Peer Mediation: Changing Youth Culture

By John P. Doyle

While those in the legal community are generally conversant when it comes to mediation as a means to settle court cases, few among us are aware of an exciting brand of mediation that is being increasingly deployed in our middle and high schools to aid in the resolution of the myriad disputes that fester there. Peer mediation has been a growing part of the alternative dispute resolution landscape for more than 20 years, growing out of the community mediation movement that got its start in Southern California and throughout the nation in the late 1970s.

The Center for Civic Mediation, an affiliate of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and formerly known as Dispute Resolution Services, has been a nationwide leader in the peer mediation field for many years.

The Center's fundamental peer mediation mission is to create safe learning environments on school campuses and to train students in constructive, non-violent conflict resolution skills. Peer mediators and student disputants get positive, practical, and hands-on experience in resolving real-life conflicts in real-time, frequently avoiding physical fights and the prospect of suspension or other disciplinary procedures.

Peer mediators receive top-flight skills training, as well as education on a range of conflict resolution topics, such as anger management, awareness of the role of cultural issues in choosing a conflict management style, bullying and cyber-bullying, and peer pressure. These training efforts are calculated to nurture student problem-solvers on campus and beyond, by providing them with a young mediator's bag of tools to enable them to convene and conduct mediations on campus involving their peers' disputes. Students who are selected for training are taught to come to grips with the sometimes pervasive lack of civility and lack of empathy that is all round them on campus, and are taught mediation techniques to equip them with the skills needed to work with their schoolmates in addressing not only everyday disputes, but also some of the more overarching conflicts that come up from time to time.

A sense of mission is critical to the success of peer mediation programs on campus. Peer mediators come to understand that their work contributes to a more positive learning environment on campus and enhances the school experiences of their fellow students. These young mediators understand that confidentiality and neutrality are critical in order for their peers to trust them and use the program. As the faculty and student body at large become familiar with mediation and how it works, trust builds. With trust, faculty members and administrators sometimes use the program in lieu of disciplinary actions, and students use it as an alternative to self-help in the form of arguments and fist-fights, for example.

The Center provides a framework of adult supervision and support as peer mediators conduct mediation sessions involving schoolmates who are in conflict. Supervisors review the process after each mediation session, and counsel peer mediators about the progress they are making. Suggestions are offered in an effort to help peer mediators develop their skills and become more effective interveners in their schoolmates' disputes. Of course, as an adolescent peer mediator experiences success, he or she grows in confidence and is empowered by the elation that comes from defusing a dispute between peers.

The resolution of peer disputes isn't the only benefit of the program. Many peer mediators themselves are troubled students who have been identified by faculty as high risk, but have nonetheless demonstrated untapped leadership capabilities. The peer mediation program serves also as an early intervention diversion for youth who are at-risk for gang involvement or other destructive activities. Some peer mediators are recruited from the pool of disputants. Several years ago, one exceptional young man who was previously on a very different road was named peer mediator of the year by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

Peer mediators grow in stature as leaders on campus during their periods of service, and many peer mediators tell us that they use their mediation skills to become problem solvers at home within their families as well. I recall several peer mediators reporting to a panel of Center board members, in words or substance, that with their peer mediation training and experience they were no longer capable of engaging in some of the sibling and parent-child squabbles in which they once frequently found themselves mired. These peer mediators had come to perceive themselves as peacemakers at home and in other settings beyond the classroom. Perhaps peer mediation is a means to literally change the youth culture if only in a small way, at school, at home, and in the community as well.

Conflict resolution education is a critical component in preventing everyday on-campus conflicts from escalating into violence. The core goal of the Center's peer mediation program is to create an environment on school campuses that is conducive to student learning, achievement, and good citizenship. The Center seeks to contribute to a significant reduction in school suspensions, disciplinary referrals, incidents of truancy, and other negative consequences that sometimes result from the failure to effectively manage the disputes that inevitably arise among adolescents.

At present, school-wide institutionalized peer mediation programs are offered at Lincoln Middle School and John Adams Middle School in Santa Monica, at Carnegie Middle School and Carson High School in Carson, and at Maclay Middle School in Pacoima. The Center trains a cadre of 25 to 30 students at each school, instruction that includes a core 25 hour training program which is conducted over a three day period, ongoing monthly peer mediation training sessions, and the conduct of actual peer mediations on campus. Mediation sessions are always conducted with two co-mediators, with a program coordinator or a trained adult volunteer observer in attendance. A refresher training class is convened every fall, at which peer mediators are given the opportunity to practice and refine their skills as they come together with peer mediators from many different schools. The training curriculum seeks to sharpen students' analytical, active listening, and collaborative problem-solving skills.

The Center establishes a youth services office on each campus, which is directed and supervised by a skilled and experienced program coordinator. The program coordinator works not only with peer mediators on campus, but also with a corps of trained volunteers who assist in overseeing the peer mediators and in supervising students during mediations. The Center's peer mediation program coordinator is campus-based and regularly consults with school administrators, including assistant principals, deans and counselors, in setting up a dispute referral system, receiving requests for mediation, and conducting problem assessments as incidents occur and are reported on campus. Each school designates an administrator or faculty member who serves as primary liaison. The program coordinator is frequently called upon to intervene in large group conflicts that erupt from time to time on some campuses.

Each peer mediation generates a referral form, an intake form filled out by the program coordinator, a mediation process form filled out by the student mediator and the adult volunteer or the program coordinator, and a follow-up survey form. In this way, the Center is able to closely monitor the results of peer mediation at each of the participating schools, and to make appropriate adjustments to the programs if and as necessary. While the Center has gained deep and broad experience with peer mediation over the years, the program is constantly being re-evaluated with an eye toward improving it and growing it into additional schools.

The Center for Civic Mediation urges interested attorneys and others to consider volunteering in its peer mediation program. Few things are more inspiring than to see first hand the cultivation of student problem-solving specialists in our schools, which are otherwise too often beset with seemingly intractable conflict.

John P. Doyle is a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge. <!-- Peer Mediation: Changing
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