Building a Sustainable Peer Mediation Program: 5 Tips for Educators
Peer mediation programs tend to start small.
A passionate counselor, educator, or principal sees the value of training students to mediate peer-to-peer conflicts. They recruit a handful of volunteers and put together a training. The next thing you know, students are working together to find fair resolutions for scenarios that might otherwise have ended in suspension.
But what happens when that first cohort of mediators graduates? How do you take a peer mediation pilot and turn it into a permanent part of your conflict resolution process, in your school or across the district?
Here are a few tips for building a truly sustainable student-led peer mediation program.
Not sure how to maintain your student-led peer mediation program? The Conflict Resolution Center - St. Louis can help. Contact us to start the conversation.
5 Ways to Strengthen a Student-Led Peer Mediation Program
By following these five tips, you’ll set up your peer mediation program for long-term success. Here’s just some of what we’ve learned working with students to create peer-led conflict resolution systems.
1. Trust student mediators.
Peer mediation programs work because they play out among peers. Students face the same social conditions, the same stressors, the same subtle nuances of communication that every generation develops anew.
That’s why it’s crucial to clear the way for students to lead your program. Unfortunately, as adults responsible for student wellbeing, it’s not always easy to give up control over a disciplinary process.
Here’s what putting full trust into peer mediators might look like:
Put students in charge of the entire mediation process. What does that mean? When the program gets a mediation referral, send mediators to collect their peers and bring them to the mediation site. Have them introduce and run the mediation, then explain next steps. And place students into organizational roles within your peer mediation program.
Conduct mediations with minimal staff supervision. Ideally, you’ll sit outside the room and let the students take full control of the mediations. Of course, this advice applies more to high schoolers than students in earlier grades—but even if you’re in the room, avoid interfering with the process as much as possible.
Train students to lead programs, not just serve as peer mediators. Incorporate the leadership component of the role into your mediation training programs from the beginning. Let students know that this is their program, and they can develop it to meet their needs without too much adult influence.
Trusting students is the key to a sustainable mediation program. Nothing saps the energy of a student-led initiative like a lack of autonomy. Remember: You can always escalate the conflict to the principal’s office if a mediation doesn’t work out.
2. Write peer mediation into school policy.
Advocate for peer mediation when it comes time to revise your district handbook or school disciplinary policies. Suggest making mediation an option for all suspension referrals or physical altercations. Make it a matter of policy that students have the right to request peer mediation on their own initiative.
You’ll probably need to demonstrate the effectiveness of your peer mediation program before you get full buy-in for these policy updates. Give your program a few years to get established before building it into your official conflict resolution process—but if you can get peer mediation into the handbook, long-term sustainability is a lot more likely.
3. Build community among your mediators.
For your program to succeed, peer mediators must feel that they have a stake in the school community. That doesn’t happen on an individual level. Besides, students will be co-mediating conflicts together. Trust is crucial for such cooperation.
At every stage, do what you can to build trust and camaraderie among the students who run this program. Here are a few suggestions for building a strong community of peer mediators:
Ask mediators to work together to advertise the program. Would they rather talk at assemblies? Publicise the program in morning announcements? Make posters, signs, or handbills? These projects build trust and develop cooperation while fulfilling the crucial task of letting students know mediation is an option.
Have peer mediators develop communal ground rules and guidelines. These rules create clear expectations, not just for how to conduct mediations, but for mediator-to-mediator interactions.
Print T-shirts and invite mediators to wear them on designated days. It’s simple, but it works: T-shirt days help to advertise your mediation program while developing a sense of community among mediators.
A strong community makes a strong peer mediation program. By building mutual support into your mediation culture, you can ensure long-term sustainability for peer-led conflict resolution.
4. Recruit mediators with diverse experiences and backgrounds.
Your first wave of student volunteers may be talkative, outgoing, and ambitious. It’s worth going out of your way to recruit students who might not be the first to raise their hands, however. Quieter students often make great listeners, and students that may have experienced conflict at school themselves can benefit from the training and relate to their peers in a mediation setting.
The point is, your program is more likely to succeed over time when your mediators mirror the school community as a whole, in all its diversity.
5. Get help from conflict resolution specialists.
If all that sounds like a lot, don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to build your program alone.
