 Good morning to those of you here in Hawaii afternoon or evening to those joining us from other places. Thanks so much. This is think that Hawaii. It's Thursday, February 17 2022. And we have with us today. One of my dearest and most admirable and accomplished friends Tracy Wilkin, the long time executive director of the mediation center of the Pacific. Hawaii is emblematic and actually nationally respected. The mediation center, which has outreach now to various sectors as a society from the judiciary and the courts to the community to the business community to the government community, and has them all working collaboratively and working together on things in ways that have not been seen and we'll kind of circle back to that toward the end of this session and talk about what the role and value of MCP and mediation have been but just to start us all off on the same page. Tracy just short simple plain language explanation what is mediation, as opposed to arbitration meditation litigation, all those other things. Now, I have a question check, you know, even though mediation has been around a long time. Not everybody understands what it is and how it works and how it differs from all those things that you mentioned. So mediation is essentially it's a process, we bring people together, who are in conflict, and the mediator, who's impartial doesn't take sides, doesn't tell people what to do it doesn't give legal advice and doesn't But actually helps these parties in conflict listen to each other in a way they haven't been able to talk to each other in a way they haven't been able to and negotiate agreements that work for them. Key principles about mediation mediator does not tell people what to do so it's up to the parties if they want to reach a resolution. The other important thing is mediation is confidential so those discussions and mediation if they do end up in a formal legal proceeding are off the table, mediator isn't going to testify on behalf of anybody. There's an offer made but there's no formal agreement that's finalized in sign that offers off the table. So it's really a great flexible informal process that helps people come up with their own solutions to their problems and who better to resolve your problems than the people who are in the conflict. Fantastic. What elements to you what attributes characteristics and make mediation as a form or process of communication best suited for this kind of conflict management and resolution. Yeah, that's an interesting question and that's the answer is really part of what attracted me to mediation many years ago. It's because people often don't know how to communicate with each other when communication breaks down. You know, you're not going to be able to solve a problem and in particular when people are in conflict, even people who may typically be good communicators in conflict because you let your emotions drive you. You basically aren't listening to each other, you know you can do the simple test and think about the last time you were in conflict with someone. You're talking and I asked what what are you thinking about and, and everybody's going to say I'm thinking about what I'm going to say when they stop talking. And so mediation changes that dynamics. And I always tell people when I'm training them as mediators, the secret of mediation. So when people are in conflict, we know they don't listen to each other, but as a mediator gains the trust of the parties, because we spent a lot of time listening to each person privately and together. The other parties then trust us and then what happens is, we listen to their story and then we start conveying their story to the other party. They listen to us, but what they're really listening to for the first time is each other through the mediator. And that's the secret. Sounds easy, but it's not. It's a great way to put it. And we know there are alternatives people can do litigation and the courts and have the court system process it and determine it and be subject to appeal, or they can go an arbitration out, which is sort of like a private trial but with not many avenues of appeal has a greater degree of finality. And then of course there's physical conflicts, violent conflict, or things like that. So, what is it to you that makes mediation the best first choice for people in conflict who can't work it out themselves. That's exactly what he said it should be the first choice. And here's why, because, as I mentioned, it's, it's an informal process. It's a process designed to help people feel as comfortable as possible I'm not going to say that it's a fun, it's fun when you're in conflict. Both parties start looking at the situation in a different way, ideally in a bigger way so that they can come up with creative solutions and they never have to enter the legal system. What's important is, again, that people are resolving the issues themselves. And when you think about the legal system and there's a place for it certainly. It's a adversarial process. And so really it's about when lose and most conflicts, not all but most conflicts shouldn't be about when lose divorcing couples. It's not about winning and losing it's about how do we end our story and move to our next story in our life. Without added pain and all the things that people go through or landlords and tenants which is a big issue right now. Maybe the tenant got behind and we know over the last couple years tenants got behind in their rent, because they lost their jobs. It shouldn't be about getting in court and fighting and putting pressure, it should be having that conversation to understand each other as people landlords need to be paid. Maybe there was a reason tenants didn't pay and maybe they're trying to do something about it but to have that conversation and to reach that agreement themselves. And if you think about it if everybody tried mediation first, a lot of the issues would get resolved, and then our really busy court system could focus on those issues that really need to be in court. Fantastic so to develop a system and a structure and an institution to promote and make available these collaborative confidential communication problem solving processes. What was the genesis of the mediation center, how and why did it get started. Great question and that was a long time ago before I was involved. And it's a great story back in 1979 when the mediation center of the Pacific, who was formerly neighborhood justice center was founded by a small group of people who had a great vision. It was a vision that was happening across the country and the idea was just as the name said, to enable neighbors to work out their differences in a way by sitting down and talking instead of calling the police on each other instead of ending up in court and fighting. And this concept actually was happening across the country so they were neighborhood justice centers