Voices of Reason: Agency trains adults and youths to mediate conflicts

Monday, March 12, 2001 | 9:04 a.m.

Jerry Fink

A small agency within the Clark County government has worked for the past 11 years to defuse volatile situations that could lead to tragedies, such as the one that happened at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., a week ago.

In that case, authorities say a 15-year-old freshman who allegedly shot 15 people at the school, killing two students, may have been acting out of anger over being teased by classmates.

Liah Stromberg, a supervisor with the Neighborhood Justice Center (NJC) in Las Vegas, said the situation at the California school was an example of violence that may have been averted through mediation.

"You have to wonder," she said. "Would it have been different if the young people had had an avenue of communication, like we're trying to implement with our young people in the schools here? If they had had discussions to talk about their hurt, would it have changed things?"

The Neighborhood Justice Center trains volunteer mediators in Clark County who try to resolve conflicts before they rise to the level of violence, or result in costly lawsuits.

Today more than 100 volunteer mediators trained by the NJC may be found in schools (where students mediate students), in courts and in the community.

"The whole concept of mediation is about creating a civil society," Shannon West, who manages the NJC, said. Mediation, she explained, is a process of conflict resolution in which a neutral third party helps two people at odds with each other reach a mutually satisfactory agreement. A successful mediation is one in which neither party feels as if he or she has been taken advantage of.

The mediator listens and guides the session, but the two people with a dispute are the ones who come up with the agreement at least they do in 73 percent of the cases, according to Stromberg.

"One of the unique things about mediation is that we are not there to figure out what the truth is," Stromberg said. "Unlike other forms of justice, unlike judging issues, we are there to flesh out the different perceptions of what led to the conflict and what can be done to resolve it."

The NJC, with a staff of 12, offers several mediation programs, including:

Conflict resolution through mediation is based upon keeping the lines of communication open between the contesting parties.

"There are so many things that can be done to help people to communicate better, to give them assertive power so they feel like they have some kind of control over things that are going on," West explained.

Since opening its doors in January 1992, NJC volunteers have mediated almost 4,000 cases. Because of its community service, last October it was selected as a National Point of Light, an honor bestowed by the national Points of Light Foundation, the Knights of Columbus and the Corporation for National Service.

NJC's volunteer mediators receive 40 hours of initial training and several hours of continuing education annually. In return they must mediate at least four cases each year.

"They come from all walks of life," Stromberg said. "We have people who speak foreign languages; we have all ages and eduction levels. Some volunteers are retired, others hold down full-time jobs. We seek that diversity."

West says becoming a mediator is a "life-transforming experience.

"You learn how to speak in a different way, so people want to listen. You learn how to listen in a way that makes people want to talk and share things.

"The mediator is taught to identify and to understand the difference between a position and an interest -- a position is a bottom line (what you want to gain) and an interest is what got you into the conflict in the first place."

The interests usually are based upon an emotion, often anger.

School squabbles

To stop the proliferation of violence among the students, in 1993 the NJC set up the federally funded School Peer Mediation Program.

The program has been adopted by more than 70 Clark County schools, where designated personnel act as coordinators, overseeing students who mediate conflicts among their peers.

"Student mediators in elementary schools wear sashes on the playground," West said. "If they see other students fighting over a ball they go up to them and ask what's going on ... they are trained in neutrality. They carry clipboards and write down agreements ... even with third and fourth graders, they know the difference between bottom line and interest ... they grasp the concept."

Middle and high school programs are similar to adult mediation programs.

"They are trained in the entire process," West said.

Brown Junior High School in Henderson is considered a model school for mediation programs, West said. It has a student enrollment of about 1,300 and more than 70 peer mediators.

West's sister, Robin West, is in charge of the mediation program at Brown and teaches a class in conflict resolution. There were 406 mediations at the school last year.

"We implemented the program three years ago," Robin West said. "The program has become institutionalized. Kids now have an alternative to helping resolve conflicts. And we've seen a 36-percent decrease in suspensions due to teachers having an alternative to the traditional punishment."

