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Conflict can be Creative!

A while ago I was at one of the meetings for the Scottish Community Mediation Network (SCMN) and heard from mediators around Scotland. Listening to the mediators around the virtual room, what struck me was not only the flexibility required as a mediator – different clients requiring different levels of support and types of approach, but also how creative clients can be in sorting out the issues between them. And this got me thinking about the role of creativity in mediation.

Mediators are not there to tell people what to do, but rather to help people listen to each other, share how the conflict has been affecting them and together construct a way forward that sorts out their problems. The energy - the creativity – in this process firmly sits with the clients. However, mediators can be creative. 

When we think back to the onset of the pandemic, mediators had overnight to change how they worked. They had to embrace technology, learning as they went, whilst encouraging and supporting clients to use unfamiliar IT like Microsoft Teams or Skype. Some services went on to use the phone as the main means of communication, changing how they managed the different steps of mediation, sometimes even changing the communication completely – from offering mediation, to exploring the conflict situation and options with each party, helping them move forward without formally offering them mediation. This was in the face of lockdowns and restrictions forbidding face-to-face meetings.

Other services used Shuttle Mediation to temporarily replace face-to-face mediation meetings. All the while, mediators continued to learn to do things differently.

And that flexibility, that ability to think creatively has continued since. At the last SCMN meeting one of the themes discussed was neurodiversity, and how sequence shuttle mediation can help in some cases, giving the neurodivergent or autistic client the time to process what is communicated by the neighbour. This may be the neighbour’s telling of their experience of the conflict or suggestions made by them. Identifying the barriers to mediation and working through them to develop new strategies or approaches is just one of the creative skills community mediators use in their daily work.

I am minded of some of the learners that have been on our Mediation Skills course in the past few years. Several learners were looking to apply their new skills to arenas far removed from neighbour disputes. Some work with landowners and community groups, others work in the NHS and others in education. All were, by the end of the course, beginning to think through how to create a structure around which mediation could be offered and used. 

Indeed, the spread of mediation in the past few years has been the result of creative thinking, together with collaboration and learning.

Finally, recent podcasts have allowed me to catch up with two people who have been on our training in the past few years; in future I am hoping to bring the voices of others – including those who are using mediation in different and creative ways – to a future podcast.