Fluent Essays

Two Documents have been send to you. Assessment task Due date 25 April Word limit- 1500 words (+/_) Description:- You work as a Conflict Specialist for a Conflict Management and Resolution Centre and have been asked to assist with a conflict situation that the centre has been engaged to help with (A case scenario as follows). The manager of the centre, your boss, has asked you to meet with each of the conflict parties privately to hear their story, and to then prepare an analysis of the conflict and make some recommendations on how the conflict parties could best be assisted in their situation. You will prepare a report for your boss, in which you present an analysis of the conflict based on the model, “INTEREST/ RIGHTS/ POWER MODEL”OR IRP MODEL and make recommendations, again based on the model. Your boss is very busy and does not have much time to read lengthy and complicated analyses. That is why it is very important that you stick to the word count of 1500 words. Your boss wants to use the report for interventions involving both conflict parties, which is why it is important that your analysis is balanced and that you refrain from using evaluative language. To make sure that your boss can easily understand your report, you will use headings and you might also use dot points where appropriate. In your report you should : Provide a BRIEF overview of your model, in which you outline which aspects of a conflict situation your conflict model focuses on analysing (e.g. what elements of the conflict situation does the model address?). In this part, you will concentrate on the model’s DIAGNOSTIC side, NOT the STRATEGIC side (about 200 words) Analyse the conflict by applying the model to you’re the parties’ conflict (you should use the Practitioners’ Worksheet provided for your model in Furlong’s book). In this part, you will concentrate again on the model’s DIAGNOSTIC side, NOT the STRATEGIC side (this should be the main focus of your report, about 1000 words). Briefly make some recommendations, based on the STRATEGIC direction of the model, on what the parties should be doing next to address the issues of their conflict. In this part you should now consider the model’s strategic direction for your recommendations (about 300 words). Special Recommendations by the lecturer:- -Do not describe but analyse - Use the practitioner’s worksheet -Add bibliography alphabetically - Use headings and smart paragraphs -Use average sentence length (20-25 word) MODEL- IRP MODEL:- PRACTITIONER’S WORKSHEET:- Case Study:- Neighbourhood Conflict Trina’s Side of the Story Ever since the Kokinos replaced the McKenzies as your next-door neighbours three years ago, you’ve had nothing but trouble. The most obvious problem is the shared paling fence, which is now in bad repair. The Kokinos pile junk against it, causing whole sections to lean over on your side, which is creating problems for your garden, especially the climbing plants that grow up against the fence. Furthermore, it makes the properties look like a slum and it is really important for you that the garden looks nice. The Kokinos’ kids throw things over the fence that have damaged some of your most precious plants – deliberately so you think - and they say nasty things in Greek to you when you tell them off. They’re really cheeky and you think that they must learn to behave according to the Australian way of life. Eleni Kokinos is just not doing a good job as a mother, she should teach her children how to behave and should also teach them some English so the children understand what you say. To show the Kokinos what it feels like you have thrown a few rotten palings and plants that had died over to the Kokinos’ side of the fence. You are 70 years old, and your children have grown up and left home. Your husband died a year ago after a stroke, and you are still struggling to cope with his death. Your pension is not very much, and your property, which you and your husband had paid off 10 years ago, is your only asset and pride. You have always loved your garden; it’s your sanctuary and you had thought that by looking after your plants and enjoying the serenity and beauty of your property you would be able to get some positive distraction in your life. But that’s proved very difficult with the behaviour of your neighbours, especially in warm weather when Eleni’s friends from Greece drop by and sit outside in the garden speaking in loud voices and listening to loud Greek music. On a Sunday afternoon you find it particularly annoying when the Kokinos are having friends over. For you, Sunday is the day when people rest. That’s what you have learned in your Christian family. In the beginning you were wondering if it was just “a Greek thing” to have a party on Sunday and if they just didn’t know how things were being done in Australia. Then again, you know that other neighbours also have BBQs on a Sunday afternoon, but they are never as loud as the Kokinos. And nobody seems to party for as long as the Kokinos who play their music until late at night. You would have been ok if they just turned the music down a little bit and you have asked them a couple of times to do so, but they were just laughing at you. If anything, you have the impression that the music is now even louder. Since talking to the Kokinos is pointless, you have called the police a number of times. They came around the first few times you called, but whenever they left, the Kokinos continued with their party. Now the police don’t even offer to come over any more when you ring them to complain. You’ve never had problems with any of your other neighbours, but you are finding the Kokinos more than you can cope with. You are unhappy to have Greek neighbours because it changes the whole neighbourhood. You believe that they do not care about learning the English language and don’t make any effort to fit in. In the beginning you thought that Costas Kokinos, the father of the family, might not know about the fence and you tried to have a conversation with him about it. However, you found the conversation rather