NCJ Number
85782
Date Published
1982
Length
8 pages
Annotation
This discussion of mediators and mediation in the community justice centers of New South Wales (Australia) focuses on the selection and training of mediators, the mediation process, types of disputes, and workload.
Abstract
Each center has aimed at selecting a group of mediators representative of the community. Advertisements for applicants were placed in newspapers, yielding a little over 600 inquiries. While the method of selection of potential mediators to be trained differed at each center, the basic criteria for selection were similar: tolerance, flexibility, confidence, assertiveness, and verbal expression. The training of the mediators focused on skills development rather than the imparting of academic knowledge. The training included the cultivation of communicative skills and a great amount of role playing to apply the mediation process. The mediation process gives each party the opportunity to tell his/her side of the dispute without interruption. The mediators then summarize both sides and help the disputants determine the issues that can be mediated. Then, taking an issue at a time, the mediators help the parties communicate on each issue. This is a directed and controlled process aimed to help the parties communicate with one another in a constructive manner. The mediators identify grounds for agreement and compromise that builds to a solution agreeable to and essentially devised by both parties. The agreement is then committed to writing. A format has been devised that encourages mediators to examine their own and their partner's performance, so that mediation skills may be improved. The criteria for acceptance of a dispute for mediation is that the disputants have had some form of continuing relationship, such as neighbors or family members. One or two mediations per week is viewed as ideal for each mediator, but the current number of cases is too small to permit this.