SENTIENT TIMES
April/May 2008
Mediation Works: A Center for
Community Dispute Resolution
by Jody Woodruff
Mediation Works is Jackson County’s non-profit dispute resolution center, the second largest mediation center in Oregon after Portland. The organization has been carefully and thoughtfully developed from its modest beginnings in 1990 to become one of the largest in the nation, now considered an example of a model program.
In broad terms, Mediation Works empowers individuals and organizations to resolve their differences peacefully. The intent is to help people change the way they generally view conflict—from a negative action to understanding conflict as an opportunity to reach an agreement that works for both parties, at the same time improving their relationship. They accomplish this in two ways: offering mediation services to people with very high conflict disputes and through prevention training, giving people the lifelong skills to create more harmonious situations in the community, schools and workplace.
Mary Miller, Director of Mediation Works, remarks that many people, even professionals, sometimes confuse mediation with arbitration. She explains that an arbitrator is really a judge in an informal setting who listens to both sides of the issue and then makes a decision. Trained mediators do not give advice or make decisions for either party. They facilitate the communication and the negotiation process to help people come up with their own agreement. As a result, the relationship between the parties often improves. Mediation is not only about how many agreements can be achieved, but also about what shifted in the relationship. For example, neighbors have to continue living next door to each other; family members need to coexist peacefully. Solutions must work for both parties.
In some cases disputants are referred by the court, workplace or other agencies, but many are individual cases. Emotions are very high in critical disputes and it may take a lot of courage for someone to pick up the phone and call the agency to ask for help. Some people don’t believe mediation will work because it seems impossible to agree and they feel hopeless about ever reaching a conclusion—but that is exactly the time to seek mediation. The shifts that occur with mediation often amaze the disputants. Once people are able to get to the point of understanding each other, they are able to brainstorm solutions that meet their underlying needs. For those who have the courage to try, there is more than a 70% success rate with mediations through this organization. Fees are always determined on a sliding scale and no one is ever turned down for lack of funds.
Mediation Works is many things to many people. Community, family, workplace, schools, courts, Latino and elderly outreach—the array of programs offered is extensive and impressive. Nevertheless, there is a big emphasis placed on the youth programs. Mary explains that they view young people as our future. Whatever seeds are sown, whatever skills are learned in Jackson County will be spread to other places throughout their lifetimes. In that sense, they will be contributing to world peace.
The Schools Program is one of the largest and oldest programs, serving youth in every high school, middle school and many elementary schools in Jackson County. The three separate but related arms of this program are peer mediators, training for bullying and harassment, and training in conflict resolution skills for all ages.
Peer mediation is a form of conflict resolution in which trained students help their peers work together to resolve everyday disputes. This enables students to resolve many disputes without intervention of the staff, the benefits being threefold: student mediators develop leadership skills and problem solving techniques applicable to many life situations, helping their school and themselves; students involved in disputes assume more responsibility for solving their problems rather than escalating them; and staff is saved an enormous amount of time, freeing them for other activities.
A significant and more recent addition involves training for bullying and harassment prevention. The National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center reports that almost 30% of youth in the US are involved in bullying either as a bully or a target. 160,000 students miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation. Not surprisingly, bullying is more likely to occur in schools where teachers and students are indifferent to, or accepting of bullying. Research further shows very strongly that the person most successful in defusing a bullying situation is the bystander. Consequently, a program has been developed to train students how to intervene as bystanders. This takes a tremendous amount of courage and is preferably done in pairs or as a group. Working through health classes, Mediation Works staff and volunteers focus on raising the awareness of the impact of bullying as well as teaching intervention training. This includes cyber bullying, relationship, and secretive bullying—attacking someone with gossip behind their back, a form of harassment used more often by girls. Even though this program is geared to teaching intervention, some of those taking the class recognize the impact of their behavior and often say they will stop bullying.
The third arm of the Schools Program is teaching age appropriate conflict resolution skills that can be used in everyday life situations. All told, Mediation Works delivered 82 school programs in the past year, serving 1,092 students.