frustrating. All you wanted was to have a brief chat about the tasks that would need to be done. You understand that people sharing a fence have certain obligations and rights in terms of maintenance, and you had prepared a list of things to do to show to Costas to ensure that everything was accounted for. However, Costas didn’t seem to be interested in the list but instead invited you over to sit down, have a drink and food and start talking about his family and Greece and who knows what else. He would not get to the point, even though you mentioned your list a few times. You were also irritated by his loud voice and all the hand movements he made when speaking to you. Besides, you found his accent really difficult to understand and it didn’t help that he was speaking very fast. At some stage, Costas asked you about your husband, but you still feel too sad to speak about him, and you don’t really want to talk to a stranger about such personal subjects anyways. You felt that you were getting quite upset at that stage and ended the conversation since you didn’t want to get emotional in front of your neighbour. You decided that there was no point in talking to the Kokinos again, since the first conversation was not a nice experience and Costas didn’t seem to understand what you wanted to discuss anyways. You don’t think that Eleni is working at all, she always seems to be at home, and Costas Kokinos can’t possibly have a well-paid job considering his poor English. When Costas appears one day in a flash new car you are very upset. You feel like you have to turn around every penny, not knowing if you can ever return to work, while the Kokinos seem to be throwing their money out of the window. If Costas can afford a new car, he must certainly have enough money to have the fence fixed that so badly needs repairing. Your husband used to look after the fence, but since he isn’t there anymore you are feeling quite helpless. You call the local Council to make a complaint, but they refer you to the conflict resolution centre to have a mediation. You have booked in for an information session to find out more about the centre and what mediation is. Costas Kokinos’ side of the story You are in your mid-30s and are very proud of being able to afford your own house and a new car after having lived in Australia for 10 years. You work in the car industry and in this environment it means a lot to have a nice car. So you have worked hard to save up the money to afford one. Seven years ago, you got married to your wife, who had just arrived from Greece, and you now have children aged 3 and 4. Your wife had a back injury 6 years ago and is still unable to work. She often can’t even get out of the house due to her back pain. Her understanding of English is still not great since she rarely gets in touch with English speakers. She spends most of her time at home, often receiving friends from Greece to make sure that she still socialises. But they all speak Greek, too. Your neighbour, Trina Moore, keeps complaining about the condition of the fence. However, the fence had already been in a bad condition when you moved into the house 3 years ago and you don’t really understand why you would be responsible for its condition. To be a good neighbour, you’ve tied the worst sections up with wire so it can’t fall over with the weight of the building supplies you’ve stored against it. But given one income and high mortgage and car repayments, you have no money to spend on replacing it. You don’t really care too much about what the fence looks like as long as it is doing its job. So you are actually quite happy to make some repairs yourself rather than spend money on a new fence. You have found rubbish thrown on your side of the fence and you are upset about that as well as about the fact that Trina is telling off your children. If there’s a problem, Trina should talk to you, since you are the father, and only you have the right to lecture your children. Anyways, the kids are well behaved — even their teachers say so. Maybe they do say things in Greek to her, but how would she know if what they say since she doesn’t understand a word of Greek anyway? You and your wife have been raising the kids to be ‘good Australians’, and you’re sure they would not throw things over the fence, though they sometimes say they’ve lost a ball or something else over on the other side. You don’t think that is a big issue since these things can happen when kids play and what damage can a soccer ball really make in a garden? You have no problems with any other neighbours, whom you have found welcoming and supportive, especially Mrs Smith, who has helped your wife several times when she needed assistance with English. When the police show up one day to check how loud your music is, you are very upset and think that Trina Moore should have come over and discussed the problem directly with you, like ‘real neighbours’ should. You want to be ‘good neighbours’ and be accepted as a ‘good Australian’. Anyways, the police didn’t even seem to be very concerned about your music. They just told you to turn it down after 10pm, but your guests usually leave around 10:30pm, sometimes 11pm, anyway. So why worry about that last half an hour? You are very angry that Trina called the police and tell your children that you don’t mind if they kick the soccer ball over the fence a couple of times the next day. You had tried your best one day when Trina came over to talk to you about the fence. In your culture it is common to start a conversation by exchanging some information about your families first, and to have some food and a drink together. This is very important to you since you can only every talk business once you have developed a good relationship to someone. When you had shared some information about your own family and asked her about hers, she refused to talk and walked away, which you really found quite rude. You don’t know what to with this neighbour of yours when one day you receive a call from the local conflict resolution centre, inviting you for an information session about mediation.