ACCORDING to conflict resolution practitioner and mediation trainer Karen Laprade, mediation works because it gets rid of any superficial issues and because it gets to the root of the conflict.

What's more important is that the route taken and the resolution, once achieved, are both determined by the parties at conflict.

Through her work with the Centre for Community and Family Mediation over the past three years, Mrs. Laprade has served as listening post, confidante, and mediator in disputes between families, neighbours and colleagues. Her work, in effect, serves as proof that an open line of communication is the most important tool in the resolution of any conflict.

A DISPUTE with a colleague, separation from a spouse, an on-going neighbourhood feud - it would appear that conflict, to one degree or another, is an inevitable part of life for all of us.

For Karen Laprade (pictured at right), a conflict resolution practitioner and mediation trainer with the Centre for Community and Family Mediation, it's an issue she confronts on a daily basis. Disagreements within the family, the workplace, the neighbourhood - they've all become a matter of course for Mrs. Laprade, whose many successes have helped pay credence to the practice of mediation and the community's understanding of conflict resolution and all that it entails.

"People are now seeing concrete resolve that this is making a difference," she said. "(They're seeing it) at work, in work ethic, and in the happiness of their employees, which affects the clients, which benefits the actual revenue and the industry that's created from that. And there's a lot of research documenting that. Five or ten years ago, conflict resolution was considered, almost along the lines of therapy, as an intervention. But the best way to see mediation is as being future-focused. It's problem solving; it's negotiating a plan for reducing conflict.

"We have to be clear in what they're looking for and what type of process is required. Family therapy is undertaken, generally, if there's a major issue that's built on a lot of history; if people really need to do either, some intensive personal work to move forward, or some psycho-analytic kind of soul searching; if they need to find some ways to find changes in themselves in order to effect change in their relationship.

"The effect of mediation on the community has been tremendous. It has a lot of potential and it goes back to a fact we should be believing in, fundamentally - to open the door, sit down and say, 'You know what, we can work this out' rather than putting faith in the hands of professionals or the Government or the so-called people who have the power.

"We don't need everybody else to tell us what to do. At the end, a lot of people think, that's the worst thing I've had to go through in my life, but I expected it to be much worse and the fact that I can actually look at this person whereas I couldn't before, means a lot."

The Centre for Community and Family Mediation is a not-for-profit organisation which enables, through its mediation services, a viable alternative to the court process. Any decision made is reached by the parties involved, Mrs. Laprade said. "It takes a lot to say, I need help to do this.

"But it's not always possible to manage all of your emotions in a fairly entrenched conflict. People tend to feel relieved when they give that up to someone else, someone who provides a process, who manages a safe, respectful forum to communicate.

"Conflict presents itself as the tip of the iceberg. Way down deep is what's been really going on. Those are things that represent people's interests, things that they're concerned about - their fears their values, their hopes, their expectations - and that's where the work of mediation happens.

"If you get to that level, people find they can work towards a solution and then they're ready to design for themselves, a mutually agreeable solution based on their own needs.

"Conflict resolution takes many different forms. It can be (referred to as) Alternative Dispute Resolution or Appropriate Dispute Resolution (ADR). But what is inherent, what it means, is that it's an alternative to going to court or an alternative to the adversarial system.

"We're not in the business of getting rid of conflict, eradicating it, pretending there's nothing there. We actually use it to make some changes and work towards a positive picture. The fact is that one of our best ways to work in, and on conflict, is through our ability to communicate better and more effectively.

"If you have a conflict, your first choice is to negotiate with the other person to resolve it. However, if you're finding that's not all that effective, you can move to something like mediation. Mediation means that you're going to invite a neutral thrid party in to help solve the problem.

"The mediators aren't there to tell people what to do. They generally don't give advice and they do not take sides. (As a mediator), I don't care what the truth is or the facts are. I only care about the impact that's had on you. I'm interested in what's really going on. (Those involved) are never going to settle the past, but at least we might be able to focus so that we can move forward and let that past go."

WHILE recognising that the parties involved may never be friends, it is important that the relationships be mended to the point where effective communication becomes possible.

"Usually people do have some sort of a relationship that we do work on," said Mrs. Laprade. "We're not trying to make people friends, we're maintaining that relationship. Parents, for example, who are going through a separation or a divorce situation, maybe they're not going to continue in that marital relationship, but they will always be the parents of their children.

"So the more we work on their communication, the better it is for the children, and the better it will be for the parents as well. It's the same thing in the workplace. You have to work with someone, who knows for how long, and if you can somehow salvage the relationship or build a new one that is more respectful."

As an example of how conflict resolution differs from traditional methods, she said, victims might be given the opportunity to face the attacker.

"We actually minimise the victim's role and, really through conflict resolution, seek to allow those people to have some voice in the system, to have some choice in what's been happening and then also to leave behind that victim label.

"It's not that you make people sit in front of them but they do have the choice to sit down and ask can we resolve this? They need to say (to their attacker), 'You need to understand what you did to me and how much trauma you've caused.' Sometimes people even negotiate how (the attacker is) going to repair the harm that was caused.

"Usually, in a workplace situation, you have a manager who says you need to go to mediation or we're going to have to take some sort of action here and mediation looks like the better choice. Also, people like the fact that they have a lot more control over these types of processes as opposed to putting their fate into the hands of a judge or into the hands of a boss.

"What we like to do is give the decision-making power and control of the outcome of a conflict or a dispute to those people who are involved.

"The thinking is that if you're part of a conflict, you're going to be much more likely, and able, to work on a mutually agreeable solution. It'll be easier to reach if you've been asked to say your piece and then asked what you think needs to happen.

"There are some really good things that come out of this and time, and cost I think, are the major selling pieces."

The centre is also working to develop volunteer mediators so everyone has access to well-trained mediators in Bermuda.