The Digital Natives are Restless: Engaging High Conflict Parents through Technology

When I started working as a parenting coordinator (PC) in 2006, I envisioned a practice filled with uncomfortable and heated conversations around a table. But while there have been plenty of heated conversations, they have taken a different form than I expected. I have spent a lot of time, and had some of my most challenging experiences, not in meetings or other face-to-face encounters but rather in listening to lengthy unfocused voicemails, reading and editing inflammatory emails, and teaching the fundamentals of netiquette to parents who had forgotten their e-manners. I have found that many parents have little or no face-to-face contact, but engage with each other electronically quite frequently. For these parents, co-parenting is a virtual activity. Parents in high conflict disputes use technology to avoid direct contact while maintaining a high degree of communication. Sometimes they turn this communication into a cyberwar, using voicemail, email, text messaging, and social media as the weapons, but often enough it works. Traditional face-to-face sessions rarely result in any progress and in some cases are counterproductive. Reasonable, articulate and even conciliatory individuals become irrational, incommunicative, and intransigent with the prospect of being in the same building with a co-parent, much less the same room. In effect, the thoughtful application of communication technology may be what allows these co-parents to parent at all

The Greensboro Landlord Tenant Dispute Program: Developing and Sustaining a Responsive Dispute Resolution Program

This article discusses the Greensboro Landlord Tenant Dispute Program, a partnership between the Program in Conflict and Peace Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and the City of Greensboro\u27s Human Relations Department. The program was developed through consultation with a wide range of local stakeholders to help landlords and tenants address and resolve disputes not falling under City and/or Federal Fair Housing guidelines. Launched in April 2010 and primarily using graduate students, the program has met the informational needs of residents and provided a forum for addressing disputes. The program has been responsive to the changing needs of the partners through data collection, analysis, and developed groundwork for a long-term partnership

Academic librarian burnout: A survey using the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory (CBI)

In the Spring of 2018, the authors administered the highly validated and reliable Copenhagen Burnout Inventory work-related sub-scale to 1,628 academic librarians employed within the United States. Academic librarians reported a total work-related burnout score of 49.6. Overall, female participants who were 35–44 years of age reported the highest levels of work-related burnout with males and older individuals reporting the lowest levels of work-related burnout. This study also revealed some interesting information about non-binary/third-gender librarians that suggests further research is warranted

What do family mediators do? A look at practices and models.

The principles and frameworks of family mediation were clearly articulated in a previous issue of Context (Butlin & Elliot, 2001). What I do , as a mediation researcher-practitioner, is try and understand what mediators are doing to practice these principles and fulfil these frameworks. I have been conducting nationwide research into mediation practice over the last two years, which as included a postal questionnaire to mediators all over the UK and observations of practice. This article presents preliminary findings from the survey

Impact of Social Issues on Public Sector Employees: Research Summary and Implications for Workplace Conflict Professionals

Employees in the Public Sector face a range of workplace conflicts from the “macro” to the “micro.” State and federal budget cutbacks can jeopardize programs, which can create conflicts with clients who no longer meet eligibility criteria and/or with coworkers whose positions are no longer funded. Increasing stress in and out of the workplace affects work and home life and employees across the spectrum need additional assistance managing the impact of these complicated issues. Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) were designed as workplace benefit programs to provide services and training to help employees manage the issues most affecting their work

Parenting coordinators: An examination of an intervention for high conflict custody cases

Parenting coordination is a client-pay, hybrid alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process designed for parents and guardians involved in on-going, high conflict custody disputes. Although this practice has been known by different names in different states, “Special Master” in California, “Wiseperson” in New Mexico, “Custody Commissioner” in Hawaii, and “Family Court Advisor” in Arizona, all of these designations refer to a child-focused ADR process in which a mental health or legal professional with mediation training and experience assists high conflict families to implement their custody order. The basic idea underlying the parenting coordination process is that a parenting coordinator (PC) can act more quickly than court processes and with more authority than a mediator to resolve the seemingly continuous series of issues arising between high conflict parents. This is the result of the range and combination of roles and skills PCs are expected to have including education, assessment, mediation, and decision-making (AFCC, 2003). Practitioners of parenting coordinator have been the most vocal proponents of the practice and the most responsible for existing ethical guidelines through writing about their own experiences and proposing best practice models to deal with the difficult situations of these clients (Coates, et al. 2004; Boyan, & Termini, 2004; Garrity & Baris, 1994)

