This Blog Post is a a condensed version of Jim Melamed and Forrest (Woody) Mosten‘s article published in www.Mediate.com, January 2021
It was during late March 2020, soon after the pandemic first made global headlines, that a group of leading mediators and mediation trainers realized on a Zoom call that the ONLY mediation then taking place in the U.S. and around the world was suddenly “online mediation.” Further, we also realized that ALL mediation training was also then remarkably taking place online. Further, despite this near complete shift of mediation services and training to the online environment, we also realized that there were barely any standards, guidance or established best practices for online mediation and online mediation training. We decided that we owed it to ourselves and to the global mediation community to explore whether this void can be effectively addressed.
“How can the mediation field (now and in the future) best make and maintain quality mediators? This task is made even more challenging when we consider the broad range of mediation case types (e.g., family, elder, workplace, community, public policy, commercial, etc.) and our additional interest in finding international, if not global, answers in a world of diverse racial, cultural, technologic, and economic development.
The establishment of the Online Mediation Training Task Force was initially described is to: “make recommendations on best practices and possibilities for both generally training mediators online and training to perform online mediation.” The Task Force shall be issuing a report and recommendations with a vast array of individual committee reports,and other resources in a few weeks.
Advisory Board and Task Force Committees
The Task Force established 14 Focused Committees, as follows:
1. Beyond Mediation: Conflict Coaching, Life Coaching, Collaborative Practice & Consultants to Mediation
Co-Chairs: Brian Galbraith and Pattie Porter
Members: D.A. Graham, Amy Skogerson, DeAnne Pladson, Sam Imperati, Jonathan Rodrigues
2. Community Mediation
Chair: D.G. Mawn
Members: Arron Addison, Kabrina Bass, Brandon Brown, Sara Campos, Corinne “Cookie” Levitz, Charles A. Lieske, Norma López, Jeanne Felicity Zimmer
3. Cross Jurisdictional Issues
Chair: Melissa Kucinski
Members: Obi-Farinde Morenike, Michael Coffee, Marvin Johnson, Ai Kuroda, Angelia Tolbert, David Hodson
4. Cutting Edge Marketing for On Line Mediation
Chair: Susan Guthrie
Members: Alberto Elisavetsky, Gabrielle Hartley, Michael Aurit
5. Diversity & Inclusion
Co-Chairs: Marvin Johnson & Angelia Tolbert
Members: Leah Wing, Michael Lang, Kendra Jobe-Ogunshina, D.G. Mawn
6. Ethics, Standards and New Technologies
Chair: Colin Rule
Members: Obi-Farinde Morenike, Linda Seely, Leah Wing, Sharon Sturges, Tim Hedeen, Peter Salem
7. Experiential Training: Clinics, Simulations & Video Feedback
Chair: Tricia Jones
Members: Doug Frenkel, Melissa Kucinski, Judge Elizabeth Potter Scully, Tim Hedeen, Julian Portilla, Sukhsimran Singh, Lara Traum, Bruce Edwards, Jan Martinez
8. Family & Elder Mediation
Chair: Susan Guthrie
Members: Ken Neumann, Peter Salem, Lara Traum, Gabrielle Hartley, Linda Seely
9. Global Mediation Development: Developing Cultures of Mediation
Chair: Tara Ollapally
Members: Obi-Farinde Morenike, Bruce Edwards, Lara Traum, Ken Cloke
10. Mentoring & Case Consultation
Chair: Tricia Jones
Members: Vivienne Fey, Angela Haberholz, Chris Lahatte, Michael Lang, John Settle, Susan Terry, Howard Herman, Cherise Hairston, Amanda Semenoff and Patricia Draves
11. Public Policy & Large Group
Chair: Donna Silverberg
Members: Winter Wheeler, Ken Cloke
12. Workplace
Chair: Clare Fowler
Members: Winter Wheeler, Angela Reddock-Wright
13 Youth and Schools
Chair: Clare Fowler
Members: Sherril Ellsworth, Linda Seely, Jonathan Rodrigues
Challenging Issues
Among the most challenging issues the Task Force has addressed are the following:
- Should training with appropriate curriculum in online mediation be required for all mediators?
- Should every mediator now be able to be fully trained online?
- Is some face-to-face mediation training needed for mediators who plan to exclusively mediate online
- How much training should be “live” and how much may be recorded? May all of a mediator’s training be recorded? What are the best practices for online live and recorded trainings?
- How can diversity and inclusion be best supported and assured for online mediation and online mediation training?
- To what extent should feedback mentorship and/or consultation using video or other technological support, be required for mediators going forward?
- How can mediation ethical standards be best updated to embrace online mediation services and online mediation training? How can these new standards be best promoted?
- To what extent should observation, consultation, mentorship and co-mediation be utilized for mediator experiential training?
- How can online mediation services and online mediation training be best promoted?
- What online mediation and online mediation training research is most needed?
- How can online mediation trainers themselves be best trained?
To read more about the Mediation Online Task Force, including the reports and recommendations of the Committees, see Online Mediation Training Task Force Resource Center (mediate.com)