Pathways Mediation Center, Kingston, NY

WOODSTOCK TIMES
June 19, 2003
"The Innate Need to Make Nice
Mediation facilitates solutions for disputes by Paul Smart

Josh Koplowitz and Myra Schwartz, who are just finishing up with their first mediation for the Pathways Mediation Center they opened last autumn, come to their work with disparate, but equal, experience. They come to mediation like the best of their clients: ready to make the most of who they are, where they've come from, and what they want from a peaceable life. Koplowitz has been doing divorce mediation, the practice by which splitting couples are urged to settle their differences and reach post-marital agreements outside of the courts, for over 25 years now. Back in the late 1970s, the Woodstock-based attorney joined with psychologist Joe Eron, founder of the Catskill Family Institute, Poughkeepsie-based attorney Katherine Lazar, and Dutchess County social worker Jill Lundquist to form the Mid-Hudson Divorce and Family Mediation Center, which is still running. Koplowitz says he stayed active with them until about ten years ago.

Schwartz, a Saugerties resident, recently retired from 31 years of work as a guidance counselor in the Kingston School System. She has taken training as a mediator with Ulster-Sullivan mediation and the New York City-based Center for Family and Divorce Mediation. The idea for Pathworks Mediation came after Schwartz and Koplowitz, friends of many years, came up with the idea of using a two-person approach to the work, instead of the customary single mediator most couples or families end up working with.

"Financially, our clients will be getting two people for. the price of one," Koplowitz said of the new venture's basic mission. "Two sets of skills."

"We give people a one hour free consultation to start with," Schwartz added. "I think there's a noticeable trend within the judicial sector to encourage, to recommend, to urge and to sometimes even require mediation as a first step," Koplowitz said of his business with divorces. He added that many states are now requiring mediation in child custody cases.

"The solution to any problem lies within the individuals themselves," Schwartz says. "The mediator is simply the facilitator in discovering that solution." She speaks about the many situations that benefit from mediation --- from divorces between couples who want to maintain some form of civil relationship, to parents dealing with adolescents, to quarreling siblings.

Has the recent spate of large conflicts on the world stage sparked new interest in mediation, or caused (or reflected) changes in the practice?

"It's a process. You can't publicize all the instances of mediation going on with the decision-making on governmental levels," says Schwartz. "There's a lot of it that goes on behind closed Doors." She says that the trick, at least in her practice, is that the parties come to mediation willingly.

"The problem with mediation in divorce situations has always been that in most cases there is a period of time after the marriage has fallen apart when it's hard for both parties to sit down and make nice," Koplowitz says. He notes that the best thing, at such times, is to put everything on hold until the parties involved have calmed down and gotten rid of their worst feelings towards each other.

"I think that the average public has to learn how to handle its anger better," Schwartz adds. "I think mediation should be taught in schools."

Both agreed that one of the underlying principals of their new Pathways Mediation Center is to push the question: Do you want the major decisions controlling your life, and your children's lives, made by judges, or through your own negotiating powers?

And their first mediation?
"A piece of cake," said Koplowitz.

For further information on Pathways Mediation Center, call them at 845-331-0100.

PATHWAYS MEDIATION CENTER
239 Wall Street · Kingston, NY · (845) 331-0100 · Fax (845) 246-1967 · E-mail