Group hug. A dispute erupts between a citizen and a police officer. The citizen writes a complaint letter recommending mediation. The Deputy Chief immediately calls the citizen describing their department disciplinary procedures stating that "mediation where everyone sits around in a group hug" would not be beneficial. Police officers are into rules and regulations."

No time. Two neighbors, involved in a fight over loud parties, spend a lot of time complaining to other neighbors about each other. One neighbor suggests mediation. The fighting neighbors claim that they have no time for mediation. One person's excuse is: "I have a new job and haven't time to waste chatting about problems."

Not a dispute. A condo management company finds itself in a dispute with a cleaning contractor. The cleaning contractor believes that the manager is working behind her back to replace her. Furthermore, a holiday bonus has been given directly to the on-site cleaner rather than to the company as had been done in years past. When the condo board suggests mediation, the manager claims that there is no dispute; its actions are based on a business decision.

Not part of procedures. An employee files a discrimination complaint against her employer. Mediation is suggested, but the employer refuses because mediation is not a part of the Policy and Procedures Manual.

Avoidance of confrontation and responsibility. An apartment neighbor knows a little bit about her neighbor down the hall. Lately, the neighbor is having noisy parties late into the evening. There is a suspicion that she is possibly using drugs. Instead of talking directly to her neighbor, she calls the management company. The company recommends mediation. She is hesitant and decides to forget the problem, although she and most of her neighbors continue to be disturbed by the parties..

Above are four examples in different settings where mediation was recommended and rejected for a number of reasons. In most of these cases, it seems that the, potentially, more powerful party rejects mediation. Why? What harm could mediation do? Do the parties understand mediation? What is the reason for this resistance to a simple, problem-solving process.

Recent surveys indicate that each United States citizen encounters approximately two actionable problems each year. (need cite) Based on this, we might estimate that there are over four billion disputes that could be mediated. Recent reports also show that there may be over 20,000 volunteer mediators (cite NAFCM report) and 2500 for-profit mediators (cite Martindale Hubbell) who are looking for disputes to mediate. Yet, although there is no clear research to indicate how many cases are mediatable, there are estimates. In the community mediation field, volunteer mediators mediate a total of 50,000 disputes on an annual basis throughout the country. Combine this number with an estimated 125,000 court mediations (cite NCSC) along with 25,000 private mediations, a total of approximately 200,000 disputes are mediated. Thus, one might conclude that less than 1% of all actionable cases are mediated. (Obtain NIDR survey)

This situation is ironic. There are plenty of disputes to be mediated and plenty of mediators who want to mediate; yet, there is a dearth of parties or citizens opting for mediation. Why?

Low Public Awareness of Mediation

Possibly the "number one" reason for citizens' resistance to mediation is low public awareness. Many mediators joke that people still confuse mediation with medication and meditation. Even though several community mediation programs were founded more than twenty years ago, awareness of these programs is low. Most community mediation programs are non-profit, operating effectively, but quietly. Few mediation programs or private mediators have the funds or the capacity to mount a massive public awareness campaign.

There exists no national public education symbol like "McGruff" the crime-fighting dog or "Smokey the Bear" preventing forest fires. Few national popular, well-read magazines carry articles about mediation.

Misunderstanding of Mediation:

Beyond the lack of public awareness about the process of mediation, there is a great misunderstanding of mediation. Media often promotes this misunderstanding. A typical newspaper article that uses mediation in the title interchanges mediation and arbitration throughout the article. It is not made clear that mediation is a process in which a third-party neutral assists the disputing parties to come to agreement, and arbitration's third-party neutral operates with many characteristics and qualities of a judge.

Court mediation programs contribute to this misunderstanding. They create "settlement conference" programs and call it mediation. Often, there is coercion in the process as the "mediators" tell the parties that if they don't come to some agreement, the judges will not look kindly on their case.

Private mediators, which include many retired judges, add to this misunderstanding when they represent themselves as mediators, but actually perform in a decisionmaking capacity. Out of this misunderstanding, citizens may equate mediation with other negotiation outcomes such as compromise.

Mediation is soft.

Another reason that people resist mediation is the belief that it is "touchy feely"; a soft approach to the situation. In the example above involving the police deputy chief, she had been exposed to mediation through her child's school conflict resolution program. For some reason, based on that experience, she equated mediation to "a group hug." She went on to state that police officers are into rules, regulations and enforcement, that police view issues in terms of right and wrong, black or white. There were no gray areas.

"I am not the problem."

Some people fail to see themselves as part of the problem. They see themselves as reasonable, accommodating and magnanimous. It is, of course, the other party who is unreasonable, short-sighted, and vindictive. These people may feel that they want a judicial solution with someone to view the case and rule, of course, for them. Only in communities where there is a power of persuasion from law enforcement or the courts to get the parties to the table will they cooperate.

Avoidance of Confrontation and Responsibility.

In the last example above, the neighbor is doing her best to avoid confronting her neighbor about the noise issue. When it comes to a choice between mediation and enduring it, for the moment, she chooses the latter. This can have long-term reverberations (no pun intended) like the speakers being placed against the wall. In one such case, the person who failed to access mediation finally moved. She felt she had been driven out of her home especially when it was neighbors on both side of her townhouse that stepped up the noise.

Solutions.

Life is challenging. It offers us infinite factors for which we may seek solutions. Perhaps what we need to see is that although there are many solutions that are in the public knowledge of conflict resolution, the most exciting are those that are yet to be seen. Solutions are born of creativity. The game we must play is the one in which we encourage parties to be creative even though it seems risky. A mediator may use programs from their repertory or they gently lead parties toward creative solutions that are infinitely more interesting with potential for real resolution and change.