By: Paula Drouin, Founder and Director ADR International Group Inc. and ADR Learning Institute
I have been mediating, facilitating, and delivering Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) training for more than twenty-seven years and have learned Interest-based, Narrative, Transformative, and the Evaluative mediation models, and have facilitated restorative justice dialogue and peacemaking circles. One would think that because mediators work in a field that promotes collaboration, we would easily embrace all the ways to bring people in conflict together. There are times that happens and other times when those doing mediation can become very positional about which ADR process is the best.
I have overheard non-lawyer mediators accusing lawyer mediators of not doing ‘real’ mediation. I have heard lawyer mediators promote exclusive access to the term mediation, believing that non-lawyers are not qualified to mediate. There may be some truth to both claims, depending on the type of file being worked on. There are many complicated contractual and legal disputes better served by a lawyer mediator. Just as there are many workplace interpersonal conflicts, better served by a non-lawyer mediator specializing in mediating relationship conflicts.
However, my focus extends beyond these debates to the challenges faced by mediators operating within indigenous and immigrant communities in obtaining national designations as Qualified or Chartered Mediators in Canada. In Canada a person applying for qualified mediator designation must demonstrate through mock mediations or real-life mediations, the Interest-based mediation/negotiation model that began in Harvard. It is a very effective model and I use it in 90% of my work because most of my work is in Canadian corporations or government. However, in its pure form, the model does not translate well in indigenous and other communities and is not used and therefore is not practiced by mediators from those communities, who are working with their own people.
For over twenty-five years I have been delivering an indigenous peacemaking program that is predominately attended by Indigenous justice workers. Over the span of a quarter century, only one graduate of that program had the courage to apply for the Qualified Mediator designation. They were indigenous, however they also had decades of experience working in the Canadian government and lived off reserve. The program was delivered every two years, and every group was taught the interest-based model as well as restorative justice and traditional peacemaking processes. There is really no reason to earn a designation in a model that you will not use in your community.
Our mediation training certificate model received accreditation as meeting the education requirements for International Designations through the International Mediation Institute. When that happened, we started receiving applicants from many countries in the world. I then started to notice that some of our African students were having similar concerns about how the model would work when they were working with members of their own communities. I had one student comment that she’d been practicing speaking in a very linear way, because in her community they speak in a circular way, and she wanted to pass her evaluation. There is more storytelling in their culture. It broke my heart to think that yet again, for our graduates to be qualified to apply for designations, I would have to assess their skills as mediators through the use of the Interest-based mediation model.
I have sat on the Provincial and National Chartered Mediator Committee and have participated in many discussions around how to make the evaluation process ‘objective’ across Canada to improve the chances of having consistency in mediator skill levels across Canada. However, it was always a room full of Caucasian mediators working on the criteria, hoping to come up with an evaluation process to objectively and more easily determine if someone passed their evaluation or not.
It has become increasingly obvious that in creating a process to ease the burden of ‘grey areas’ while evaluating mediators, we also created a process that is not inclusive. I have an idea that if we instead create a framework that could encompass many ways people bring presence, process, effectiveness, and resolution to parties in conflict, then perhaps that would provide a new way to assess a mediator’s effectiveness, presence, skill level and ability to serve the parties in conflict, no matter the culture or environment.
At the upcoming World Mediation Summit in Edmonton, AB June 10th – 12th, 2024 I will be proposing a Framework for attendees at the conference to tear apart, build upon, or provide honest feedback on. We are all passionate about helping other humans journey through their conflicts and disputes in a way that does no harm. We are also a community of professionals who never intended to be exclusive, it simply happened through the limited lens we had at the time decisions were made nationally. I believe that by working together we can create a new, inclusive, welcoming way to expand the field of ADR professionals by finding ways to assess the competency of all mediators, not just the ones using the interest-based mediation model.
Join us at MacEwan University in Edmonton this June to contribute to the development of a World Mediation Framework and embark on a journey toward a more inclusive and equitable mediation profession. Let’s initiate conversations and chart a course for meaningful change.
