Community Mediation Services of St. Louis has a diverse roster of trained volunteer mediators throughout the Greater St. Louis Metropolitan area. Our volunteer mediators are dedicated to the task of helping people in our community resolve conflict. Our professional in-house training program insure that each volunteer mediator is dedicated to our values as an organization. Each mediator is prepared for the task of managing our Community Mediation Process.
Professional Mediation Training
Community Mediation Services of St. Louis mediators are professionally-trained volunteers from the St. Louis metropolitan area. Mediation training helps them become trusted, neutral facilitators of the community mediation process.
Each mediator must attend forty hours of training, followed by regular continuing education. By the end of training, our volunteers are well versed in our polices and our process. They have completed numerous practice sessions and role plays to address a variety of situations they may encounter in the field. We assign our mediators to observe several actual cases before co-mediating themselves. Our system of pairing mediators helps optimize the level of experience for each referral we receive.
Because much time and effort is invested in mediation training, we ask that volunteers commit to at least two years of service. Depending upon caseload, this has typically equated to a commitment of four to six mediation sessions per year per volunteer. We view this number of mediations to be a minimum to effectively keep mediators in practice. Contact us if you are interested in getting involved as a mediator or would like more information about our mediators.
The Mediator’s Role
Mediators serve several important roles:
Guardians of the Mediation Process
Mediators keep discussion moving. They handle conflict so that the parties do not become hardened into positions and help parties find areas of agreement using active listening.
Facilitators of Communication
Mediators are there to listen and to help parties communicate effectively with each other by asking questions and paraphrasing.
Clarifiers of Interests and Issues
Mediators help parties identify and articulate their underlying needs and work from those needs toward resolution.
Mediators are not advocates, judges, problem-solvers, advice givers, legal advisors, or counselors.
If you would like to learn more about becoming a volunteer mediator, contact us.