Last week I sat in Saint Paul and mediated between an employee in Hawaii and her boss in the United Kingdom. To be more precise, it was a simulated mediation, with mediators playing the roles of the parties, and with Giuseppe Leone and his Virtual Mediation Lab making all the arrangements.  Giuseppe’s program demonstrates how both mediation and mediation training can be conducted with parties all over the world using Skype.

Virtual Mediation Lab:  This was my second time mediating in Giuseppe’s program.  Both times, Giuseppe arranged the role play scenario, provided a means for mediators to sign up either to play a party or to mediate, set up the multi-party Skype video call, set up the mediation, and then facilitated a discussion about the mediation afterward.  Both times it’s been a pleasure and a learning experience.  The mediation and the feedback session are recorded so participants can review them later. Click here for more information on Giuseppe’s Virtual Mediation Lab. 

Transformative Mediation Especially Apt:  Because the discipline of transformative mediation focuses very much on process, VML can be especially helpful to those who hope to improve their skills in the transformative approach.  You’ll receive feedback from the participants and can then review video of the session and the feedback as much as you want.  Also, of course, the experience of being a party in a simulation can give you great insight into how you want to treat your own mediation clients.

Facilitative Mediators Impressed:  The parties to this simulated mediation are Facilitative mediators in real life.  Toward the end of the video, during the feedback session, you can hear one party describe the transformative process as “very effective. . . I liked his words that he was there to ‘facilitate a conversation’. . . he let the parties control it, but yet there was something about his presence, the strength in his presence that I didn’t feel like I was alone. . . it is very different but I found it to be very effective.”

The other party said: “I’ve got to admit, going into a mediation and not hearing ‘we’re here to settle, we’re here to resolve the dispute’ was really really weird and. . . worked! . . . and the result we got was totally different. . . it was far more productive. . . it really does foster that collaborative approach. . . I’m astonished, I really am, how effective it was. . . incredibly interesting.”

So Check out Virtual Mediation Lab:  So I recommend Virtual Mediation Lab for all mediators, especially those who want to learn about the transformative approach.

Source: transformativemediation.org