MEDIATION

In class we talked about mediation as a possibility to resolve conflicts. This Semester I have had some awesome opportunities to mediate and I want to share a couple more of my mediation experiences.
On November 4th, 2010 I had the opportunity to mediate at Mountain View High School in Orem. I Co-mediated with another UVU student as we tried to help a teenage girl and her mother come up with ideas to increase school performance. The girl is really struggling with absences and tardiness. Mountain View gives the student the opportunity to come receive mediation and they will take away a number of tardys or absences, so my co-mediator knew that this was a big deal. The teenager didn’t seem motivated at first but as a couple of goals came up she opened up. She started giving ideas for goals and promised to reach them. Her mother also promised to do things that would help them. She has a really bad grade report and the school counselor told us that if she continues at the rate she is at now she won’t graduate in April. It was hard as a mediator not to give my ideas or advice her. I tried to stay natural and let her come up with the talking. I was happy to see the support of the mother and I think this mediation strengthened their relationship.
I met again with my Mountain View student on November 11th and we were able to check up on her goals that we set the previous week. She didn’t keep any of them. She had a reason why for each un-kept goal. None of the reasons seemed valid. We again tired to create an environment where the teen and mother could come up with goals that they would be motivated to keep that would lead to progression. I noticed that the mother was really into it and wanted to help her daughter be able to graduate. She offered to help with some of the new goals that were set. I think that we slipped a little bit into counseling in this mediation. We found out that she had to complete something like 42 packets before she could graduate and each of them cost 25$ to buy. It was hard for us not to say, “Get going on this!”
I met again with her on November 18. SHE IMPROVED SO MUCH. She kept all the goals we had set for her the previous week. She seemed like a different person. She was excited and for the first time I started to think this girl had a chance at graduation. Of course, I never let her know that I was doubting her, but now she was progressing. She wasn’t absent or tardy all week and her grade in History had raised form a F to a C. We set some goals for her to work on of the next two weeks and we are really hoping she will continue to progress and keep her goals. I think as mediators we did a good job and letting her know that we were proud of her for progressing. I also like how we write out her goals and plans for the next weeks. We write it very clear and make it easy to follow along.