Confrontation is crucial to soap operas and to reality-television shows, such as Hell's Kitchen and Big Brother. In the real world, domestic violence continues to rise, hospital A&E departments overflow on Friday and Saturday nights and people are still dying in Iraq despite political progress. One could be forgiven for thinking that insults, fisticuffs and bloodshed are the only ways to deal with differences of opinion. Anne Dempsey reports
But while these stories make the headlines a quieter revolution is taking place. Mediation, an alternative method of resolving a quarrel, is being increasingly used in the workplace, in community disputes, in marital separations, in schools, as an alternative to jail and, in a forum that should be of public interest, to save time and money at the Equality Tribunal.
The spread has been aided by a diploma in mediation studies that began at University College Dublin in 1999 for people interested in developing a career in mediation or using its skills as part of their work. The course has proved so popular that this autumn sees the launch of a master's degree in mediation (with applications closing on June 30th).
Mediation is an enlightened form of negotiation that brings the competing individuals or groups together with a trained mediator who helps them find their own solutions. There are three stages: introduction, identification of issues and agreement or non-resolution, with sessions generally lasting two hours.
A busy graduate of the course is Treasa Kenny of Burtenshaw Kenny Associates, in Dublin. Trained in personnel and human resources, she is an organisational development and training consultant, working with companies on respect and dignity at work, including implementing effective anti-bullying policies. Kenny found herself increasingly trying to resolve conflicts without formal training. "So I wanted another string to my bow. One important thing I took from the course is the broad breadth of areas where mediation is relevant.
"Secondly, there was the whole emotional piece where people can see the same situation in very different ways, feel most strongly about it and begin by believing the other person is perverse because they see it differently. One of the roles of mediation is to help people move to distinguish between the person and their behaviour."
Today Kenny mediates for a range of companies, offering an alternative to the judicial route. "There are different situations. An employee may feel bullied by their line manager, make a complaint and agree to an invitation to talk it out in mediation. Or there may be cultural differences between an Irish worker and a foreign national, creating a lot of tension, making it difficult for them to work together. I am thinking of another case of two male colleagues who were like stags clashing antlers at meetings.
"I begin with an initial conversation with each party, to decide if the case would be amenable to mediation. When we come together we hear both sides of the story. People can become very upset at this point. There can be tears, anger, aggression on both sides. It's cathartic to get the emotions out. We then work to find agreement on what the issues are.
"On the complainant's side it may be the way someone asks for the work to be done, the lack of respect they feel they are being accorded. The blaimant might believe the work must be up to a certain standard and feel tender about their reputation being tarnished through general office talk on the case. We plan for the next session by asking each person how they would like things to be and what each would need to achieve that. If they must work together between sessions we explore how this can best be managed.
"By the next session people are often more relaxed with each other: they have done some thinking and are more ready to work on the options. These could cover agreeing a way of working together and could be as simple as addressing the paperwork before a meeting, improving filing systems, managing diaries, handling telephone calls. The male colleagues agreed to allow each other speak and hear what they had to say before jumping in. The colleagues with cultural differences agreed to spend informal time together, getting to know each other, and this has proved very successful." Agreed solutions are written up, with participants agreeing how much detail, if any, to disclose to the company.
Mediation, says Kenny, may not work - or even be attempted - if the balance of power is very unequal or if someone accused of bullying, say, is unprepared to consider any change. "Sometimes I use pre-mediation, shuttle mediation, to test the potential benefit of mediation, and I might seriously represent to the person accused of bullying the value to them of the mediation route.
"It's not my story nor my solution. The role of the mediator is to stay well back, with the aim of helping the people involved to find the best solution for them. The heart of my role is to facilitate and re-frame the discussion. Mediation is really good, because the people directly involved in a conflict get to sit down and talk it through together without a solution being imposed upon them by others."
Mediation is also proving successful at the Equality Tribunal, which was set up in 1999 to investigate complaints of discrimination under the Employment Equality Act 1998 and the Equal Status Act 2000. The former gives increased protection against workplace discrimination; the latter makes it unlawful to discriminate against someone on the grounds of gender, religion, marital or family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race or ethnicity. Last year the tribunal received 1,078 complaints; 105 of these were mediated, with 61 per cent resolved.
"Employment issues can cover promotion, access to employment or training, the way people are treated at work A significant number of equal-status complaints involve racial discrimination: refused entry to government services, shops, restaurants. There are also complaints arising from disability or age discrimination," says Ruairí Gogan, the tribunal's head of mediation, who adds that mediation is generally three times faster than an investigation before an equality officer.
"It's an informal, voluntary process. The mediator is a neutral and impartial third party, with no power to impose a resolution, who helps the parties reach a mutually acceptable settlement if they so wish. The terms of such agreements are drawn up in a written record by the mediator, each party receives a copy for signature, there is a cooling-off period allowed and, once signed, the agreement is legally binding, with noncompliance enforceable through the circuit court.
"In investigation there has to be winner and a loser, whereas in mediation both parties can be considered winners where innovative and creative solutions are made possible," says Gogan. These can include an apology, acknowledgment that hurt and embarrassment were caused, a promise of equal treatment in the future or the introduction of equality policies.
Contrary to what you might expect, compensation is not an issue in 40 per cent of equal-status cases, says Gogan. "You may have a situation where a Traveller was refused entry to a premises. It will emerge the issue is not money but to be treated the same as everyone else, and when this is realised you can see the barricades coming down then on the other side."
In 2002 compensation payments ranged from €1,150 to €14,389 in employment agreements and from €150 to €1,240 in equal-status agreements.
Julie McAuliffe, a family mediator who lectures on the UCD course, says many separating couples now attend one of the growing number of State family-mediation centres. A mediated decision can be brought to a solicitor for ratification, at which point it becomes a legal document. "The main issues are the family home, how finances are worked out and parenting. We aim for solutions rather than cobbling together a compromise, and we test the options with them to see how realistic they are. No two mediations are alike: each is tailor-made by the couple, and if they are the architects you could say the mediator is the project manager.
"When they come to us they are usually in crisis, often overwhelmed, in conflict. We work through a process, breaking things down step by step and helping them find their own solutions, as they are the experts on their own problems. What can sabotage things is if someone has a poor history of decision-making or is unreliable in keeping to the agreed decisions made.
"The difference with mediation is that when couples take the adversarial route someone works for them, in mediation: it's a collaborative process. The best outcome is one that works for the whole family.
"Couples have to achieve the very difficult trick of uncoupling the bond while staying connected as parents, and I stand in awe and admiration of what many of them achieve."
Judicial process
third party decides the outcome
results in winners and losers
parties can feel they have no control of process
no grey areas
findings are of fact and law
aims for compromise
assumes that agreement must be reached, even through compromise University College Dublin's master's degree in mediation and conflict resolution meets the Mediators Institute Ireland accreditation standards Part 11. For information on master's and diploma courses contact the human sciences faculty at UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4 (01-7168712, cpe@ ucd.ie) or log on to www.ucd.ie/cpe
Mediation
parties decide the outcome
there does not have to be losers
parties retain a say in what happens
accommodates grey areas
findings focus on moving forward
aims for solutions
no assumption that agreement is certain
