what is mediation?

So last post I touched briefly that I am taking courses towards my mediation certificate. So far I have taken one course called Transformative Mediation, which surpassed my expectations with great ease. Transformative in a nutshell focuses on the restoring of relationships to solve the conflict. It's different from other approaches to mediation because most other mediations focus on interests of each of the parties.

Many people that I have talked to over the past few months have asked me...what is mediation? So here is the short version of what mediation is. Mediation is also known as Alternative Dispute Resolution, and is an alternative to the court system. It can be incredibly effective for compromising and solving conflicts because each party that is represented is a part of the overall solution. The mediator pretty much just facilitates the conversation, asks questions for clarification, and encourages the parties to see the conflict from the other party's shoes. It's actually a pretty easy concept, with many complex details... I have fell in love with mediation and what it can do for others and am very excited to get more involved with doing mediations.

A quick over-view of the 3 types of mediations that I'm interested in doing...
1) Family Mediation- This can be anything from a divorce/separation, child custody, parenting plans, an angry teenager/parent conflict, let's put grandpa/grandma in a home conflict, etc. Any problem that you can think of to do with families, but it will mostly be divorce/separation/child custody cases that I will probably start doing
2) Congregational Mediation- Conflicts between congregation and Pastor, Church splits, facilitating discussions within the church, member conflicts, etc. Also, hopefully doing some workshops and stuff at various churches
3)Organizational Mediation- This one is very similar to congregational mediation, but parts can be time vs. money, employee conflicts, organizations vs. organizations, etc.

So anyways, it's going to be cool...and I'm really excited for the journey to begin!