Community based divorce education programmes: Short-term and longer-term impacts

Surveys of mandatory parent education in the USA (M J Geasler and K R Blaisure, ‘A review of divorce education programme materials’ (1998) 47 Family Relations 167–175; M J Geasler and K R Blaisure, ‘1998 Nationwide survey of court-connected divorce education programmes’ (1999) 37 Family and Conciliation Courts Review 36–63; S L Pollet and M Lombreglia, ‘A nationwide survey of mandatory parent education’ (2008) 46(2) Family Court Review 375–394) have demonstrated the positive impact of well-designed, evidence-based programmes on children and families. Divorce education programmes for parents are now required in many jurisdictions in 46 states in the USA (Pollet and Lombreglia, above) and in several English-speaking countries around the world (K Blaisure, Divorce intervention and prevention: Comparison of policy initiatives in England/Wales and the US (The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 2003)). Although programmes are provided in many places, very few of them have a strong, positive, evidence base that would encourage their application in locations where either no programme exists or existing programmes have not been demonstrated to be effective

Parenting Coordination: Resolving high conflict parenting disputes in the USA

Research has demonstrated the significant negative impact of ongoing inter-parental conflict on children (PR Amato, ‘The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children’ (2000) 62(4) Journal of Marriage and the Family 1269; B Rodgers and J Pryor, Divorce and separation: The outcomes for children (Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998); J Wallerstein and S Blakeslee, The unexpected legacy of divorce (Hyperion, 2000)). In addition to the harm they may be causing their children, ‘high conflict’ separated and divorced parents have frustrated attorneys and created additional workloads for the courts. In reaction to these issues, courts and state legislatures have often turned to third-party, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) processes such as mediation, arbitration, and parent education for solutions (M Geasler and K Blaisure, ‘1998 Nationwide survey of court-connected divorce education programs’ (1999) 37 Family & Conciliation Courts Review 36; J Clare, L Roundtree and E Manley, Alternative dispute resolution in North Carolina: A new civil procedure (North Carolina Dispute Resolution Commission, 2003); J Walker and S Hayes, ‘Policy, practice and politics: Bargaining in the shadow of Whitehall’, in P Herrman (ed), The Blackwell Handbook of Mediation: Bridging theory, practice, and research (Blackwell, 2006))

Understanding Conflict Resolution from the Inside Out OR Why 800 Pound Gorillas Aren’t Great Mediators

When I was a child and later as a nursery school teacher, I had a favorite book featuring Grover from Sesame Street called The Monster at the End of this Book (Stone & Smollin, 1971). Apart from being a wonderful metaphor for how humans attempt to use barriers to avoid self-discovery and difficult truths about themselves (Grover’s the monster), it’s also a nice introduction to this speech since there’s a gorilla at the end of this speech. Before we get to the gorilla, I will introduce you to some of the philosophical and theoretical foundations of human conflict, review some of the thinking about mediation in the last 30 years, and introduce my critical incident and intervention approach to working with conflict. Yes and there’s a gorilla in there, did I mention that

Examining the Dispute Resolution Section Pro Bono Mediation Project Lessons learned and a plan for the future

From its inception in the autumn of 2008, of the Dispute Resolution Section’s Pro-Bono Mediation Project represented the best type of collaboration between members of the Dispute Resolution Section and community organizations, one designed to improve the lives of the citizens of North Carolina through the use of alternative dispute resolution. Every option explored and decision made was done in the spirit of the 4ALL Campaign. Those involved have the leadership of the North Carolina Bar Association to thank for their vision and lead-ership in implementing such an innovative and needed project