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!