Conflict Resolution Center - St. Louis offers a Student-Led Peer Mediation program packed with resources, services, and expert advice for students and educators alike. A few years ago, we worked with student advisors and focus groups to develop a comprehensive Student-Led Peer Mediation Guide.
Since then, we’ve developed a collection of open-source mediation resources for educators, trainers, and students. We also partner with St. Louis-area schools to develop and maintain sustainable peer mediation programs.
Finally, we offer mediation training to students and staff just about anywhere. Contact us to discuss the options, and start building a sustainable peer mediation program today!
Peer Mediators for Life
The 2024 school year has ended, which means we recently said, “See you later” to a wonderful cohort of 8th grade peer mediators.
At CRCSTL, we have the unique opportunity to walk alongside schools as they create peer mediation programs, and to walk alongside students as they navigate what it means to be given the title of “Peer Mediator.” This particular group of mediators is gearing up to start high school next year, and mediating conflicts with their peers as part of a structured school program may soon be a distant memory (as many of us often hope our middle school memories are…)..
On our last day with the peer mediators, we discussed the worries and the fears of the unknown that come with starting a new high school chapter. We also focused on the impact the students had on their school and within their learning community. We took some intentional time to pause and celebrate the successful mediations and coaching sessions this team completed with their peers during the 2023-2024 school year. Reinforcing their impact, this program’s faculty sponsor has noticed a positive change in the conflict culture at the school, which is an exciting accomplishment to evaluate and celebrate as we close out the school year. The peer mediators contributed significantly as leaders and peacemakers.
While we hope the students realized the impact they had on their middle school, our biggest hope for them is that the smaller lessons learned throughout their experience with this program become a practice in their daily lives. We hope that the peer mediation program’s impact expands beyond the amount of cases the students resolved or didn’t resolve, or their ability to memorize the six steps of the mediation process. The impact of serving as a peer mediator is about the empowerment and the life skills that they carry with them. Skills such as active listening, body language, giving someone your full attention without interrupting, taking a pause to understand someone’s point before reacting, or knowing when to just simply walk away. As mediators, we hope the lessons of conflict resolution show up in both significant and insignificant moments in our lives, whether a brief interaction or a formal mediation.
At the end of the final session, we agreed that whether you are serving a school with a mediation program, or having a difficult conversation with a friend, once you are a peer mediator, you hold that title for life.
KIPP Inspire Peer Mediators preparing to do a roleplay mediation in the school’s peer mediation room.
Empowering Students Through Vision-Centric Training
Conflict Resolution Center’s vision is that our communities will have the tools to resolve conflict creatively and reach meaningful, equitable solutions. In our peer mediation work, we strive to equip youth with these tools. We recently had the incredible opportunity to partner with an Illinois school district that is implementing peer mediation in all five of their high schools. In June of this year, we trained a cohort of students on the benefits of mediation, active listening skills and strategies, and we walked them through the mediation process in a facilitated roleplay. This month, we returned to work with a group twice the size of the first!
Implementing new programming (especially at a district wide level) is hard work. Thanks to a group of dedicated administrators, we walked into a room of almost 90 students ready and eager to practice their mediation skills and eventually serve as mediators in their respective schools. Witnessing the growth of the program firsthand was a true honor for our team, and watching their journey has been an incredibly educational experience for me.
One of the most difficult things that mediators have to train themselves on is to refrain from giving the parties advice or sharing your opinion. In mediation training, we learn and practice asking open ended questions, and we reflect on ways that we can be a guide through the process rather than give the parties advice. During this training, students practiced asking questions that help uncover the underlying needs of individuals in conflict rather than looking toward a quick solution. During a co-mediation session, the students worked together and held each other accountable towards practicing true active listening rather than providing advice.
This reminds me of our vision statement at CRCSTL. Someone once told me that the vision statement of an organization should encapsulate the way we wish the world could and should be in the future. Our long-term vision should encompass what would happen if everyone had the opportunity to receive the services we provide and bring effective change to their own communities. Achieving this vision involves a commitment to lifelong learning and partnership. It involves learning how to ask questions that thoughtfully engage others with a similar vision for themselves. Through our partnership with District 211, we are able to assist the administrators and students in achieving their vision for changing the way conflict is handled in school by utilizing a student-led approach. While this involves a significant amount of direct skills building, learning the steps of the mediation process, and squaring away logistics, so much of it is about asking the right questions that will help others achieve and uncover the vision. We are always extremely grateful for the opportunity to facilitate trainings to help others see their vision more clearly. We are excited to continue partnering with this school district as they roll out their peer mediation program and equip students with the tools that we strive towards with our own vision every day!
