Meet Nancy Rohrer Sauder

Born and raised in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, I graduated from Lancaster Mennonite School and then went to Lankenau Hospital School of Nursing in Philadelphia to earn a registered nurse diploma. Much later I returned to school and completed a degree in Health Care Management at Lebanon Valley College.

I pursued my nursing career from 1972 – 1988. Just before I stepped out of that career to focus on parenting, I attended a workshop about conflict resolution. The basic principles of promoting listening, and facilitating communication to resolve conflict, resonated with what made sense to me. I decided that I would pursue training in conflict resolution during the years I stayed out of the work force to be with my children. Mediation has become my passion.

Since 1988, I have had extensive training in basic mediation, divorce mediation, group facilitation, congregational consultation and mediation of equal employment opportunity complaints. I have been a pro-bono mediator for the Lancaster (PA) Mediation Center, and established a private practice in mediation and consulting, and have subsequently conducted hundreds of hours of mediation sessions and consultations.

During those years away from the work force, I also served on the boards of directors of a variety of non-profit organizations, and held leadership roles in the church and community.

I maintain my RN license in Pennsylvania, and am a member of the Pennsylvania Council of Mediators and an Advanced Practitioner Member of the Association for Conflict Resolution.

My mediation style

Mediation has many forms and styles, and is more of an art than a science. After learning the fundamental elements of mediation, the practitioner tends to develop a personal style within the bounds of a particular form of mediation. Over the years since 1993 I have studied and practiced several forms of mediation, and have found a form that fits my personal style.

I recognize conflict as a normal part of life, and of course know it’s what we do with it that makes it a positive or negative force. Most people say they hate conflict, but that doesn’t shield them from it. I don’t like conflict either, but I feel a lot better about it if I find a way to work with it rather than allow the conflict to erode important relationships. Having spent many hours sitting with people working with intense conflict since 1993, I am more commited now than ever to establishing an environment for people to work through their conflict.

I believe that my job as the mediator is to facilitate the process, but the participants are in charge of the outcome. I will not make decisions for the participants or make recommendations about what the outcome should be. The participants take the lead, and I follow them to the topics and issues that are important to them, giving structure and shape to the process as we go along. I try to maintain an informal yet professional process that meets the parties’ needs.

As the mediator, I strive to work with the participants to do several things, depending what they find helpful, as follows:

• establish guidelines that will make the session safe and helpful for all participants

• help the parties hear and understand each other

• help the parties clarify their thoughts and feelings about the issues at hand

• help the parties reach agreements, if they choose to do that

• make sure the agreements include statements about “who” will do “what” by “when”, etc., as suitable to the situation

• I am committed to maintaining confidentiality as agreed upon by the participants