Mediate.com Data Indicates Shift in Focus

Mediate.com recently completed a survey of 300 dispute resolution professionals. 

The survey results are just coming in, and they will require more analysis to understand the implications to the field. 

The results showed that the focus of the field has changed. As Donna Silverberg pointed out in her recent Married Mediators video, the field of mediation originally was a grassroots movement, focused on bringing peace to community disputes. The field, however, has increased in credibility and professionalism over the last few decades. Along with that, many mediators seem to be expressing a desire to take their mediation skills into their local community and government. Whereas mediators traditionally wait for the conflict to come to them, mediators are now discussing the idea of going out and preventing conflicts. 

Additional outcomes from the survey seem to show that a focus of the field needs to be teaching mediators skills from an early age. This means that as mediators we need to reach out to the youth and younger mediators and find ways to mentor them. 

Further study is encouraged. 

Attachments to this Article

• mediation 2020 survey results.pdf

                       

Clare Fowler

Clare Fowler is Executive Vice-President and Managing Editor at Mediate.com, as well as a mediator and trainer. Clare received her Master's of Dispute Resolution from the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution at the Pepperdine University School of Law and her Doctorate in Organizational Leadership, focused on reducing workplace conflicts, from Pepperdine… MORE >