Community Mediation

The other day I posted my own garbled idea of what the different models of mediation are. I was trained in what was then called the Facilitative model. I've been helping train other mediators in that model for several years now, and although the training hasn't changed dramatically, it is now referred to as the Community Mediation model. The name change was because it is sort of a hybrid of the Facilitative and Tranformative models. Here are the important tenets of the Community Mediation Model in no particular order:

-There are no guidelines restricting or directing participants' behavior.
-The mediators do not make any suggestions, give advice or offer suggestions.
-The mediators do not evaluate the participants' solutions.
-A five step process is used to direct the flow of the conversation. That means that if a participant comes up with a potential solution in step 2, the mediators will indicate that they've heard the solution, reflect any feelings they also heard around it, and then let the participants know that potential solutions will be identified in step 4.
-Mediators ask open-ended questions to uncover the heart of the conflict. The idea is to help the participants resolve the root causes of the conflict, and not just what might be happening in the moment.

A lot of the conversation around the different models centers around the Transformative model and why it may or may not be better than the others. I like the Community Mediation Model. It's familiar to me and it's really the only model that I have any formal training in, so of course I'm more likely to favor it over all others. However, the arguments for Transformative mediation make me both curious to know more and a little turned off. There are two points that I think are worth exploring.

One is that in Transformative mediation ideas and potential solutions get explored as soon as they arise. This is what I want to know more about and I will save that for a later discussion. The point that I want to address now is how deep into the conflict the Transformative and Community Mediation models go or don't go.

Let's look at an example to illustrate the different models:

Lisa and Tiarra had been friends for years and eventually became roommates. After a falling out, Tiarra asked Lisa to move out, which Lisa did, prematurely ending the lease. Tiarra was stuck having to pay the full share of the rent for the rest of the lease and is now in mediation to recover the remaining amount that she thinks Lisa owes. Their friendship has completely dissolved with the two women treating each other like bitter rivals. During the mediation most of the conversation is focused on the money, but Lisa periodically brings up details from the past, such as, "You were such a horrible roommate. You never cleaned a thing!", and "If you an your boyfriend hadn't been making so much noise, I wouldn't have gotten upset in the first place." Although Lisa peppered the conversation with these comments, she would then follow up with statements like, "Whatever, it's not even worth bringing that up. Let's just talk about the rent, because I don't owe you anything".

To the best of my knowledge, in Transformative mediation those past details don't get explored any further unless the participants bring them up. In Community Mediation, those are the details that the mediators are listening for. They hear topics of housework and volume, and they may conclude that these were potentially the beginnings of the conflict. Therefor they ask about them. "Lisa, it sounds like you felt frustrated by the noise. Tell me more about that?".

That way, it opens up the conversation about what happened, and how everyone was affected by what happened. It lets participants resolve the heart of the conflict and possibly restore the friendship they originally had. If only the topic of rent gets resolved, the two participants are free to go on hating each other and to go their separate ways. It's true that if that is what the participants want, it is their decision. In both models, the mediators will not force or coerce them to make certain decisions, nor will they force them to talk about anything they do not want to. At least in Community Mediation, they ask. They dig into the past to see what can be worked out. If the participants don't want to talk about it, the mediators move on. From what I have seen of Transformative mediation, the mediators don't ask. They simply move on and deal strictly with the topic of rent. This could leave the causes of the conflict intact, ready to explode again the next time these two participants interact.

In my next post I will defend why I think the mediators should make the effort to dig deeper, and it will be based on my personal experience. If I'm wrong about Transformative mediation, hopefully some transformative mediators will use this space to set me, and hopefully others, straight.