed to present the amended parenting plan ahead of the court date and came to court with it printed expecting the parties to read and agree to it there and then, which did not happen as it was once again poorly done;
 
11. Privileged information given to social workers between me and my son was forwarded to the child’s mother by the social workers which lead to my son being exposed to a very angry mother damaging his trust relationship with me. Icarus vehemently denied doing so basically saying my son is dreaming it up, which is totally impossible;
 
12. Advantage was taken of me financially as I was labeled to be a wealthy person. Exuberant fees were charged, commencing at R4000 per Court appearance that escalated to R8000 and later R9000 per Court appearance. Full day fees were charged, notwithstanding the fact that the social workers only appeared for a few minutes in the morning to postpone matter on their request, additionally they attended to various other matters on the same day. This cost also excluded the drafting of the Parenting Plan and all other meetings and sessions;
 
13. As per an Order of Court, both parties had to pay Icarus’ account in equal shares. I have reason to believe that my former wife was not billed and has not paid. On request of a full and itemized account, I was refused full insight into the complete bill as my former wife’s payments were regarded as privileged information by the social worker despite being an order of court and I was at first advised that the POPI Act prevents them to disclose payments made by the minor child’s mother later they claimed that I need a new court order to compel them to expose our account details. Icarus’ bill ended up at over R50,000;
 
14. Drafting of the Parenting Plan was poorly executed, my legal team and I had to intervene on more than one occasion to amend and correct the poor writing skills, errors and incorrect facts;
 
15. I believed mediation to be a process where parties are treated equal, with respect and with sensitivity to the Child’s needs and best interest, which was the opposite of what transpired with Icarus;
 
16. I felt deceived and disrespected by the social workers who made no secret of the fact that they hold the power in their hands to destroy relationships, which they do without hesitation if you dare question their motives and methods. One even receives threats that they will go as far to recommend supervised contact if you dare question them. They are easily manipulated and become emotionally involved in cases causing their judgments to be questionable.

17. In the parenting plan they force themselves in as future mediators leaving no alternate option for FAMAC or DiSCA or SAAM to appoint anyone else. Fortunately for us due to the de-registration of the original Icarus MT we are now free to find professional alternatives should we ever need it.

18. In the time they were assigned to our case they went through 3 different receptionists, subsequently de-registered the original Icarus MT and reopened under Y Kruger now again T/A Icarus MT.

19. In the end not a single plead form my ex-wife was court granted, so what took over a year and far over R100,000 to conclude could have been done in worst case scenario in 4 months and far under R50k in legal and other professional services had there been a professional diligent social worker assigned to our case.
 
In light of my unfortunate experience, I can’t recommend Icarus or Ms Kruger to other parents or couples who wishes to mediate disputes between them. I would strongly recommend finding alternative professionals in their stead.