Mediation Toolbox: Techniques and Procedures, Operationalization of Interventions and Expected Impacts

Tania Almeida
Master's student in Conflict Mediation. Consultant, researcher and teacher in Conflict Mediation and Dialogue Facilitation. She presides over MEDIARE – Dialogues and Decision-making Processes. Doctor. Postgraduate in Neuropsychiatry, Psychoanalysis, Sociology and Business Management.

 

Introduction 

Anyone who needs to make use of instruments for the successful performance of a certain activity, professional or not, must know how to gather a set of tools that are useful for the exercise of your art or craft (New Aurelius 1999). When tools are gathered, it is necessary to have the ability to properly choose the one that should be used at any given moment and to handle it with the propriety required by the situation.

In principle, the proper choice and proper handling of tools tend to provide efficiency and effectiveness to the result. However, it is important to consider that there are multiple factors that influence the quality of the expected impact.

As in other practices, the impact obtained by the use of a given tool does not keep a necessary linearity relationship with the expected impact. Impacts are built on interaction: there is an interactive interdependence between the subject object of the intervention, the one who practices it and the tool itself.

The sustainability of the impact obtained is also difficult to predict, since it will also be influenced by the contribution or interference of other factors, such as the networks of relevance, the timing of each participant in the process, the moment when the intervention is carried out and the affective and sociocultural scenarios of the subjects who are the objects of the intervention.

The compilation of techniques and procedures, portrayed here, was inspired by the observation of the practice of Mediation – simulated and real; social and private –, with clients of different age groups and socio-cultural conditions, and does not intend to cover all possibilities.

The autonomy of the will - fundamental principle of Mediation - is being considered as a presupposition for this work scenario, in its wide spectrum: choice of instrument, mediators, procedures, extent of confidentiality, items on the negotiation agenda, alternatives and the final solution, the scope of the agreement, the greater or lesser formality given to the referral given to the text of the agreement, to name just a few elements of its expression.

The format adopted in the tables below – techniques and procedures, operationalization of the intervention and expected impact – was based on the students' interest in these three elements.

The division of tools into thematic groups – process steps, procedural tools, communication and negotiation tools – meets a didactic-pedagogical need. We recognize that the proposed sub-division allows for other grouping possibilities and that some tools could occupy more than one thematic group.

The language used tried to be concise, so that the box of tools could serve different student audiences and be easy to use.

Tool box is a metaphor usually used in the practice of Mediation to designate the set of techniques and procedures used in the dynamics of the process. 

 

* This text is part of a research developed by Tania Almeida, dedicated to identifying the technical contributions and procedures used in Conflict Mediation, its operationalization and impacts (results). Its first writing dates from 2005 and was revised and expanded by Tania Almeida and Samantha Pelajo in 2008/2009. The text is under publication, it is accessible at www.mediare.com.br and cannot be reproduced in whole or in part.