Check out Tara Fishler's work if you want to see mediation's future. Tara had the good fortune of knowing very early on what she wanted to do with her life: work with children. She started with a self-designed "Children's Studies" major at SUNY Brockport. After college she chose to attend law school at the Franklin Pierce Law Center (now University of New Hampshire Law). She knew that she didn't want to practice law; she chose to study Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and trained as a parent-child mediator. In her third year she teamed up with a friend to set up a peer mediation program for a middle school in New Hampshire. Over the past 20 years of her career, Tara has stayed true to her passion for working with children, mainly focusing her efforts on working with young people in schools.
Tara was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and she says her upbringing gives her "... a bit of a tougher side that comes out when needed." She firmed up her Brooklyn cred after law school when she spent five years living in Bensonhurst with her husband, Stephen, whom she met in Brooklyn, before moving to Westchester.
She started her post-school career at "Victim Services", an organization that became "Safe Horizon" before taking on it's current moniker "The New York Peace Institute". Eventually she became the Director of School Mediation Programs where she " . . . coordinated a collaboration of three agencies that had mediation programs in more than 40 middle schools".
After seven years Tara struck out on her own to found Customized Training Solutions. Since 2003 she has ". . . trained thousands of adults and children of all ages in mediation, conflict resolution, anger management, communications, diversity, anti-bullying, strategic planning and a host of other subjects."
While Tara does work with adults, her work with children fascinates me most. She is on the ground floor, working with the youngest mediators in the making. She says:
I get jazzed when I see kids “get it”. I love to hear them analyze a situation or a new technique. . . . It is amazing to see kids transform from year to year, to see the skills go from rote to getting a feel for what to say or do next. Even the difference from when they enter the training room to sitting to say their 1st Opening Statement. They get so mature (most of them), as they sit there with an important job and new skills to do it.
Tara's dedication to children extends to her own family which includes Stephen and their four children, ages seven to thirteen. |