Another successful youth program is the work done in Jackson County’s Juvenile Detention Center. Invited by the Director of the Juvenile Division after he observed the success of other youth programs, Mediation Works volunteers now conduct classes twice a week on a regular basis—one class per week in each of the two Juvenile units. This program, developed by volunteer Wally Burton, is now managed by a volunteer with a team of twelve volunteers, a testament to the effectiveness of the volunteer aspect of Mediation Works.
A stay in the Detention Center may last from eight days to several months; thus the program has a cycle of conflict resolution programs which enables kids to always learn something new. The classes are interactive and focused on skill building—how to deal with anger, how to say no, working with conflict at home, and communication skills.
Before a young person leaves the detention center, he or she is offered an opportunity to mediate with a family member or significant person, thus a great deal of work with parents and teens is accomplished before returning the youth home. Frequently, the parents and teens can work out a plan for integrating the son or daughter back into the family. Often the issue that landed the teen in the detention center has never been discussed, so the center is a neutral environment for highly skilled facilitators to work with the families. Sadly some parents refuse to participate, but many mediations have positive outcomes.
The third youth program is the Victim Offender Program—a program for youth who have offended but have not been incarcerated. These young people participate in a series of four classes, one and a half hours each, over a period of two weeks. Classes are led by a Mediation Works staff member with the assistance of volunteers who act as coaches to individual youth. Here the boys and girls are being prepared to meet with their victim, developing empathy and demonstrating accountability for their offenses. It takes a great deal of skill and patience to help many of these teens understand the results of their actions and to deal with their anger.
A mediation is arranged if the victim is willing to participate. Some are reluctant, but when they understand the possible benefits to themselves and the offender, many agree. For those who have participated, the results can be satisfying for both parties. Mary Miller explains that this program could not be effective without the participation of the trained volunteers.
Volunteers are the core of Mediation Works. These are highly skilled, extensively trained men and women who contributed 7,000 hours in the past year. Without them the approximately 2,000 cases, serving 3,758 people, could not have been handled. In addition, they also conduct training in the community, workplace, schools and juvenile center, serving another 3,200 individuals. At present there are about 20 volunteers serving on the Board of Directors and/or Board committees. There are also over 40 active, trained volunteers delivering programs.
Mary notes that not all volunteers are required to have the mediation training. Mediation is one arm of the agency. This may also include coaching the first party through the conflict if the second party refuses mediation. The second arm is prevention work done through the numerous training programs.
Mediation Works provides a five day, 38 hour basic mediation training, a prerequisite for all Mediation Works volunteers and also available to the public. An advanced training, with three levels of observation time with mediators and pairing with a skilled mediator, qualifies a volunteer as a lead mediator. The advanced training is a huge commitment, but one that volunteers claim is personally rewarding. One volunteer, commenting on other volunteers, said: “I have never met a group of people who are so caring, so patient. They are all here for one purpose—they all want to help.”
Mediation Works needs even more volunteers who are prepared to take the training and follow through, either to be trained as a mediator or to work in training youth in the schools. Board members are also wanted—particularly people who understand long range planning. Financial donations are needed as well. Sources of the present budget of $320,000 are government and foundation grants, some contract and fee income, and about one third from donations. Consequently, donations are crucial.
Perhaps what Mediation Works needs above all is for the community to understand what they do and how they can be utilized. Outreach is ongoing through presentations to Police and other agencies in the workplace and they welcome requests to speak to any group. More outreach is planned, such as mini training sessions for neighborhoods to learn how to resolve neighborhood disputes—neighbor to neighbor, landlord/tenant. One hour “Discover Mediation Works” events are scheduled to acquaint people with basic facts about the organization on June 6th, Noon-1pm at the Medford Office and June 11th, 4-5pm, at the Ashland Library. A Celebratory Luncheon will take place on, April 23 in Medford (please call 770-2468 if you wish to attend).
Mary Miller and her staff want you to know that there is help for individuals or groups dealing with a high conflict situation and invite you to take time to learn more about how they may serve you, your organization or your neighbor. Please call (541) 770-2468 or visit www.mediation-works.org for more information.
Jody Woodruff is a retired social worker and educational film writer who now writes freelance from Talent, Oregon.
SENTIENT TIMES
PO Box 1330 Ashland, OR 97520
PHONE (541) 512-1084 • FAX (541) 512-1085
dmokma@jeffnet.org