According to figures released by NJC, in the past two years Brown has experienced dramatic decreases in violence, weapons possessions, insubordinate behavior, disruptive behavior, disregard of school rules and referrals of students to the school's dean.

Karla McComb, the Clark County School District's assistant director for Safe and Drug Free Schools, says the NJC's peer mediation is one of several anti-violence programs in the district.

"Certainly (the NJC) is one of the important components," she said. "But several other components also offer great assistance. They all address the issue of safety."

McComb said there is a direct correlation between success in school and safety in school.

Community conflicts

While young students are mediating in schools, adult volunteers are mediating in courts. Among them are Jack Terry, Jean Peyton, Gloria Steinhardt and Henderson Police Officer Mike Hull.

Terry, 69, is a retired civil servant who spent 31 years with the federal government in Hawaii. He and his wife moved to Las Vegas in 1996. Terry mediates cases in Henderson Justice Court on Monday and Thursday mornings and Boulder City Justice Court on Friday afternoons.

Most of Terry's cases come from actions arising out of small claims, involving sums less than $5,000. Many of the conflicts involve landlords and tenants, business deals, auto repair shops and dogs that bark at odd hours.

"Sometimes it gets complicated, sometimes it's simple," Terry said. "It may take as little as 45 minutes or as long as four hours."

He said it is important to get the opponents over their initial anger.

"Let them ventilate," he said. "Get them to ventilate to you, not to the other person.

"The hardest part is getting past the personal stuff."

Twice Terry has stopped a mediation session because of the potential for violence. But most of the time, the parties reach an agreement.

"A lot of people watch too much 'Perry Mason.' They think they're going to win in court," Terry said. "Judges warn them there is never a pure winner, but both may be pure losers."

The advantage to mediating, Terry said, is that the parties have a hand in the solution to the problem. If they leave it up to the judge, they have no control.

Terry volunteers because he said he feels good about helping people resolve their problems.

"I used to play a lot of golf, but that became too much like a job," he said.

Peyton, 58, moved to Las Vegas from Maryland nearly seven years ago. She said she also likes the feeling she gets when she is helping people. "I wanted to give back to the community," she said.

Peyton's mediations are at Las Vegas Justice Court on Wednesday mornings.

"One case that was very, very interesting to me," she said, "was one that started off as a money thing ... but it ended up a case of a broken relationship that was so hurtful to one party he was determined to make the other party suffer. It was all about hurt, not about dollars."

Peyton must rely on her ears to pick up on the nuances in human communication that most people can see: She has been blind since birth.

"It's a challenge," she said. "Mediation does rely on seeing people's reactions. The eyes are windows to the soul. I was concerned, at first, that I would not be able to do it. My hearing is not any better than anyone else's, I just have to rely on it a lot more."

Apparently being sightless has not hurt her mediation abilities -- she has been doing it for five years.

Steinhardt, a retired chief accountant for the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, has been a volunteer mediator for three years. She works out of the NJC's main office.

Her cases involve everything from landlord-tenant conflicts to family disputes.

"I have never had a mediation that was not fascinating," she said. "It's one of the most rewarding things I've done."

Hull is an officer with the Henderson Police Department. When he isn't on duty he often mediates between victims and offenders under NJC's Victim Offender Reconciliation Program. The two parties don't know what his job is.

"I don't bring up that I'm a policeman. I wear regular clothes and just tell them I'm a volunteer mediator," he said.

Hull became interested in mediation about two years ago when he attended a seminar in San Diego dealing with the subject of restorative justice. "Basically it was mediation," he said.

When he returned to Henderson he contacted the NJC and went through its training program. He is trying to develop a citywide mediation program in Henderson.

"Mediation is really catching on," he said. "It's not for everyone, but a lot of stuff that is going to court now can be mediated."

And so can a lot of issues that may turn violent.

archive