Center for Mediation & Training Staff and Team

Kenneth Neumann, Ph.D., is an expert in the field of Family and Divorce Mediation. He is a founding board member of numerous professional associations and a frequent presenter at professional conferences. Ken is trained as a Clinical School Psychologist and a family therapist and has been working with parents and children going through the divorce process for over 40 years.
Ken has a unique specialization in high conflict custody cases. He has developed a detailed model on how to break impasse and he is often selected as the Parenting Coordinator in the most challenging cases. Ken has been at the forefront of developing new mediation techniques and processes including Team Mediation where both a mediator and a financial professional actively participate in the process from the very beginning. Ken has more recently developed a training program in Couples/Marital Mediation. Ken’s expertise in divorce mediation, parenting coordination, and child custody issues is often called upon by press and publications. He has been quoted in The New York Times, Forbes, and CNBC, among others. Since 1984, Ken has trained and supervised more than three thousand mediators. In 2020, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Professional Family Mediators. 

Steven Abel, Esq. is a divorce mediator and family law attorney with more than 40 years of experience. He is available as a consultant to mediators and also handles the drafting of QDROs. He is a past President of the New York State Council on Divorce Mediation, the Academy of Professional Family Mediators, and the New York State Chapter of AFCC. He was honored by the NYSCDM, which named its annual award for service as the Abel Award. Steve served on the Board of Directors of the Center for Safety & Change (formerly Rockland Family Shelter) for more than 36 years. He was one of the co-authors of “The Friendly Divorce Guidebook for New York”.
abelqdros.com

Ada is the founder of the Divorce and Family Mediation Center in Melville, NY. Having developed her skills as a negotiator after 20 years in commercial real estate, she set her sights on a new direction in 2000. With her deep and abiding passion to make a real difference, Ada is on the Board of Directors of the NYSCDM. She has presented workshops to both the NYSCDM and FDMCGNY and seminars on divorce mediation at EAPA (Employee Assistance Professionals Association) and the AAMFT (Association of Marriage and Family Therapists).
DFMCLI.com

Donna is a Founding Member of the ACADEMY OF PROFESSIONAL FAMILY MEDIATORS and Co-Director of the Center’s Supervised Practicum. She has been a professional negotiator for over twenty years, having honed her skills as a medical malpractice defense litigator, general counsel to a large not-for-profit, and employment lawyer. Donna is a past Chair of the New York State Bar Association’s COMMITTEE ON WOMEN IN THE LAW and was appointed to the New York State Bar Association President’s Task Force to Develop Leadership and Diversity and the President’s Task Force on Gender Equity. She has given numerous trainings on employment law issues, has presented on various topics at conferences, and was recently interviewed along with Ken Neumann for the documentary THE BIG FLIP.