Mediation Skills
The skills, qualities and characteristics on which candidates are tested are the following:
Introduction
- Provides welcome and opening comments Explains mediation process
- Clarifies role of participants
- Establishes ground rules
- Discusses the Agreement to Mediate
- Appears sensitive to clients’ physical and emotional comfort
Information Sharing
- Engages participation of clients
- Understands issues and empathized with feelings
- Accurately and briefly summarizes information and concerns
- Balances time and focus between clients
Issue Clarification
- Asks appropriate questions
- Identifies interests, intentions, differences
- Limitations and underlying problems
- Identifies common ground
- Reframes statements and issues
Generation of Options
- Organizes and prioritizes issues amenable to mediation
- Focuses on current and future needs rather than positions
- Elicits multiple options and explored settlement possibilities
Personal Qualities
- Appropriate dress and appearance
- Develops rapport and trust, and conveyed a positive outlook
- Appears confident and in control of emotions
- Ability to treat the parties equally and fairly
Resolution/Closure
- Facilitates negotiation and bargaining
- Assists parties to be realistic
- Drafts agreement that is sufficiently specific and addressed all issues
- Drafts agreement that is well organized, clearly stated, and easily readable
- Assists in developing an agreement that is balanced, fair, realistic, understood, and not coerced
- Discusses options for noncompliance or resolving future conflict
- Exerted sufficient effort to assist parties in reaching agreement.
Professional Qualities
- Allows adequate planning and preparation time
- Possesses adequate knowledge of issues
- Maintains neutrality, impartiality, and objectivity
- Avoids giving advice, pressure, and judgment
- Demonstrates respect for different values and lifestyles
- Provides appropriate information and referral.
Communication Qualities
- Posture, gestures, and eye contact
- Use of voice, tone, volume, and clarity
- Verbal content and timing
- Listening styles and other intuitive abilities
- Paraphrasing and reframing skills
Special Techniques and Skills
- Demonstrates appropriate use of caucus
- Overcomes impasses, resistance, or difficult behavior
- Deals with power imbalance or control issues
- Handles intense emotions or difficult agendas
- Displays flexibility and used creative strategies effectively Comments
Communication Qualities
- Posture, gestures, and eye contact
- Use of voice, tone, volume, and clarity
- Verbal content and timing
- Listening styles and other intuitive abilities
- Paraphrasing and reframing skills
People Management Skills
Builds and maintains rapport with the parties
- Establishes rapport quickly
- Listens actively
- Is not argumentative
- Paraphrases and summarizes facts and feelings fully and accurately
- Acknowledges feelings
- Asks more open then closed questions
- Recognizes own and others’ perceptions and prejudices
- Deals appropriately with the impact of perceptions and stereotypes
- Uses reframing techniques to promote understanding and manage conflict -Uses language flexibly
- Facilitates communication between the parties
- Manages emotions of parties
- Manages own emotions
- Manages conflict between the parties in joint session
Creates and maintains a safe environment
- Establishes atmosphere in which anger and tension are expressed constructively
- Helps parties save face
- Sensitive to interpersonal and team dynamics
- Sensitive to power dynamics
- Balances assertiveness and cooperativeness
- Sensitive to impact of own behavior on parties
- Demonstrates impartiality
- Works in a non -discriminatory way
- Shows respect and empathy
- Realistic and frank with parties
- Displays positive energy
- Gives parties equal attention, body language and eye contact
- Appears relaxed and confident
- Attentive to parties comfort
Process Management Skills
Manages the process with confidence
- Demonstrates confidence as the process manager
- Able to be flexible in management of process
- Demonstrates sensitivity to the mandating dynamic
- Stays in control of the process while maintaining rapport
- Respects confidentiality at all stages
- Manages the process with fairness and dignity for all
- Confidently keeps parties to process roadmap
- Manages process without determining content
- Handles process challenges while maintaining rapport
Works through the phases of mediation
- Prepares for the mediation
- Makes good use of environment
- Opens the mediation well, covering key points
- Communicates core principles of mediation to the parties
- Manages opening statements well
- Takes notes appropriately
- Makes sound choices about the order of meetings
- Opens and closes side meetings meticulously
- Explores issues before moving to generating options
- Moves the parties from positional styles of negotiation to interest based styles
- Moves parties from a rights focus to an interests focus
- Effectively makes use of realty testing and explores BATNA at an appropriate stage in the process
- Facilitates the negotiation process
- Assists the parties manage the negotiator’s dilemma
- Manages reactive devaluation
- Facilitates the drafting of a settlement agreement
- If appropriate, uses the single text process
- Adopts an appropriate pace
Problem Management Skills
Manages the content of disputes to maximize potential for settlement
- Allows the parties to manage the content and determine the outcome of the dispute without expressing a view
- Confidently works with parties, issues, needs and interests
- Demonstrates an understanding of the bigger picture
- Generates an atmosphere of creative problem -solving
- Contextualizes the problem
- Identifies and builds consensus
- Builds parties confidence in prospect of agreement
- Handles ethical challenges assertively
Explores content and options in a creative manner
- Accurately identifies the issues in dispute
- Explores positions, needs and interests
- Identifies common ground
- Assists the parties generate options to meet needs and interests as a basis for settlement
- Encourages the generation of mutual gains options
- Is able to work on a number of options simultaneously
- Assists parties assess options in relation to objective criteria, particularly needs
- Uses reality testing and BATNA to encourage parties to assess risk
- Encourages parties to source expertise and information Necessary
- Consolidates agreement and captures detail in agreement
The assessment requires:
- An applicant, at a minimum, performing the role of A Professional mediator in a simulated Mediation of at least 3 hour;
- An assessor observing a simulation using mediation observation sheet, without providing any coaching to the applicant during the simulated mediation;
- Assessment criteria reflecting the knowledge, skills and ethical principles articulated in the Practice Standards;
- An applicant being found competent by an assessor using an assessment observation sheet documenting the extent to which the applicant has met or has not met the assessment requirements; providing written feedback on the applicant’s Performance and indicating the assessment outcome;
Benefits of Training with MTI East Africa
MTI E.A has earned a reputation of excellence in the field of Mediation Training and is widely acknowledged as one of the leading providers of Professional Mediation training in the African continent.
Aligning yourself to the right organization is vital and MT I East Africa has developed a reputation for Professionalism, Integrity, Diversity and Quality
Quality Assurance
We conducts ongoing reviews of content, processes, and we are widely acknowledged as one of the leading providers of Professional Mediation training in the African continent.
Proven Results
For the last 15 years, our program have continuously evolved in association with distinguished experts to ensure that it reflects the latest thinking and practice of Professional Mediation.
Industry Standards
We provide one of the most comprehensive training programs that meets and exceeds the required global standards in Professional Mediation Training.
Experienced Trainers
Our trainers and assessors are practicing mediators who have undergone Extensive train the trainer (TOT) training and have experience in mediation practice.