created all over and a small group of people here on the islands, you have the insight and the vision. They received a grant, and they brought over a trainer from another state to do the first training of the first volunteer mediators. And so the neighborhood justice center. Now the mediation son of the Pacific started as a very grassroots effort, actually in the key key so we're back where we started although they were in a small green shack nearby key key pumping station which is no longer and I will say that what happened is very quickly at the same time the courts were backlog, looking for other ways to ease that backlog and the courts immediately started looking at neighborhood justice centers, just like the neighborhood justice center of Honolulu. So while it started focusing on neighbor disputes. The court started referring cases and and so from this very beginning, there was a bit of a maybe controversy should we really just focus on neighbor and community cases, or should we focus on court cases. And I think the nice thing over the years it's recognized, we can do it all. And ideally, it goes back to your comment, those court cases if they start with us, a lot of them won't end up in court. Great history 43 years ago. Why then, why 1979 there about. That came together to grow that movement. Well, at the time, the courts were, we're looking at alternate ways there was the pound conference where they started looking at an open door court system. And so it was really a movement across the country, looking at how can we better serve people and the court serve people. You know, for years, people were groomed to sue each other. That's how people were educated. And so we had so many people in our court systems that they couldn't adequately serve everyone and recognizing that not every case belonged in the court system. So it was really that is what started everybody looking at what else can be done and looking towards mediation and other dispute resolution processes. It's a fantastic way to put it, that when Frank sander came up with his multi door courthouse concept, which has just been absolutely seminal in conflict prevention management and resolution in this country and beyond. And the collaborative confidential humane process was the mediation door, and the others all gave up on a self determined process for the party. And the others all gave up all of those four key elements to humanity the self determination the confidentiality and the collaborativeness. Where have those elements taken the mediation center in its evolution from the neighborhood justice center back in the days of Peter Adler Bruce Barnes and others that we know. What along the way have been the most important building steps for the mediation center. And it has been an exciting journey and it's been an honor to be part of the mediation center for so long. And the foundation that has helped this organization gets the place where it is, making the impact on the community that it does is the people. That's what a strong organization is all about it's people who believe in the mission and together work together through good times and hard times to make sure that that mission is making an impact on the community. And so it's the hundreds of board members who have served on boards and help fundraise and help strategic strategize and plan. It's the hundreds and hundreds of mediators who volunteered thousands of hours check it. And they're just amazing and and the staff members over the years and particularly the last couple years, who work really hard to make sure that services are provided for the community. And it's not about making money. It's about believing in a mission and believing the impact that it has on the community and without all the dedication of the board, the mediators and the staff over the years, an organization like the mediation of the Pacific or as we finally finally call it MCP wouldn't be able to do the work that it does. If you look at the last couple years, the number of media hour mediation mediator hours invested in mediating and they're primarily volunteers is more than doubled. And it's them giving their time and caring about the people that they're helping because they believe in the process and they see the positive outcome. That's fantastic. So, how did MCP get the buy in initially of the judiciary and then we'll look at some of the other key stakeholder groups government, private business, and others. So, as I mentioned, you know, from the very start, when the neighborhood justice center now MCP was formed, the courts started looking at community mediation center so we, we started out small, doing a pilot with small claims cases. And today we still mediate small claims cases for district court. And, and then pretty soon it was family court looking to the mediation center to assist and, and so how do we do that. And it took designing training and curriculum conducting training for mediators to ensure that they have the skills, the, the knowledge and the support to be effective in these areas. So, and I want to mention so not only do mediators volunteer their hours mediating, but they invest a lot of time going through trainings, participating in workshops, constantly honing their skills. Another important evolution of mediation as you know, originally, even when I was trained as a mediator, many years ago, it was a process and it was a very structured process. And once you went through this training you were eligible to mediate anything. And as mediation has evolved it's recognized that a mediator who mediates in specific areas governed by laws really needs subject matter expertise not because we're giving legal advice, but because we need to understand the area to know the right questions to ask to know when a party doesn't have enough information to negotiate so we can sum them out to get the resources they need. As the courts looked at us, we would develop curriculums training, train a cadre of mediators we even now target recruit in specific areas to make sure that every area that we're serving and providing services in. We appropriately train mediators. And so, in addition to providing mediation and dispute resolution, we're constantly developing and conducting trainings and workshops, which is, is wonderful. That's a fantastic example of how a collaborative coalition was built from the beginning with the judiciary, and knowing that the head of the judiciary is always the chief justice of the always Supreme Court. I'm sure that Ron moan and CJ renquist of not wrecked and walled there. There's a full pot. I have not been working with. Yeah, Ron moan and mark wrecked and walled and then just absolute exemplars of the perfect people for those collaborative coalitions and support. How did MCP established collaborative coalitions with the business sector and with the government, especially the legislature