INTRODUCTION
Court systems across the country have focused
for some years on increasing and enhancing access
to justice. This focus has also led to a significant
evolution in the understanding of family-related
disputes and the development of processes to
resolve them.
Case management approaches have changed
over the last couple of decades to supplement the
traditional rights-based, adversarial processes with
interest-based and cooperative processes such as
mediation, which emphasize communication and
collaborative problem solving. This change requires
a paradigm shift in system culture to accommodate
new values and approaches to dispute resolution
as when utilizing mediation to resolve child
welfare cases. Successful implementation of child
protection mediation programs, as they are known,
is thus as much about managing culture shift as it is
about sound program and process design.
In addition, in a new era of fiscal austerity, dispute
resolution system designers and stakeholders must
increasingly be able to manage the complexities
surrounding child welfare cases with limited resources. The large funding models of ten or fifteen years
ago do not exist. Local budgets are shrinking and
court-annexed mediation programs are either being
dismantled or asked to do more with less. This article
explores the new era of child protection mediation
programs and how they are overcoming the challenges of their predecessors.
Over the past 20 months, we have been engaged in
a dispute resolution design process to create two new
child protection pilot mediation programs in Wisconsin. We have been mediating in one county since
March 2013 and since September 2013 in another, although each design process started several
months prior to beginning to mediate. This article is
based upon both those experiences, in addition to
our previous work in other mediation programs.
Child protection mediation refers to the use of
mediation in cases involving alleged abuse, neglect,
or abandonment of children, child guardianship,
and/or termination of parent rights. This is a collab-
orative problem-solving process involving a neutral
mediator and multiple participants, such as parents
and other family members, attorneys, child welfare
professionals, possibly children, and others.
RESEARCH AND BEST PRACTICES
IN PROGRAM DESIGN
Research and evaluation efforts of existing
programs have confirmed that child protection
mediation produces noteworthy benefits. In most
programs, 60 to 80 percent of the cases end with
agreements that address all of the issues before
the court. Mediation resolves issues more quickly
and less expensively, although exact numbers
are elusive and hard to quantify. The mediation approach also results in increased parental
engagement, extended family participation,
opportunity for candid conversations, and parental
compliance with plans.
Importantly, research has shown that child protection cases can be successfully mediated at any point
in the life of the case, beginning from pre-filing on
a child abuse and neglect case to post termination
of parental rights. This is important for designers
because it allows for increased flexibility to address
the needs and problem areas that are raised by the
stakeholders in each jurisdiction.
Experience and scholarship over the past 30 years
on dispute resolution system design has shown
the importance of working collaboratively with
stakeholders. This allows designers to hear what
stakeholders want, identify their underlying needs,
uncover barriers to achieving their goals. educate
them about dispute resolution options, and allow
them to create a clear vision of their goals.
In 2012, a set of Guidelines for Child Protection
Mediation were collaboratively developed by
leading professionals in the field across North
America and endorsed by the Association of Family
and Conciliation Courts. The stated goals of these
Guidelines are to:
n articulate the principles and philosophy that
guide effective child protection mediation;
n provide program developers and managers
Designing a Child Protection
Mediation Program in a New Era
About the Authors
PERRI E.
MAYES, JD
is a dispute resolution practitioner
and educator based
in Milwaukee. Her
practice includes
mediation, arbitration, system design,
and program administration. She is a
past president of
the Association for
Conflict Resolution
and the Wisconsin
Association of
Mediators.
DONNA
EREZ-NAVOT
is the Director
of the Mediation
Clinic at University
of Wisconsin Law
School, where
she has been
instrumental in
setting up several
mediation programs
in Wisconsin over
the past 5 years.
by
Perri E. Mayes &
Donna Erez-Navot