Professor Laurence Boulle and I are really pleased to report that Mediation in Australia is now in print. This Blog is an excerpt from Chapter 12 in which we offer some perspectives on issues for DR moving into the future.

The various and sometimes contradictory influences on DR theory and practice come from different perspectives such as economics, sociology, politics and social psychology. Some of these influences have, at the macro-level, been drivers of past changes in mediation. These have included global financial volatility and its debt repercussions, high levels of competition in economic, social and political arenas, changing power relations in global politics and international relations, reductions in capacities of the state, privatisation and enhanced leverage for corporations, and narrow measurements of efficiency in court, tribunal and DR services such as mediation.

Economic forces, and economic ways of construing the world, have had, and continue to have, profound impacts on many facets of mediation practice. Economistic thinking in governments, corporations, industry and DR providers has led to reduced preparation, intake and screening, shorter duration of sessions and increased daily caseloads for conciliators, limited use of co-mediation, more impersonal interactions by mediators through virtual means, reduced collegiality among practitioners who are isolated from one another, pressures for mediators to be persuasive, evaluative and advisory to increase settlement rates, costs penalties for inappropriate mediation conduct, incorporation of blended and arbitration arrangements into mediations to ensure they are not futile exercises, pre-action procedures designed to pre-empt court proceedings and provision of mediation services by courts, tribunals and commissions. A pervasive political myth of scarcity, in a social reality of over-abundance, purports to legitimise many of these phenomena.

Economic imperatives have also contributed to the occurrence of the ‘risk society’. This involves governments, employers and corporations shifting many of the functions and safeguards they formerly provided onto the shoulders of citizens and consumers — who bear the burden of the resultant risks. This is manifested in financialisation in most areas of modern life, non-permanent and short-term employment, contractual complexity in dealing with telcos and utilities and the relentless speed of social and economic discourse and intercourse. The risk society has witnessed the abandonment of many features of the former social contract. The results for citizens and consumers include asset risks (such as house or superannuation values), employment risks (such as lack of work tenure), financial security risks (in terms of bank predations) and consumer risks (as in being unwittingly upsold online). As these scenarios suggest, there are deep pulses of potential disputation in the risk society.

At the more prosaic level, at an everyday mediation with an everyday mediator, parties and advisers might be dealing with the consequences of economic forces which are largely unseen and certainly not agents in the room. For example, a mediation might be dealing with the flow-on effects of competitive globalisation on workers’ safety and health standards, or the impact of the voracity of financial institutions on family separations or the tensions within commercial leases ultimately caused by disruptive online commerce. These forces place immense pressure on mediators, their clients and advisers, but are destined to continue while the macro-forces persist. The extent to which mediation can be upgraded to deal with the ‘big issues’ is dealt further in Chapter 12 of Mediation in Australia. Ironically the risk society also requires more individuals and businesses to make their own mediated decisions resulting from exposures to risk, requiring some reassessment of the concept of party self-determination. Party self-determination is the subject of our next Blog.

Rachael Field and Laurence Boulle

The Conference Design Committee has released the Call for Abstracts for NMC2019.  The dedicated website provides guidelines, key dates, and an electronic submission pro forma.  Only electronic submissions will be accepted, and they must arrive by the due date of 5 October this year:

https://nmc2019.com.au/call-for-papers/

There are eleven Conference Streams (in alphabetical order):

• Approaches to Indigenous dispute management and decision-making processes.  Key words: Governance; peace-building; evaluation; effective policy & services.

• Business and construction, workplace and employment.  Keywords: DR clauses in contracts; business, construction and workplace arbitration; industrial and employment DR; innovation in business and workplace DR; international commercial dispute resolution; evidence in commercial and business disputes.

• Community-focused mediation, and other community-focused processes.  Keywords: Conflict coaching; alternative approaches; environmental DR; multi-party, consultative, and whole-of-community processes; innovative approaches; evidence-based approaches.

• Conciliation, including public and private advisory processes, and statutory programs.  Keywords: Evidence-based approaches; conciliation, evaluative mediation, advisory dispute resolution, hybrid dispute resolution; statutory programs and processes; conciliation training, standards, and accreditation.

• Court-connected DR services, including services associated with courts and tribunals.   Keywords: Mandatory DR; judicial DR; artificial intelligence; theoretical frameworks; evidence-based approaches; current developments.

