Program Information
P.A.L.S. Program
(Peer Assistance for Leominster Schools)
Fall Brook Elementary School
Leominster, MA
This is a Peer Mediation Program for Fall Brook Students in Grade Three. It stresses all social skills and fosters peace keeping skills valued at Fall Brook School. The purpose of the program is to prepare and support student leaders to help their peers settle conflicts on the playground and lunchroom. The students will provide “peace table” conferences at picnic tables on the playground, in class, or the Guidance Office.
The training sessions will be held during school hours, one-half hour per week, for a total of twenty training hours. The training itself will utilize a binder of information for students, role-playing, activities, videos and other materials to enhance student understanding of coming to a win-win situation.
Assistance with training will be sought from The North Worcester County Mediation Association and Massachusetts State Police. Financial assistance for shirts to identify the students easily on the playground and cafeteria will be sought.
Following the training, the students will be supported by the Trainer throughout the school year. Monthly support meetings will be held to discuss issues the students are dealing with. Sharing will add support and, also, add to the student’s knowledge base of how to handle situations in the future, thus provide for growth. Speakers will be invited to meetings to add community perspective on mediation.
Appropriate field trips will be planned, as to courtrooms, laws schools, etc.
Contact information:
Joan Freedman
Fall Brook School
Leominster MA 01453
(978) 534-7745 x 533
jfreedman@leominster.mec.edu
Peer Mediation
Creating a Positive Climate
Peer mediation is a negotiation-based strategy that teaches student mediators alternative strategies to help resolve conflict among their peers. In peer mediation, students trained as conflict managers apply problem-solving strategies to assist their peers in settling disputes in a manner satisfying to all parties. Such a strategy may help keep many minor incidents from escalating over time into more serious incidents. More importantly, peer mediation teaches students an alternative set of skills that they can apply in conflict situations. Over time, students in schools with effective peer mediation programs learn that there are alternatives to violence for solving personal problems or resolving interpersonal conflict.
Overview
In mediation, an impartial third party attempts to help others come to a win-win, rather than a win-lose resolution of conflict. In peer mediation, student mediators are taught a process of communication and problem-solving that they apply to help their peers reach settlements of their disagreements without confrontation or violence. In the process of training, mediators learn that conflict can be constructive and positive, and that their role as mediators is not to judge, nor to force an agreement or solution.
Rather, students come to mediation voluntarily, and are guided by peer mediators to move from blaming each other to devising solutions acceptable to all parties.
Peer mediation programs grew out of programs, such as the Community Boards
Program in San Francisco or Resolving Conflict Creatively in the New York City Public Schools, that were developed by attorneys and child advocates in the mid-1970’s. Some programs, such as the Peacemakers program, teach all students in the school processes, for mediating disputes. Others select and train a cadre of students who act as the school’s conflict managers. Peer mediation has been used in a variety of situations. While some peer mediation programs mediate only in informal situations, such as the playground, others bring peer mediation into the classroom for resolving student disputes. Some more formal programs may even establish a “mediation office” in which all peer mediation occurs.
Although it can be implemented as a stand-alone program, most conflict resolution programs recommend that peer mediation be used as one piece of a broader curriculum of violence prevention and conflict resolution.
Russell Skiba and Reece Peterson
Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, Indiana University, Bloomington.
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