Home | About this site | Lesson Plans | Student Training | Adult & College | Downloads |Site Support | About us Home | About this site | Lesson Plans | Student Training | Adult & College | Downloads |Site Support | About usMediation operates above the battlefield of conflict and becomes the awakening invitation to another way. Mediators represent a choice path which disputants have forgotten. They invite openness, honesty, and a joining in common purpose, that disputants may find their way out of conflict. It is a path already set within, but seemingly beyond perception while grievances and conflict flare without.
Mediation reflects conflict's opposite. With healing in their hearts, and wisdom in their words, mediators are exemplars of neutrality, not to dispel the dispute, but to help disputants to remember the solution that they hold within. It is not the mediators' words that heal. It is not their voice that speaks agreement. But, by their presence and process, mediators make way for disputants to lift the curtain of conflict that they may see beyond it. Methodically, persistently and gently, mediators invite disputants to look at their grievances and to lay them side by side with the gifts that peace can offer.
The miracle of the mediation begins as peace is chosen and forgiveness proffered in the lifting of conflict's veil. The shining memory of their shared interest lifts disputants above the battle of separate interests to their true empowerment. For there, in that very point with perception's limits lifted, do disputants exercise their ultimate power--their power to choose. Within those timeless instants, and with minds joined in purpose, choices are changed, hurts healed, grievances gone and the fearful barriers to peace calmly transcended.
MarMarlene Curwen, BA, MA, MFT
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JonJon Curwen, BS, MA
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Thank you! "Ro" & Bill!As veterans of the educational community we have developed a great respect for those who taught and mentored us. Pictured with us in this 1999 photo taken at the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration are (left) Rosemary Lalli of Voluntary Mediation Services - VMS (Newhall, California) and (right), the late Bill Hobbs of Loyola Law School.Rosemary and the late Mary Spring (not pictured) of VMS were early advocates of mediation in the Santa Clarita Valley area of California and were the certifying mediators for Marlene and me, respectively, in the 1990's. They were both faithful pioneers in peacekeeper promotion during that period. Bill, using DRS curriculum, instructed both of us in his gentle and insightful manner over each of our thirty hours of three hour class sessions. Rosemary and Mary coordinated and supervised the VMS operation allowing us both ample hours of opportunity to complete our mediator training, experience and certification. |
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This is only a one day workshop, but a rich beginning for all involved. There's enough to establish your program here and, with proper care and feeding, have a successful program going all year. For that exceptional care and feeding of your program, we refer you to Cindy Klinger, counselor extraordinary, at Sierra Vista Jr. H. S. in Santa Clarita, CA. We're ever so grateful for her continued support and interest in developing and field testing the materials contained herein. If you are familiar with working with people, you need only re constellate some of your prior learning to create your school's mediation program. Clicking on the links in the box titles above will get you into the details of the site if you want to go there now. But, here's (below) a little introductory information in overview fashion. This site is loaded with stuff! Some pages are long (sorry) and some pdf download files, especially the cover page graphic, are large and you may have lengthy download times. Don't panic if the lights in your neighborhood go dim and screen goes "white" as your CPU works hard to retrieve the file. These pdf files are in view-only, also, for your convenience if you simply wish to look at what they might offer to you. But we do provide camera-ready quality pdf files here for replication purposes and they can get large for that reason.
This page: rev11Feb10