Seattle Peace Council uses workshops, mediation to help resolve conflicts

Two adults and two 18-year-olds gathered for mediation with the Peace Council, a Seattle nonprofit that works with families in distress.

One teen, an honors student leaving for college with a full academic scholarship, came with her mom. The mom called the Council after discovering a gym bag full of empty booze bottles in the closet and her daughter in bed with her boyfriend.

The other teen, sporting a nose ring, was a trained mediator working with an adult mediator.

Both the facial jewelry and the mediator's youth "made all the difference," said the Seattle mom, who asked that her name not be used. "It immediately put my child at ease."

It was also a fast introduction to a key component of mediation: No judging. There are no bad or good teens — first appearances notwithstanding — and no stellar or awful parents. Just families who need help talking to each other.

"I'm not without skills," said the mom, who visited a therapist, read parenting books and asked friends for support. "But I was in over my head. Mediation isn't just for bad parents. I can't imagine that every parent in King County isn't knocking on their door."

The Peace Council, along with a similar service by the Bellevue Neighborhood Mediation Program, pairs an adult and teen mediation team with teens and parents struggling with such issues as house rules, grades, truancy, chores, curfew, shoplifting, substance use or running away.

"It's an invaluable service that gives families the building blocks of communication," said Adam Myers, at-risk youth case manager for King County Superior Court.

Mediators do not offer advice or take sides. Unlike therapy, which tends to focus on personal, inner work, mediation looks at dynamics between people. "Families know how to fix themselves," said Peace Council manager Judy Friesem. "It's just buried under all the conflict."

Mediators help families build a list of issues they want to address; later, they draw up agreements on everything from curfews to household help.

Nearly 9 out of 10 families who participated in the Bellevue parent-teen program said mediation improved their relationship with one another, said coordinator Cathy Goldman. More than three-quarters worked out a specific agreement.

"We make sure everyone buys into the solutions so there will be follow-through," she said.

The teen-adult mediation pair provides a respectful intergenerational model that disproves many assumptions. "Adults don't think teens can carry the responsibility, and teens don't think adults can give them space," Friesem said. Mediators often translate teen speak to parents and vice versa.

A teen and adult on equal standing upturns the conventional approach of focusing solely on the "problem" teen. "You can't single out a teen and expect one person to change," Goldman said. "It's a family affair."

If students get in trouble for skipping class or fighting at Kennedy High School, they're sometimes given the option of going through Peace Council mediation instead of serving discipline time, said Mike Maggart, dean of students at the private Catholic school in Burien. Some teens act up to get parent attention or because of issues at home.

"We're after changed behavior, not just punishment," said Maggart, who has directed 40 to 50 families to Peace Council in the last two years. "We've had uniformly positive results."

The Peace Council's mediators come from Bainbridge Island to Issaquah, speak 10 languages and range in age from 13 to 60. Friesem tries to match up teen mediators with their counterparts as closely as possible by age and gender. The teen mediator calls the teen before the session "just to let them know they'll be there."

Participation is completely voluntary. "We can't make anyone listen, and we can't make anyone talk," Friesem said. "Anyone can leave, but no one ever has. It has to be about families wanting to make changes in their life."

Ashlee Stellfox, then 16, was used to adults talking at her about how she needed to do better — "blah, blah, blah," said her mom, Pam Love, of Federal Way. Having a teenager present she could relate to made her more willing to give mediation a try. "Half the battle is won just by getting a teen to agree to go," Love said.

"It's a good program for teens who think they're tight," said Stellfox, now 18 and living on her own in Puyallup. ("Tight" translates here as "too cool.")

"It didn't fix all our woes, but some of the doors were opened," said Love, a single mom.

Nova Dobrev, 18, credits mediation with salvaging her relationship with her mother four years ago. She found it so helpful, she took the 40-hour training and is now a part-time assistant.

"If we hadn't gone through mediation, we wouldn't be speaking to each other," she said. "We didn't agree, and we still don't agree, but now we're able to just listen to each other.

"A big, big part of why mediation works is we give families the space and time to slow down," Dobrev said. "Families stop everything they're juggling and look at their actual relationship."

Knowing her daughter wasn't going to storm out let the Seattle mom "unwind and listen more because I knew I'd get everything I needed to say said."

Parents are often reluctant to reach out for help when they already feel guilty and inadequate, Love said. "As a parent, whenever you have a child who goes off the path, the first thing you think is, 'What did I do wrong?' "

In mediation, Love and Stellfox worked out ways to live together with less friction, such as devising a chore plan by writing each family member's name on a section of a map of their house.

It also changed the way she related to her children. "I didn't realize I was thinking I was always right," Love said. "Admitting I was wrong was like saying I wasn't a good parent. What I learned is that I have to have a little of their input too. I still have to be the adult, but it opened me up to listening more."

For the Seattle mom, "I saw myself from her perspective in a way that I had not," she said. "It didn't mean I was bad or wrong; it was just a different take on my part in this."

They didn't — and don't — have a perfect relationship, "but we coexist better," she said. Now when her daughter comes home from college, she seems "more the young woman building a positive future and less the furious teenager fighting for freedom."

During mediation sessions, facilitators sometimes use art when words are "getting in the way," Friesem said.

When one family was asked to draw their ideal family scene, the mom pictured them sitting at the dinner table, the father had them sitting around a campfire and the teen came up with them sitting together in the living room.

"When they saw how similar they all were, they just laughed," Friesem said. "Our work is to pull out the common ground. Underneath everything, everyone's bone-deep need is to be loved and acknowledged and be part of a family."

Stephanie Dunnewind: sdunnewind@seattletimes.com.