What skills and knowledge should a mediator working with minors have, and how can they adapt their approach to meet the needs of children and young people.
There are different areas where mediation with minors is of particular interest, especially when we refer to areas such as school, family or when the minor commits infractions that may be the subject of a crime and, with this, that a measure included in Law 5/2000, of January 12, regulating the criminal responsibility of minors, be imposed.
Mediation with minor offenders
Law 5/2000, of January 12, on Criminal Responsibility of Minors, since it sets the guidelines to follow in the mediation processes carried out in juvenile criminal law. His art.5 regulates the way of carrying out extrajudicial solutions, establishing two routes from cases to mediation programs.
We can emphasize that the reforming function and the measures by which it is implemented, in turn, fulfill a protective function, insofar as the philosophy of its design attempts to dispel the disruptive behaviors that a minor executes and that in some way They are “hindering” his “healthy and normalized” life. As contemplated in Law 8/2021 on comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence. This is why, over the last few years, some judges have imposed “exemplary” measures that support the reintegration of minors at risk.
As we already know, mediation emphasizes helping those people who, for multiple reasons, They live in a conflictive situation, so that they can look for new ways to solve problems in a constructive way. All of this, under the protection of an environment that is safe for them, which is facilitated through mediation and the techniques and skills of the mediator.
As indicated, criminal mediation with minor offenders becomes the favorable extrajudicial alternative in which the minor and the victim can choose to solve their problems without a judge imposing a judicial measure against the criminal act. Being the parties involved (minor offender-victim of crime) who will try to dialogue and search for themselves, with the help of the mediator, the best possible solution to the situation facing them. They will be participating in a criminal mediation process, in the area of minors. The current Organic Law 5/2000, Regulator of the Criminal Responsibility of Minors (LORRPM), in its article 19, authorizes this possibility of carrying out this type of extrajudicial intervention. After the file is opened in the Juvenile Prosecutor's Office, it will be the person who decides which files can be processed and resolved extrajudicially.
Functions and skills of the mediator who works with minors
As in any other field, the mediator must have a series of skills that emanate from their functions:
| FUNCTIONS | SKILLS |
| Help the parts count | Generate trust Active listening Paraphrasing Neutrality Put aside personal ideas, beliefs and/or prejudices Empathy Legitimize people and their perception of the situation. |
| Breaking the “official narrative of the conflict” | Paraphrasing Circular questions Expanding the focus of the conflict Promote recognition and revaluation of the other person. Legitimation of all parties involved. |
| Facilitate communication between the parties. | Pay attention to non-verbal language Ask circular questions Unlock concepts of guilt and promote those of responsibility Support the recognition of other people Support and enhance process gestures |
| Positively rephrase | Question the punctuation of the sequence of events 5 of the parts Paraphrase Synthesis capacity Analysis capacity |
| Encourage and develop | Return to the parties awareness of their own decision-making power. Return awareness of their own resources and/or limits. |
| Encourage creativity | Creating spaces free of judgment Encouraging free expression Sense of humor “Realistic optimism” |
| Firmness in the process | Assertiveness |
| Refer when the mediating function is not the most appropriate route | Know well the mediation process and its limits. Know the limits of your figure and your personal ones. Ethics. |
The mediation with minors It has the characteristic that in one way or another it will be necessary to count on tutors so that the process is a learning process that can be used to address other more or less common problems. It must respond above all to those young people “forgotten” by the administrations and the community itself, who have been socialized in disadvantaged contexts where poverty, lack of resources, drug addiction or abandonment, have been a constant or are a consequence of situations experienced in the socio-family context, without necessarily, in other cases, come from vulnerable families at a socioeconomic level. An environment is opened for the minor in which to approach and resocialize, in which problem behavior is worked on within a much broader spectrum. Criminal mediation for minors is, therefore, understood in our legal system as an extrajudicial conflict resolution mechanism, integrated into the judicial procedure, regulated through the Organic Law 5/2000, of January 12, Regulating the Criminal Responsibility of Minors (hereinafter LORRPM). That can be carried out prior to the sentence or after it.
He profile of a mediator Working with minors requires attitudes and skills related to emotional self-control, the balance between empathy and distance, flexibility, creativity and the use of calm and respectful dialogue, management of moments of horizontality and knowing how to deal with moments of lack. tolerance to frustration that minors will predictably show at different times. Likewise, the mediator must achieve moral authority by legitimizing the parties and their stories, showing himself as a reference for them, especially in cases where the minors do not have recognized authority figures or who do not represent a reference for them, showing impartiality, rigor, prudence, patience, confidence and assertiveness. In this process, the mediator and the parties will obtain learning that guides them, each from their position, to cope with future situations that they face both personally and professionally.
What does mediation with minor offenders encourage?![Rocas, Oceano, Calma, Zen, Meditación]( "The role of mediators in intervention with minors 2")
Criminal mediation with juvenile offenders has benefits for both the minor who has committed a crime and the victim who has suffered it. Among them, mention the following:
– Resolve conflicts without having to participate in a judicial process (saving time, since the process is shorter and more immediate than the judicial process).
– Regarding the victim of crime, it offers him the opportunity to be heard, revalued, taken into account, and, most importantly, repaired. The mediation process is the perfect context to manage the feelings associated with a victimization process.
– That the minor repair the damage caused through the consequences of his actions. On the other hand, you are given the opportunity to practice other ways of interacting with your environment.
– It entails a lower emotional cost for both parties as it is an extrajudicial process.
– Prevents the conflict from lasting over time, from recurring or even getting worse.
– It proposes a space for continuous meeting of: listening, reflection, information, containment, reparation... between the minor “executor” and the victim of the infraction that has caused a certain problem.
Giving the parties a leading role in the peaceful resolution of their problems is one of the tasks of any mediation process. It is the minors who must analyze their interests and needs, reflecting on what is the best agreement that allows them to achieve them.
Learn all the details about mediation and Intervention with Minors in our Postgraduate in Intervention with minors.
