A disruptive family is one that fails to meet the basic needs of one or more of its members. The Mediation Unit at The UWI, St. Augustine, has introduced imaginative role-play using stuffed toys and animals to help families resolve their problems.
Programme Co-ordinator for the Mediation Unit of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Ann Diaz, discussed some approaches to repairing rifts in families through mediation at the Family Mediation Conference held in October.
According to Diaz, family mediation is a true solution for families in crisis. It is a process in which a mediator facilitates the resolution of a dispute by gaining voluntary agreement. The UWI’s Mediation Unit has adopted a peace agenda as it relates to families.
“We want to work through difficult situations,” says Diaz. “We want to assist in communication. We want to encourage understanding. We want to generate and explore options.”
Diaz indicates that getting to family peace requires getting to a response designed to curb those elements that threaten families.
“Parties navigate the process through dialogue… The family mediator does not decide what the settlement is. They work with families to come to a place where they decide on the settlement.”
Indeed, the predicament of the family at the point of intervention through mediation can be quite grave in some cases. Diaz points out that sometimes when things break down, you find yourself looking at dividing all the things you have acquired all those years – the division of assets – and it hits you that this is it… it is all finished.
This is where Mediation Counselling steps in. This is where a teddy bear can become a tiny hero.
Formally called The Family Peace Plan, this type of mediation is a process of resolving conflict which allows families to refocus their attention using stuffed toys. The concept combines Harvey Jenkins’ re-evaluation techniques, as well as person-focused intervention and solution-centred assistance.
The toys allow distraction from the person and so reduce hostility and enable sharing in a safe environment without the fear of direct insults, says Diaz. This approach helps to insulate the relationship against the arrows of anger which may further damage the relationship beyond repair.
Pain is channeled as animals are used to tell the stories of the clients. Further, this enables persons to better listen and hear the issues because they do not feel directly targeted.
According to Diaz, some persons feel they have stopped communicating when they stop speaking, but withholding speech in this way actually communicates your story in a very amplified manner. She says, “When you say you are not speaking, you are speaking very loudly.”
This type of impasse fails to be productive in the search for a positive resolution. If we remain in a polarized mode, there is little opportunity for dialogue and resolution, says Diaz. A distraction is needed.
“The toy actually is a distraction from the prospect of the conflict,” she says.
Diaz indicates that the initiative is getting buy-in because people in conflict take any opportunity to look for a resolution. She says that so far it is actually working with middle-income families very successfully.
Other indicators of success are client satisfaction and client adherence to the resolutions. In Ann Diaz’s experience, sometimes without the mediation process, if an agreement is made, people will not stick to it because perhaps they do not feel heard nor feel that their issues have been justly addressed.
Ann Diaz was also careful to answer concerns that mediators who were not trained counsellors might be trespassing into the territory of counselling. She says that the individuals who seek help have their own opportunity to work through their own issues. The mediators use solution-focused, person-centred strategies, but ultimately, it seems, do not tell the clients what to do. As a whole, too, mediators are usually drawn from persons with a background in the social sciences, but only mediators that already have a background in counselling are advised to use it.
They explain to the subjects why the toys are used, and that the purpose is to reduce and deflect conflict.
There is a wide assortment of stuffed toys and toy animals. The participants are asked to choose one, and then asked why they chose the one they did. Usually, a characteristic of the toy seems to speak to their situation.
This intervention is an initiative of The Mediation Unit and was one focus of the Family Mediation Conference produced with the Mediation Board of Trinidad and Tobago.
Dara Wilkinson Bobb is a parttime assistant lecturer in The Writing Centre of the Faculty of Humanities and Education, UWI St. Augustine. |
