Can early caucus improve a community mediation model? Counteracting stressors prior to joint session

This investigation tests whether adding an early caucus (EC) before joint session is beneficial or detrimental to the mediation process. Parties and mediators were asked open-ended questions about the use of EC to evaluate its benefits and costs. Party and mediator responses were overwhelmingly positive. In addition, there was no evidence of potential costs of EC, increasing mediator bias or impinging on time for joint session. Most responses showed that EC helped foster a sense of control, set a calm tone, and build rapport, counteracting the typical stressors in a joint session that can hamper settlement. EC also improved the process for the mediator, providing crucial information on what to expect in joint session, time to plan for emotional joint sessions, and an early opportunity to build rapport prior to the joint session. When surveyed 5 years later, mediators had sustained their positive views about EC. To supplement these findings in a wider range of cases, the parties' evaluations of the entire mediation session were also studied, comparing previous cases without an EC, to cases with EC and other types of Prior Meetings (IPVA Screens and both EC and IPVA Screens). Prior Meetings did not degrade perception of the mediation. In fact, Prior Meetings increased parties' perceptions that mediators understood and respected them and tended to increase perceptions that the mediator clearly explained what would happen and gave everyone a chance to talk about what was important. The EC experience can be generalized to other types of meetings with the mediator prior to joint session. This empirical study has implications for the current discussions about use of pre-mediation sessions and concerns about declining use of joint session.