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Veterans Mediation

By Sharon Tracy

Quabbin Mediation (QM) is a community mediation organization based in the North Quabbin, a low income region in central/western MA. In February 2007, I took a mediation inquiry call from a young man who had just returned from the Iraq War. Coming from a multi-generational military family, I was struck hard by the realization that QM needed mediators competent to work with people fresh from combat. The question was how to bridge the deep gulf between the civilian world of community mediation and the military world? The answer: train people with military experience to be mediators. This was the initial impetus for Veterans Mediation (VM), a QM program in which QM trains and supports a range of individuals from veterans, to active duty military, to National Guard, military Reservists, Dept. of Defense civilians, and their families to mediate for their peers.

In late 2007, two Massachusetts senators met with VM members to create an action plan for taking VM statewide. This still-viable plan had to be put on hold due to the severe economic downturn. It involves partnerships among the Mass. Dept. of Veterans' Services, Veterans Service Officers, elected officials, District Attorneys, MA Courts, and community mediation programs. Now seven years later, QM's goals for VM are to renew this effort to take VM state-wide and to develop financial support for statewide and nationwide replication of the program.

According to the US Census, veterans number approximately 10% of the population. Veterans plus all other military-affiliated personnel and their families therefore comprise nearly one-third of the general population, and thus are an integral part of the "community" it is QM's mission to serve. In addition, the challenges faced by returning veterans illustrate the importance of having mediators who are tuned in to veterans and their issues.

Mediation is a formal process in which parties themselves can define the issues, find common ground, and determine the outcome. The process illuminates for the parties the power and abilities they already possess to create fair and just solutions, rather than having solutions imposed by outside authorities. Having an experienced veteran-mediator doing intake, case coordination and mediation for cases involving veterans/military and family members engages the veteran in the mediation process because they are dealing with someone who is competent regarding the veteran's experiences and issues.

Since 2007, QM has trained 50 veterans/military and family members as professional mediators in three 40-hour training sessions. Veterans are now some of QM's most talented volunteer and consultant mediators, trainers, and public educators. We are fortunate to be working in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which has one of the strongest support systems for veterans in the country. An organization strongly tied to VM is the Veterans Service Officers' Association which is administered by the Mass. Department of Veterans Services. Every town and city in the state has a VSO, also known as Veterans Agents whose job is to help their resident veterans and family members. Four local VSOs are mediators, and there are many more on the wait list for mediation training. The local VA facility also employs three members of QM's mediation rosters; two are re-entry therapists and one is a minister. Members of VM also include veterans support workers at the regional unemployment office (who is working to get his peers around the state trained as mediators), and at a state college, an agency employee working with homeless veterans, and a local police chief.

VM members carry out substantial education activities, reaching thousands of veterans/military and family members. VM members teach conflict resolution and communication skills to veterans groups which not only conveys helpful skills, but is a mechanism for informing about the usefulness of mediation. QM continues to provide VM members with advanced mediation skills training in such issues as victim-offender mediation, managing high emotions, and case coordination and intake.

QM serves a large region in central/western MA which extends from the NH border to Connecticut. QM is approved by the MA Trial Court to provide mediation services at every stage of a conflict in the Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin Probate and Family Courts, the Orange, Eastern Hampshire, and Palmer District Courts, and the Franklin-Hampshire Juvenile Court.

Mediation services for veterans/military are provided within this region. (Additionally, VM members willingly travel to other areas of the state to mediate for their peers.) QM's large service area is small town/rural, but also encompasses the urban areas of Holyoke, Springfield, and Worcester. The population served through mediation is mostly low to moderate income, thus our services are free or very affordable (based on a sliding fee scale).

During the past seven years, QM and veterans we have trained as mediators have provided mediation services for 1,625 veterans/military and their families, cases which have involved small claims matters, family, workplace, housing and home retention, consumer disputes, neighbors, divorce, child custody, and minor criminal matters. QM collects demographic and outcome data which shows a settlement rate of 82%, and that 95% of the participants were satisfied with the outcome (whether or not they reached a written agreement), and that they would try mediation again themselves and would recommend the process to others.

Quabbin Mediation is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a seven-member Board of Directors and is certified by the state as a women-directed organization.

Sharon Tracy is executive director and co-founder of Quabbin Mediation. She has been a mediator since 1990 and a mediation and conflict resolution trainer since 1994.