which has been from time to time. Not the easiest to relate collaboratively with for some. And it has been the last few years developing these partnerships has been absolutely amazing and and the key reason is mediation is appropriate and needed in in every arena. So as a court, we develop programs with the court, oftentimes cases that are sent to us to mediate are from the business arena. Plus the business arena also recognize the value of our trainings. And so a lot of them come to us to train, for example, their managers, we have an informal mediation skills for managers training so they're not formal mediators but they learn these skills to be more effective as managers. And and so as we have had them participate in trainings and we've conducted mediations. Then we start looking at how can we better serve them. Are there other things we can be doing so a good example is the Kapuna Pono program that was developed several years ago with Chuck heard who was a long time mediator. And had this vision to help create Kapuna Pono with the large number of elders in Hawaii and many of them living a very long time and requiring care and their older age and of course in Hawaii. When you need care, it comes from family and the stress that that happens when families are caring for a loved one. I mean that conflict is inevitable. And so we created the Kapuna Pono program to bring families who are caring for an elder together. So that one the elders values and wishes can be vocalized so all family members here and the family members can have a discussion with the assistance of facilitators to talk about how each person can support that care and desire of the elder person. And so as we develop this, then we recognize a lot of the conflicts fall within the healthcare arena. So we then develop partnerships we started with Kaiser Permanente and work closely with them. And now we are working with other healthcare providers. So they are educating families about this opportunity and and so again this wonderful partnership and the same thing that we've done with businesses. And really that's how I think the mediation center of the Pacific particularly the last few years has been able to have a greater impact on the community. I mean certainly we're still mediating a lot of cases from the courts, which is important, because we're helping them resolve issues and not fight it out in courts, but we have more partnerships and relationships with the healthcare arena, the business arena, so that we are encouraging and educating people to bring their issues to us early. So they never have to hit the court system. Clearly MCP has reached out to and built collaborative coalitions with a number of state departments and agencies and county ones as well. Of all the government entities. How did MCP managed to establish the collaborative coalition and working relationship with the ledge and Scott psyche and the team over there. Hey, in ways that have been elusive for so many for so long. So this is was a wonderful opportunity. You know, in the midst of crisis, there are opportunities and certainly the pandemic. When it started was a crisis. It was a crisis for many people. It was a scary time for the mediation center of the Pacific, we had just purchased and moved into a new building so that we could provide services, even more so for the community. And we were invited to participate in on a committee, looking at the housing issue looking at the landlord tenant issues since there was a moratorium on addictions. The landlords needless to say we're frustrated tenants were frustrated. They didn't not want to pay. So it's tough times and and it was this subcommittee was actually created by House Speaker psyche and in initially it was led by Jim. Who was amazing and it brought a broad cross section of stakeholders together and in brainstorming and looking at the issues, the importance and the value of mediation being able to assist in this area came up. It was really representative Nakamura, who came up with the bill to implement that when the moratorium ended that the landlords would need to provide 15 days notice to tenant but most importantly, would be required to participate in the mediation, if the tenant so chose, and the idea behind that was to give them the opportunity to work out solutions to be able to get the landlord paid to ideally keep the tenant in their residents and to make sure we didn't have this huge backlog of cases at court. And so this program started when the moratorium ended last August it statewide every community mediation center across the state is running the program and there are five of us there's two on the island of Hawaii. One on Maui one on Hawaii and of course us on Honolulu and since August 7 check, just to give you an idea how the program's doing we've opened over 1600 cases. We've mediated approximately 650 of these landlord tenant eviction cases, and almost 90% have reached agreement. So the idea behind it has worked and it's really to the credit of the stakeholders in the committee to representative Nakamura and Hashimoto for creating the bill. And it really, I think, brought mediation to a higher level to a higher level of vision and my hope is that people see the value and it will continue to be a process used early on. That's fantastic so so many other things that we could go into that would have great value in our last minute. Where do you see mcp going from here what's the vision. The vision is I think we are going to continue working at this high level that we're at our caseload has more than doubled over the last year. And I don't see it slowing down and hopefully our numbers of infection keep lowering so we can do more in person mediation because primarily it's through zoom right now and but I do see even as the pandemic wanes and we're able to interact with each other that we will continue to integrate the technology to make it accessible for everybody. We are working on better strategies to have more efficient language access for everyone and reaching out in the community will continue to build on these partnerships and I'm excited that the board and staff will be engaging and strategic planning to come up with a new plan to take mcp through the next five years. I don't see us slowing down. That's fantastic Tracy Thank you so much for Hawaii's best example of how people can come together and build a collaborative humane problem solving communication process for conflict prevention management resolution. There are times when so much of other elements of society, so many have been going in an opposite direction. Thank you for the model. Thank you for your example and for all of you and your team, people have done to make all that you do possible. Thank you so much for joining us. Hope many more will view this later on YouTube and Vimeo and come back and rejoin us next week for more think tech Hawaii.