ACR's Quality Assurance Initiatives

ACR's focus on Quality Assurance Initiatives fulfills some of the commitments that its predecessor organizations made when they voted for merger in 2000. By taking a firm stand on difficult issues, ACR seeks to improve the quality of dispute resolution practice, increase respect for the ADR field and meet the professional needs and aspirations of its members. In that capacity, ACR's Quality Assurance Initiatives will have a significant impact on the further development of the conflict resolution field.

Therefore, in an effort to shape the future of conflict resolution practice in ways that enhance its value, ACR is currently working on four quality assurance initiatives:

• Certification Task Force— The ACR Board has concluded that the field has developed to the point where there is need for entry-level certification that documents and acknowledges that a mediator has completed a minimum level of training and experience. Whatever its precise contours, ACR certification will require more training and experience than traditional 40-hour minimum training programs.
  
  

• Joint Committee on Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators— If the public is to continue to have confidence in mediation, it is important that practitioners and disputants have a clear understanding of what constitutes appropriate and inappropriate mediator conduct. For that reason, ACR, the AAA and the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution have convened the Joint Committee on Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators to review, revise and update the standards of conduct established by the three organizations in 1994. Former SPIDR president Sharon Press and former CREnet president Terry Wheeler are ACR's representatives to the Committee.
  
  

• Ethics Committee— ACR's Ethics Committee is closely related to the Model Standards of Conduct, for one cannot aspire to follow the standards of conduct without first embracing the core ethics that underlie the practice of alternative dispute resolution. The Board has now established operating procedures for the Ethics Committee, which is the capstone of the Ethics Initiative. While the Ethics Committee does serve in a disciplinary capacity— reviewing and addressing ethics complaints brought against ACR members—its primary function is to educate members and the public about the values held by ADR practitioners and by ACR.
  
  

• Advanced Practitioner Workgroup Report— ACR's Advanced Practitioner Workgroup has developed the basic framework for conflict resolution practice areas, with the anticipation that individual ACR Sections will then be able to refine the requirements in ways that make the most sense for their practice area.