Any effective crime prevention program requires careful planning. To make your mediation program a success, follow these six critical planning steps.

Step 1: Identify the Types of Conflict To Address

When planning your mediation program, first identify the types of conflict you want to help solve. Are there particular places, organizations, or programs in your community where people need extra help resolving disputes or frequently experience conflict? What kinds of disputes tend to arise? Family problems? Conflicts involving school rules or policies? Fights over possessions? Arguments between students of different races or ethnic groups? After examining the types of conflict in your school and community, determine which ones can be subject to mediation. Check to see if there is a community mediation center in your area, and ask the center’s staff what they have learned about community conflict.

Step 2: Decide When To Use Mediation

After taking a good look at the types of problems that exist in your school, community, facility, or organization and determining which type of problem or conflict your program will address, decide when mediation should be used. Talk to your school administrators, teachers, peers, and adults about how mediation might help in your school or community. Should it be used only on an emergency basis or only when the possibility of violence exists? Who should refer disputes? How quickly after a referral will mediation take place?

Step 3: Recruit Mediators

Your next important planning activity is to recruit potential mediators. They could be just a few family members or friends or an entire group. Whatever the case, identify and recruit people who have the time and desire to complete all necessary training. Volunteers need to understand that they will be helpers, not judges. They will not determine guilt or innocence or impose punishments. Rather, they will help disputants find the best possible solution to their particular conflict. Mediators do not impose their ideas on the people in disagreement. They help others decide on solutions that are best for them.

Step 4: Train Mediators

Training mediators is the single most important step when planning a mediation program. To mediate effectively, a person must be a good listener, one who will not take sides in a dispute. A mediator must also be able to help disputants come up with several different ways to resolve their conflict. He or she must understand how to guide the mediation process and keep disputants focused. Although disputants may want concentrate only on their differences of opinion, they must be kept moving toward their goal—an agreed-upon solution to their problem.

Adult mediators may volunteer to help youth start mediation programs. Sometimes courts or bar associations will supply names of local mediators who can donate time or services. (See the “Resources” section at the end of Bulletin for names of organizations that can help.) Some communities have community mediation centers that provide training; some have school mediation projects that have many services. Local law schools may also be able provide training or volunteers.

It is hard to estimate how much time is needed to train your mediators. Training youth mediators can take anywhere from 20 to 60 hours. The number of hours needed depends on how old the disputants and mediators are, how complex the conflicts are likely to be, and how experienced your mediators are. Whatever the age and experience of your mediators may be, everyone can learn the basic principles.

Be sure each specific part of the training is well planned. Such planning will help ensure the success of your effort. Professional trainers know that preparation and organization are critical steps for good training.

Step 5: Identify Disputants

You begin by identifying people who need help to settle conflicts or arguments peacefully. Finding parties with conflicts appropriate for your mediation program requires support from school officials, community leaders, or other adults. Those individuals can help refer disputes to your program. They can also help you to explain the value of mediation to disputants and determine the kinds of disagreements your program will handle.

Step 6: Select a Neutral Location for Mediation Hearings

When planning your mediation program or seeking a place to resolve any kind of disagreement, it is important to choose a neutral location. If your program focuses on disputes between students and school administrators, you won’t want to meet in the principal’s conference room. If you’re trying to settle an argument between members of rival sports teams, you similarly won’t want to meet on one team’s playing field. The place selected should not be associated with any single group, clique, gang, or attitude. A guidance counselor, school administrator, neighborhood leader, or youth group officer can help you think of possible places and find out if they’re available.

Make sure that the location you choose allows everyone involved in the mediation to feel physically comfortable.

• Are there windows?
  
  
• Is the lighting sufficient?
  
  
• Can the temperature be adjusted?
  
  
• Is the room large enough to seat at least three people?
  
  
• Is there a large table, or would disagreeing parties have to sit side by side?
  
  
• Is there enough room for the mediator and the participants to get up and walk around?
  
  
• Is there a private room or space nearby if a disputant needs to make a phone call or be alone for a period of time?
  
  
• Is the location easily accessible to your mediators and likely disputants?

Answering the questions above and selecting a neutral location are necessary to ensure that your mediation sessions are as unbiased and confidential as possible.

Youth in Action Bulletin

March 2000     Number 15