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.
Roles in Peer Mediation
Launching a peer mediation program at any organization is difficult work, and often it takes a village. Clearly defining the roles of those that are responsible for program implementation is crucial to clarity and success. We want to break down definitions of titles in our peer mediation program that others might find useful when implementing similar programming to build consensus of role responsibilities.
Peer Mediator: We work with both middle and high school students, and we ask that they come in curious about peer mediation and willing to participate in whatever capacity they have. While engaging in the materials, we also encourage our students to provide reflective feedback on ways that we can improve our student training process.
Facilitator: Facilitators are CRCSTL staff members. Primarily, the facilitators’ goal is to create relatable, digestible content for students and to deliver the material in a meaningful way. As a third-party provider, we are continuing to navigate what it looks like to facilitate and build trust in a temporary space. In addition to this, we can help schools and organizations dream up new ways to build a culture of effective and student centered conflict engagement.
Sponsor: Sponsors are staff members of the school or organization we are working for and with. Sponsors are often less involved in training the students in mediation skills, but are normally heavily involved and committed to the peer mediation process, as they will lead peer mediation programming after CRCSTL’s training is complete and figure out the best way to mold the program to the context of the school/agency, of which they are the experts! We are incredibly grateful for both the trust and support our faculty sponsors provide our agency as well as the students. They are invaluable to the future success of their organization’s peer mediation program.
Note: These role descriptions are reflective of CRCSTL’s peer mediation model and may look different from program to program.
