Some wonder if people are naturally born as conflict resolvers or conflict creators.
Or if it is a function of their lived experiences.
40 Days of Resolution at Home | Day 1: What is Conflict?
Mediation Musings: Center
For forty years, our name has included the word program. It’s a perfectly good word. We use program with this meaning: plan of action to achieve a specific result. Starting when we became a program of the Edgartown Court in 1984, and going forward to the present, the word “program” has been there, indicating our plan to promote and provide mediation services, with the mission of helping individuals and organizations to resolve their conflicts amicably.
Mediation Musings: Turning Forty
About 40 years ago, right around the time she began writing her seminal article The Logic Behind the Magic of Mediation, Albie Davis came to Martha’s Vineyard to help provide training for the court-sponsored program, which was then just one year old. In that journal article Davis wrote: “I’ve never mediated a case where I didn’t see a little piece of myself in each of the parties, the best and the worst of their qualities. I knew I could be in their shoes . . .”
Mediator Musings: Generations
Mediator Musings: Others, Us, Belonging
Mediation Musings: Family
We’ve all got families: birth, chosen, adoptive, step, nuclear, extended. Whatever type of family is yours, along with the joys and shared milestones, there’s sure to be a common factor: conflict. Although each family constellation is unique and special and may be united by love, respect, and shared values, all families do have some unresolved conflicts. In my experience, there are common family conflict themes. Money, communication, and time are three familiar topics.
FEATURED SERVICE: Conflict Resolution School
Mediation Musings: Time
MV Mediation Celebrates Women’s History Month with a Spotlight on Several Women who have Made an Impact during Our 40 - Year History
Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation Comes Through for the Youth Program
MV Mediation is pleased to announce a $2,500 grant from the Martha’s Vineyard Bank Charitable Foundation to support the Youth Mediation Program and Peace Curriculum. The Peace Curriculum, developed by Executive Director Sara Barnes, is a 10-week conflict resolution and positive communication program designed to teach conflict resolution to the students of Martha’s Vineyard. Using integrative and hands-on activities, students learn to apply skills to resolve conflict in their day-to-day lives.
Mediation Musings: Stay in Your Lane
Mediation Musings: Conflict History
How and when and where did you learn about how to handle conflicts? Most of us have learned our personal conflict management approaches from the modeling of others. Throughout your life you were watching, observing, considering, and trying out new methods and developing your own style as a conflict resolver.
Mediation Musings: Optimism
It’s rough out there. Wars, atrocities, mass shootings, global warming, toxic polarization, free-floating anger and anxiety. We are often asked at MV Mediation about what we can do about world problems. Global conflicts and intractable societal problems weigh heavily on conflict resolvers’ minds just as they do for everyone. I thought that I’d offer approaches that have helped me, thinking they might help others during difficult times.
This month’s links for your reading, listening, and viewing pleasure
In recognition of Veteran’s Day:
5 veterans’ skills to apply to conflict resolution
In recognition of National Kindness Day:
How to show kindness in professional settings
Making tough decisions with compassion
Here are some reflective questions that might facilitate kindness when in conflict
Kind conflict resolution in the classroom
Preparing for family and holiday conflicts:
Dealing with difficult relationships
Conflict-free visits: Is this realistic?
Managing unresolved conflict
Other:
Don’t take it personally
Learning mutuality
Using a neutral to talk to your team about difficult news and current events
Conflict narratives and emotions
Here’s a link to one of our favorite websites on peace and conflict; lots of resources here
Four ways to create quality connections at work
The impact of pressure to accommodate others on conflict resolution
How curiosity can transform your relationships
Where one sits is important
DEIJ+B: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, INCLUSION, JUSTICE + BELONGING
In honor of Indigenous Peoples Day, October 9...
We acknowledge that we are standing on the land of the Wôpanâak (Wampanoag) people and nation, who settled this land at least 12,000 years ago and still celebrate it as home today. Although commonly referred to as Martha’s Vineyard, this island has a much older name, a Wôpanâak name: Noëpe. Through this acknowledgement, we wish to celebrate Wôpanâak culture, creativity, and perspective. We hope to honor Wôpanâak perseverance in the face of colonialism, invisibility, and cultural genocide. And we commit to restorative relationships and practices with the Wôpanâak people of Noëpe. After all, it is important to remember that no matter where you go in what is now the United States, you are always on indigenous land.
Featured Community Partnership–– CAP Communication Ambassador Partnership
Do you know about the CAP organization? Communication Ambassador Partnership of Martha’s Vineyard is a local nonprofit organization whose vision is language access for all on Martha’s Vineyard and beyond. CAP provides interpreting and translation services along with other services that promote and support the assets of multilingualism and multiculturalism.
MV MEDIATION BOARD CORNER: September
FEATURED SERVICE: Group Facilitation
MV Mediation and other community mediation centers offer the service of facilitating meetings for various organizations and groups. As neutral facilitators, our service providers can take charge, make sure there is balanced participation, and help the group to be clear about agenda items, decisions and future action items.