• Dispute System Design, online DR, and technological innovations.  Keywords: Theoretical frameworks; current developments; sociocultural influences; innovative approaches & applications; artificial intelligence; evidence-based approaches.

• Elder mediation and other developing specialist areas of practice.   Keywords: Elder mediation; age-related issues; Elder abuse; Elder law; new specialist approaches; evidence-based approaches.

• Family mediation and dispute resolution, including Family Dispute Resolution (FDR).   Keywords: Child inclusive and child focussed processes; family and domestic violence; parenting plans, including shared parenting; parental responsibility; property and financial matters; mandatory FDR; confidentiality; lawyer assisted FDR; family group conferencing.

• Peace-building, transitional justice, reconciliation, and civil society.   Keywords: Sociocultural influences, including: intra-cultural, cross-cultural and multi-cultural approaches; discourse analysis; evidence-based approaches; innovative approaches.

• Research, training, and education: building a rigorous evidence base for DR. Keywords: Research design, empirical methodologies, program evaluations; standards & accreditation; innovative research; evidence-based approaches to training and education.

• Restorative justice and other innovative approaches.  Keywords: Circles, conferencing, mediation; theoretical frameworks; current developments; innovative approaches; evidence-based approaches.

When assessing proposals, the Committee will give priority to the following criteria:

• The introduction of new and innovative concepts not previously canvassed or fully explored in the sector;
• Where applicable, the rigour of any research that will be included in the presentation, or on which the proposal relies;
• The inclusion of credible demonstration of the importance of the subject matter to the mediation, or DR field, and to the preferred Conference Stream;
• The inclusion of intercultural, cross-cultural and/or multicultural considerations;
• The potential appeal of the proposal to a broad spectrum of delegates; the proposal should include appropriate comments if it would appeal more to one cross-section of the sector (e.g. newly trained practitioners, or experienced practitioners);
• The demonstrated capacity of the proposal to allocate appropriate time for coverage of the topic, and, if for a panel, to include all presenters; and
• The title of the proposal conveying to delegates what they can expect from the session.

We look forward to considering your proposals as we prepare for 2019 being a belated celebration of NMC’s 25th Anniversary.

https://nmc2019.com.au/

Last week Prof Laurence Boulle and I were really happy that our new book Mediation in Australia went to print. As we note in the Preface: The book began as a fourth edition of Laurence’s Mediation: Principles, Process, Practice but in the process a new work developed. My favourite chapter is Chapter 12 titled ‘Authors Unplugged’ where ‘we ‘think what we like’ and ‘write what we think’ and hope that a few readers may ‘like what we write’. In the coming weeks of July I’ll be adding some excerpts from that Chapter which I hope you’ll find interesting.

In this Blog though we want to share something from the book that might be useful to all DR researchers – the bibliography. Many stellar scholars from the ADR Research Network members will see your works listed there. This document is the proof so apologies if there are any errors.

Perhaps this will save us all time if we can add it to our Endnote:

Mediation in Australia Bibliography

With warmest wishes to all DR researchers globally

Rachael

Thank you to those who have submitted paper proposals to the ADR Research Network Roundtable. In response to requests from potential contributors, the due date for paper proposals for the 7th ADR Research Network Roundtable is hereby extended to Friday August 10th.

Final draft papers are remain due by 31 October for distribution to commentators. This date in October remains firm given the need for commentators to prepare before the Roundtable.

The Australian Dispute Resolution Research Network is pleased to be hosting its seventh annual research round table in Queensland. The roundtable will be held from Monday 3rd and Tuesday 4th Decemeber at the University of the Sunshine Coast in South East Queesnland (just north of Brisbane and accessed from Maroochydore/ Sunshine Coast airport). Details of the venue and of accomodation options will be provided to those you wish to attend.
The Network welcomes proposals that consider dispute resolution from a scholarly, critical and/or empirical perspective. We particularly encourage submissions from postgraduate students and early career researchers. All proposals will be considered. Papers must not have been published or submitted for publication, as the focus is work in progress. A panel will select round table papers from abstracts submitted. The aim is to be as inclusive as time and numbers allow.

Paper proposals of up to 300 words plus a short bio should be emailed to the adrresearchnetwork@gmail.com/

The following selection criteria will be applied:
• Papers taking a scholarly, critical and/or empirical perspective on an area of dispute resolution;
•  Inclusion of a spread of participants across stages of career; and
•  Presntation of  well-balanced range of work in order to provide diversity, to develop the field and to enable stimulating discussion.

