The Power of Training: Civil Rights Mediation Training on Oahu, Maui and Beyond

Over the past few months, I have been privileged to work together with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Mediation Center of the Pacific in order to develop an all-day training module about mediating civil rights issues in employment and housing.  The training, given to experienced mediators, give us a chance to explore the unique challenges and opportunities that arise in the employment and housing context.  The training is designed to give mediators an opportunity to develop a further understanding of the allegations of discrimination that underlie employment and housing claims, as well as to develop tools to help parties come to resolution.

From our Maui training.  The mediators of Maui Mediation Services were dedicated, dynamic and fully engaged.

So far, we have presented the training for mediators on Oahu and Maui.  We are slated to present to mediators in Hilo, Kauai and Kona over the coming weeks.  The mediators on Oahu and Maui were dynamic, engaged and highly invested in developing the skills to better resolve civil rights issues.  I have been routinely impressed at how well everyone has been able to interact with the unique aspects of equal employment opportunity and housing cases.  

My training focused on the importance of understanding the parties’ interests with respect to civil rights issues, facilitating effective communication and engaging in strategic, creative problem solving to help empower parties to find the resolutions that make the most sense for them.  I also discussed the importance of maintaining neutrality, managing biases and negotiating power dynamics to ensure fairness in the mediation process.  These are building blocks to any successful ADR process, but especially so when dealing with allegations of discrimination.

In my work in the employment sector, I have always been an advocate for the benefits of training in the workplace.  Developing and training these mediators on the resolution of discrimination claims has only made me more convinced of the benefit of training.  Specifically, if managers and employees could be given an overview of the conflict resolution tools needed to address allegations of unfairness and discrimination in the workplace, these issues could be effectively resolved early on.  I look forward to using these trainings as a starting point to develop a module to bring directly to workplaces to help manage conflict arising out of equal employment opportunity issues.