Roundtable Breakfast - IDENTIFYING GOOD AND BAD MEDIATION PRACTICE

This workshop, which was postponed in November due to extreme weather, will focus on overcoming barriers to mediation. We will look mostly at the interaction between mediators and potential client in intake calls; that is, the very first conversation between a member of the public and a mediator. We will see how different mediators explain mediation, in ways that work and do not work. We will also examine different ways of constructing solution-focused questions offering mediation and how clients typically respond. Finally, we will scrutinize the notion of impartiality, and look at the ways mediators encourage or discourage potential clients from engaging with mediation. The workshop will provide mediators with a rare opportunity to scrutinize actual mediation practice in fine-grained detail, and to reflect on, and discern, good and bad practice.

PROFESSOR ELIZABETH STOKOE has been involved with UK mediation services since 1997, studying mediation practice via audio-recordings of both intake calls (between members of the public, before they are ‘clients’, and call-takers) as well as recordings of individual and joint mediation meetings themselves. Following this research, she has developed training for mediators, turning research findings into workshops that are based on the real time, anonymized recordings.

Professor Stokoe has developed a Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM) , which involves small-group discussion prompted by recordings. CARM contrasts directly with traditional role-play methods because training participants get to see real mediators doing their work, and reflect on identifiable patterns that demonstrate actual (good and bad) practice. As Professor Stokoe says, “Good and bad practice does not always look like what we might expect!”