Services ___________________________________________________ Conflict Intervention
Mediation
Unresolved conflict tears at the fiber of organizations, teams, and relationships. The costs can be considerable: lost productivity, legal fees, and broken trust. Mediation offers a different solution. It can help you transform conflict into an opportunity for new learning, growth, and reconciliation. Mediation provides a forum in which:
- The focus is on creating a future that works for the participants.
- Parties can engage the substantive, relational, and systemic aspects of a dispute.
- The Mediator is responsible for facilitating the conversation, the parties are responsible for deciding the outcome.
- Confidentiality is the rule that supports a candid and open exploration of resolution options.
Sound Options Group Offers Mediation in The Following Contexts.
Workplace Mediation
Workplace mediation enables you to engage conflict in your work setting while avoiding costly legal fees, lost productivity, and a demoralized workforce. Mediation provides a forum with the potential for both resolving the immediate conflict and creating a model for more effectively engaging future conflicts.
Special Education Mediation
Working collaboratively to define “Free and Appropriate Public Education” (FAPE) and to develop Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) can be challenging. Disagreements will occur while negotiating for the educational needs of a student. Mediation offers a context in which parties can identify innovative solutions to these disagreements. During the process, the Mediator will:
- Ensure that all participants can share their view of the situation,
- Facilitate a conversation for creating a deeper shared understanding of the core issues contributing to the dispute, and
- Help participants develop solutions that are best for the children and youth involved.
Washington State
Special Education Mediation
Sound Options Group serves as the Administrative Agent to OSPI and DCYF to provide Special Education Mediation in Washington State. This resource is a federally mandated service under the IDEA and is available at no cost to families, educators, and service providers. Participation is voluntary for all parties.
Mediation can be requested by calling 206-842-2298 or 800-692-2540. A Case Manager will work with you to clarify the appropriateness of your request for mediation, issues to be negotiated, participants to the process, and a date/time for meeting. The following link provides a more detailed description of this process.
Facilitation
The challenges faced by groups, communities, and organizations require collective engagement and new shared learning. They require deep, adaptive work in both an individual and group context. The quality of this work is often supported and enhanced by a Facilitator. The role of facilitator has been described in a number of ways. For many the role is seen as simply “the person running the meeting”. In our context, we define the role as significantly more. For example, the role of a facilitator is:
- To hold a space for shared learning,
- To support everyone to do their best thinking,
- To do for a group what it cannot do for itself.
Sound Options Group will work with you to design and facilitate gatherings in support of shared work and shared learning. Sample contexts include:
- Shared decision-making
- Shared leadership
- Collective Bargaining
- IEP Meetings
- Strategic visioning and planning.
Washington State
IEP Facilitation
Sound Options Group, under our contract with OSPI, will provide a Facilitator for IEP meetings. Their role is to support the team to collaborate effectively as they determine FAPE for an individual student. While this is not a federally mandated service under the IDEA, it is offered at no cost to families and educators.
IEP Facilitation can be requested by calling 206-842-2298 or 800-692-2540. A Case Manager will work with you to clarify the appropriateness of your request for IEP Facilitation, agenda for the particular meeting, expectations of the facilitator, and a date/time for meeting. The following link provides a more detailed description of this process.
Downloads
The Following Resources Will Support You As You Consider Accessing These Services.
Mediation for Early Intervention Services (ESIT/Part C)
Organizational Conflict
This is conflict that has a lot of moving parts. It does not simply involve party A and party B. It may include parties A, B, C, and D representing departments A, B, C, and D from agencies A, B, C, and D. The conflict may be manifesting in multiple ways within a range of contexts. While resolution is possible, it will typically require a more complex intervention. Sound Options Group can work with you assess the nature and scope of the conflict and design and implement a comprehensive intervention.