SUNDAY 1ST NOVEMBER, 2015 – UWI TODAY
15
WORKSHOP REPORT
Dara Wilkinson Bobb is a parttime assistant lecturer in The Writing Centre of the Faculty of Humanities and Education, UWI St. Augustine.
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
familymediator 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 –
The Family Peace Plan
More than child’s play
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 toDiaz, 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 innovative means of intervention is an initiative
of The Mediation Unit of the UWI St. Augustine. It was
one focus of the Family Mediation Conference produced
in conjunction with the Mediation Board of Trinidad and
Tobago in October.
B Y D A R A W I L K I N S O N B O B B
This type of mediation is a process of resolving conflict which
allows families to refocus their attention using stuffed toys.
