US Department of Justice
DESIGN CHALLENGE:
The agency deploys community conciliators for community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and disability. (e.g The Rodney King, Ferguson Missouri cases) Because their conciliators came from varied backgrounds (former police chief’s, academics, grass roots community groups etc) individual conciliators tackle a community incident in different ways and often work alone or in small geographically isolated groups, making transfer of skills challenging. The agency wanted to leverage the combined experience and knowledge of their staff to develop a mediation model that could easily be duplicated and taught to new employees. They also wanted to transfer skills between existing conciliators.
PROJECT RESULT:
“This is the best training our agency has ever received.” Kit Chalberg, CRS Training Director
The agency deploys community conciliators for community conflicts and tensions arising from differences of race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion and disability. (e.g The Rodney King, Ferguson Missouri cases) Because their conciliators came from varied backgrounds (former police chief’s, academics, grass roots community groups etc) individual conciliators tackle a community incident in different ways and often work alone or in small geographically isolated groups, making transfer of skills challenging. The agency wanted to leverage the combined experience and knowledge of their staff to develop a mediation model that could easily be duplicated and taught to new employees. They also wanted to transfer skills between existing conciliators.
PROJECT RESULT:
“This is the best training our agency has ever received.” Kit Chalberg, CRS Training Director
Images above: Professional actors playing community group members during the two-day mediated role-play training.
DESIGN PROCESS:
Research & synthesis:
Research & synthesis:
- Reviewed academic mediation models.
- Interviewed CRS conciliators to understand how their approaches compared to the academic mediation models.
- Identified specific skills needed to engage with single parties, small groups and large groups in order to develop willingness for disparate parties to agree to a mediated discussion.
- Identified examples of high stakes, high profile cases relevant to our audience.
- Reviewed related state and federal guidelines related to agency operation.
Ideation, selection & validation based on research findings:
- Developed a program to present theoretical mediation skills and strategies as well as a hypothetical scenario including critical characteristics of high stakes, high profile cases.
- Staged a two-day off-site facilitated role-play exercise utilizing 10 professional actors and 4 facilitators. CRS conciliators worked with single parties and small groups to develop willingness for all parties to participate in a large, mediated community meeting.
- Between sessions the students debriefed their experiences as a group, developing strategies together, analyzing successes and failures and transferring skills and knowledge.
- The training culminated in a facilitated community meeting where students took turns mediating the group of 10 actors and watching each other work.