If you are interested in learning more about CRCSTL’s Student Led Peer Mediation program or partnering with our organization for a training, please fill out our contact form. We would love to connect with you!
Activities Spelled Out: Role-Plays Part 1
A core (and arguably the most enjoyable) activity we facilitate is our role-plays. Once we’ve explored foundational principles of peer mediation (active listening, conflict styles, peer mediation process roadmap, etc.), we ask students to practice a mediation and infuse other skills they’ve picked up through role-plays.
Role-playing a mediation can be challenging, especially for students who are new to acting, so we provide a fully scripted mediation role-play first. The script gives students a chance to read through the entire mediation process, from agreeing to mediate to signing an agreement among both parties.
Objective:
Students identify each part of the peer mediation roadmap within the scripted role-play; Students familiarize themselves with the full peer mediation process.
Supplies Needed:
4 copies of a full scripted peer mediation role-play (we have “Crush Stealer” available for use)
Activity Directions:
Explain that students will be completing a full mediation in this activity, but emphasize that they will only need to read off the script. Depending on comfort level, encourage students to ad lib, use strong intonation to engage other participants.
Ask for four volunteers, two to play co-mediators and the other two to play the parties in conflict. Pass out the scripts to each volunteer and ask them to read through their parts.
Ask volunteer mediators to seat parties and themselves in what they believe would be best for the mediation (think about power dynamics, possible facial expressions from parties, etc.). The remaining students will sit around the volunteers to observe.
Pause at each step of the peer mediation roadmap and ask students to identify the step and specific language in the script to indicate as such.
After finishing the role-play, celebrate the students who read for the role-play mediation! Then take some time to debrief how the experience was for students who read and for those who observed. At this point, students are likely engaged and excited to act out more scenarios. Stay tuned for our next blog post that’ll guide you through fact-pattern role-plays!
Activities Spelled Out: Active Listening
Throughout peer mediation training, students are not only learning skills to teach them the mediation process, but they are also learning everyday useful communication and listening tools. At the beginning of our training, we introduce a handful of active listening skills: non-verbal communication, open-ended and closed-ended questions, mirroring (reframing), and neutral language. Practicing these skills early in life are instrumental to becoming a strong communicator and peer mediator!
In our active listening activity, we’ve seen students break out of their shells with this role-play opportunity, and we hope it’ll also bring joyful learning to you as well!
Objective:
Students understand core characteristics of the active listening skills;
Students apply their understanding of the active listening skills using the provided scenarios.
Supplies Needed:
Active listening scenarios (feel free to use our scenarios or make up ones!)
Active listening reference sheet
Active listening station signs
1 Non-Verbal Communication sign
1 Open-Ended & Closed-Ended Questions sign
1 Mirroring (Reframing) sign
1 Neutral Language sign
Activity Directions:
Ask students to find a partner. If there is an odd number of students, ask students without a partner to join a pair. Assign the pairs/trios a number from 1-4. This number will indicate what active listening station they will start at (example. Non-Verbal Communication = 1, Open-Ended & Closed-Ended Questions = 2, etc…).
After each group is assigned a number/skill to start with. Explain that each student will get a chance to practice each active listening skill with their partner. Students will read the scenario posted at each station and decide which character they’d like to act out first. After about 2 and a half minutes, they will switch roles. Encourage students to use skills they learned from previous stations to build their knowledge. By the time students arrive at the final station, they should attempt to use all four skills as they roleplay the final scenario. Students will be at stations for five minutes until they’re asked to rotate to the next station. Students may use their active listening reference sheet while completing the activity.
Once students are clear on instructions, direct students to their starting stations. If there is enough staff capacity, assign a staff member to each station to help facilitate. There might be multiple groups at each station– make sure there are enough copies of the scenarios for each group to access.
After each pair/trio completes each station, students may return to their seats. This is a good time for students and staff to debrief their experience with the active listening activity.
