My Role As A Mediator

My role as a mediator is to assist people who are in dispute to resolve their differences, by facilitating discussions that foster greater mutual understanding and agreement.

A wide range of disputes can be successfully resolved through mediation. For example, mediation has helped resolve employment disputes, disputes between family members, relationships between business partners, or their suppliers or clients, and even community disputes. However there are some disputes for which mediation is not suitable. Part of my role during our initial discussions is to assess whether I as a mediator can assist the parties.

When the parties have agreed to appoint me as a mediator, it is my role to do things such as organise a neutral venue, and arrange the mediation meetings to suit the parties.

Sometimes when you're directly involved in a dispute, it becomes hard to see a way forward. I use my skills and training to assist the parties to talk openly and honestly about the matters in dispute, and to develop an agreement together. I try to ensure that there are no mis-understandings about what each party thinks the other is saying.

During this process of talking, I help the parties to identify their respective interests and assist them to develop options for resolving the dispute.

Towards the end of the mediation process, I take the verbal agreements-in-principle that the parties have reached with my assistance, and turn them into a legally binding, written agreement for the parties to sign. The agreement signing usually happens before the parties leave the mediation meeting.