Mediation

Clients facing head-to-head negotiations and fearing hurtful confrontation, endless bickering or issue avoidance and stalemate, can draw upon the skills of an experienced, impartial mediator to help bring structure, focus and a positive outcome to the process.

Christine Forsyth & Associates provides clients with mediation services - a facilitated negotiation process that allows parties to be heard and recognized; their issues to be identified and explored respectfully; constructive dialogue to be engaged on alternative solutions that recognize each party's issues and concerns; a positive commitment to the actions and outcomes that best meet the parties' needs and objectives.

We speak with clients prior to the facilitated negotiation to plan and prepare for the process. Each party is treated in a similar manner and with equal respect. During the mediation, the mediator takes no sides and makes no judgements about one or the other party's issues and imposes no solutions. Our role is to ensure that the process is fair, respectful and as constructive as possible and to enable the parties to reach their own solutions to which they can comfortably commit.

"A novel perspective regarding conflict is to view it as a mutual problem the conflicting parties can work on together, cooperatively, in an attempt to discover mutually satisfactory solutions. One of the creative functions of conflict resides in its ability to arouse motivation to solve a problem that might otherwise go unattended."
Coleman and Deutsch, Guidelines for Developing a Creative Approach to Conflict

"Mediation is usually focussed on helping people with a negotiation - that is, helping them to arrive at a mutually agreeable outcome or settlement of issues of concern."
B. Mayer, The Dynamics of Conflict Resolution