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Peer Mediation is a confidential process for resolving conflicts. Participants have the opportunity to talk through their conflicts with the help of trained student mediators.

Peer Mediators are students committed to making their school a peaceful place to learn. Mediators come from diverse backgrounds and represent a variety of different experiences. Before they can mediate they receive intensive training in communication, problem solving, conflict resolution, and mediation skills.

Mediation is always voluntary

Everything said is confidential

Disputants can talk out their problems

Interruptions are not allowed

Arguing is not the way

Try mediation, not violence

In mediation, everyone is equal

Only mediation can solve conflicts

No problem is too big to solve

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“I’m really proud of the mediators this year. We have accomplished so much in such a short period of time. I really wish Hayfield students used the Mediation program more because these are the best group of mediators I’ve ever worked with.”

-Liz Sheetz, Peer Mediation President

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News

- The Peer Mediators are taking a leadership role in school this year. We have already completed facilitating a Fall Mediation Mini-Conference for all FCPS high school mediators and George Mason University. This event gave mediators an opportunity to network about Hayfield’s mediation program and attend selected workshops. Hayfield students facilitated the workshop entitled, “Pyramid Mediation Training: Working with Elementary Students”. Ashley Booth, Krystal Carter, Lianna Catino, Ryan David, and Andrew Orr lead the workshop.

- The high school Peer Mediators have conducted two elementary training mediation workshops for Island Creek and Silverbrook Elementary selected student mediators. These interactive sessions included an overview of mediation, the role of a mediator, steps in the mediation process, and student simulations of a mediation. Members of the Peer Mediation training team for Island Creek included Ashley Booth, Rachel Brown, Ryan Davis, Asia Odum, and Patrisha Robinson. Silverbrook mediators were trained by Krystal Carter, Camellia Futur, Kenneth Harley, and Darius Weber.

- The 12^th Annual Regional Mediation Conference was held on March 9, 2004 at George Mason University. Liz Sheetz and Lauren Swenson were Hayfield’s student representatives on the Fairfax County Steering Committee for planning and implementing this huge endeavor. All of Hayfield’s mediators facilitated a workshop and the middle and high school students attended various sessions to sharpen their conflict resolution skills. Mediators who facilitated the “Basic Mediation Training” workshops included Courtney Brown, Rachel Brown, Lianna Catino, Heather Castro, Andrea Chess, Ryan Davis, Emily Krouse, Ashley Mangan, Amanda O’Brien, Andrew Orr, and Ahmad Tariq. A team of seven additional Hayfield mediators facilitated the “Marketing Mediation” workshop. They were Tabia Alexander, Ashley Booth, JonDavid Bibeau, Ashley Jenkinson, Asia Odum, Trisha Robinson, and Jennifer Simms. It was an awesome experience for all!

- The Mediators planned and implemented a “Stop the Violence” Week held May 17-21, 2004. The campaign was a peer to peer outreach project that empowered young people to recognize, report, and reduce the potential for youth violence. Each day of the week was symbolized by a color and created an awareness of a different type of violence. Topics during the week included school violence, emotional/verbal abuse, child abuse, violence against women, and sexual harassment. A Silent Witness memorial was displayed in the lobby areas, with cardboard cutouts of human figures painted red with statistics on them to increase school violence awareness. Memorial walls were erected in the lobbies with newspaper headlines and selected teen writings on violence shared on these walls. Anti- violence bookmarks were created and distributed through the media Center and English teachers. Other events during the week included volunteering at a battered woman’s shelter, organizing a collection drive for toiletry items needed by women’s shelters, distributing nearly 4,000 blue ribbons supporting Child Abuse awareness, and school-wide drawings for gift cards donated from local supporting businesses. The Peer Mediation program strives to make hayfield a safe place to learn and promotes that conflicts can be resolved in a positive way through communication.