Attendance at the Round Table is limited to individuals who are contributing to the scholarly discussions by presenting a paper, or commentating and/or chairing a session. Participation is on a self-funded basis.
For further information, please:
• Read the original call of papers on the ADR Network blog of 11 April 2018
• Contact the conference convenors Sue Douglas and Lola via adrresearchnetwork@gmail.com (monitored twice weekly)

The new conflict resolution text for children promoted by the Harvard program on Negotiation

Frances Richards’ thoughtful blog on Mediation in Schools is timely. We have spent the past few days at the UIA 25^th World Forum of Mediation Centres in Val d’Europe presenting a forum session, exploring the same theme with colleagues from around the world.

We advanced the idea that dispute resolution skills are becoming organic, flourishing from entry level to postgraduate study. Mediation, at its most valuable, begins when education begins, and is a ‘whole of educational life’ experience.

Our session explored the relationship between education and mediation using concrete case studies and current projects from early childhood through to tertiary education.

In her blog post Frances wrote about peer to peer secondary training and competitions for students – noting the aim of supporting students to develop a life-long problem-solving approach to conflict.

Our forum panel of 5 expanded on these ideas and some new themes emerged.

Panel members brought very diverse experiences:

• Panel moderator Zeina Kesrouani from Lebanon and Thomas Gaultier from Portugal spoke about secondary school projects they are supporting in their countries;
• Alina Leoveanu, Manager, ICC International Centre for ADR, spoke of the contribution to student learning made by the ICC International Commercial Mediation Competition and
• Our (Dr Rosemary Howell and Emma-May Litchfield) presentation shared some Australian experiences at primary and secondary level and this blog post will largely focus on that topic.

Scrutinising different mediation programs in schools made it apparent that the opportunities and the challenges look very different according to the age level and also the particular institutional approach.

Our presentation of two faces of the Australian experience showcased this well.

The first, focussing on early childhood education, was inspired by the newly released text from the Harvard Program on Negotiation, pictured above, which, with its companion text for teachers and parents, presents an introduction to conflict resolution for young children.

It is an ambitious project, particularly given the sophisticated nature of some of the tools being introduced.

The idea seemed valuable but the question to be explored was ‘are primary schools open to this kind of program and do examples already exist?’ The case study exploring the answer to this drew on the program of a small primary school in suburban Sydney. The answer was quite unexpected.

Instead of a program focussed on conflict resolution, the school reframed the context completely to cover 5 elements:

• The frame – wellbeing;
• Conflict is not confined to a separate toolbox but is part of everyday life;
• All students engage in daily wellbeing practice, linking conflict to emotions and wellbeing. (Students were delighted to demonstrate their mindfulness practice in which they engage at the first sign of discomfort – well before conflict emerges);
• Children design their own tools for intervention and resolution;
• When conflict does arise students are encouraged to engage in the 3 question approach:
  • What happened?
  • What are we going to do now to fix the situation?
  • How can we learn from this?

So while the Harvard materials were thought provoking, what this case study exposed was an apparently even more successful approach to conflict resolution and early intervention – providing students with accessible, effective tools for life.

The second Australian presentation moved the focus to secondary schools, giving a perspective from the inside – insights gained from working with teachers including a recognition of the resources required to develop and implement conflict resolution programs. The contrast with the primary experience was remarkable. The secondary school environment presents very different challenges:

• School-wide implementation is much more difficult. The shift from generalist teachers in primary schools – spending all day with the same students – to teachers who are technical experts with limited daily student contact impedes a whole of school, consistent approach. This also increases the likelihood that conflict is not identified early and has become entrenched before intervention begins.
• A specialised curriculum separates programs so it is much more difficult to embed wellbeing practices across the entire teaching day.
• Money is not the only resource required for program success. Teachers and dispute resolution professionals need to invest time, energy and other personal resources to maintain the program momentum. Frances’ blog post provides anecdotal evidence of this. On the one hand, the New South Wales Government is providing funding for these programs however, on the other hand she recognises that the mediators involved are all volunteers.

The UIA panel presentations made it clear that mediation in schools is a burgeoning field. There are challenges and there are opportunities. Those of us who teach and practise in this space are an important resource in the development of global thinking and program enhancement. Congratulations to the UIA for promoting an international conversation.

Dr Rosemary Howell and Emma-May Litchfield France 2018