Segment 1 Allan Barsky's Journey
On this edition of the Doug Noll Show, Doug speaks with Dr. Allan Barsky. Dr. Allan Barsky is professor of social work at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. He has a background in law, social work, and conflict resolution, including family and community mediation. Allan Barsky grew up always wanting to be an attorney. He wanted to help people so Allan went to law school and graduated at the young age of 23. At such a young age, he really didn't find the right place for himself in law so after he graduated Allan did a bit of a left turn and he went into Social Work where he got involved in mediation. Allan was fortunate enough in New York City to participate in different types of models of conflict resolution. He worked on diversion cases from criminal courts where he worked with community-based disputes and also worked with with family court matters with youth and parents to help them resolve conflicts instead of having it turn out to be a state issue a punitive model.
Doug gets more clarity on social work and what it encompasses.
Segment 2 Partial Neutral
In the previous segment, Allan shares with us the that in the field of social work. A social worker cannot counsel anyone but the person they are helping. The Mediator who is primarily hired as a formal mediator needs to be neutral and impartial. They can't have prior relations with the parties thus they cannot have a stake in the outcome. They cannot pressure the parties into deciding their conflicts one way or another.
Doug and Allan discuss the mandatory mediation in the California family court system. The couple is required by law to go through a 20 minute meditation. This is simply not long enough. It is more of a reference for the court. We really should have different languages for different processes. .it's okay to have different processes but let's not confuse our public. Very interesting segment.
Segment 3 Conflict Resolution in the Helping Profession
One of the books Allan has written is "Conflict Resolution for the Helping Profession". How do you approach conflict resolution when you are trying to explain it people that are going to become social workers, clinicians or therapists? One of the things they start off with is the of the benefit is to people in the mental health profession learn about communication skills and mindfulness. People that are very self aware and present and can listen to others, they already have conflict resolution skills.
Segment Four: Playing nice
How do we engage people to participate in mediation? In this segment, Doug and Allan discuss how to get both sides to participate in mediation for the goal of resolution.
To listen to this fascinating show, please click http://wsradio.com/041615-allan-barsky-professor-of-social-work-at-florida-atlantic-university-a-state-of-florida-certified-family-mediator-and-chair-of-the-national-association-of-social-workers-national-ethic-comm/