1. Read the case study and provide a critical analysis of the level and type of reflective practice.
2. Describe and analyse potential ethical issues you have identified from Alana's reflections.
3. The entire context is set out below, but focus your answer only on the case study in bold.
4. Formal referencing is required.

Alana's Reflection

Well, I must say I'm not sure about this reflective practice' stuff, it all sounds a bit "airy fairy" to me, but... you do what you have to do to stay accredited, I suppose. The course suggests reflection across a period of time, so I've decided to think back over the past three months and 'reflect'.

Generally speaking, things have been pretty lean. As private practitioner running a business as a private mediator and conflict coach, I've noticed a real drop-off of enquiries since the State Government started their cost-cutting campaign across government departments, where I use to get a lot of my work. This has meant I have relly had to work hard to get every job, and I've even taken a couple of mediations I wouldn't normally take - "spousals" where the separating couple said they just wanted to discuss property issues, not children. Wow, they were something else!

I can see why there is a separate level of qualification is required to do family mediations - in one of my cases, the parties, who own a major local property development company were arguing over every single detail, and they kept bringing their three kids into it. Each of them threw insults at each other about what a poor job they were doing in caring for the kids now that they were trekking back and forth between their houses. As much as I tried to shut down the conversation about the kids and keep them on topic, it was a really frustrating three hours. At one point I remember telling the father to calm down and take a few deep breaths, as she was almost hysterical. He was clearly 'laying it on thick' to try to get the wife to give up more of her share of the assets, which I pointed out to her in private session. I suggested she not let him walk over her on this, as it would open the door for him to ask for other things as well. She didn't give in on this point when we got back together, so that was gratifying.

In another mediation, this time at the TAFE college, I mediated between a Manager and one of the staff who said he was being bullied. After I spoke with each party, I told the CEO that I really didn't think it was suitable to mediate as the staff member had said they were going to leave anyway. I know the CEO really well, having done lots of work for him before, and with us both being in the Lions Club, and he was determined to mediate because he was worried the staff member might put in an external complaint, or even come back later and claim 'wrongful dismissal'. When he said if I didn't do it he would get somebody else, I agreed to go ahead, because it might as well be money in my bank account, rather than somebody else. I also need to protect my relationship with this client, as we have a long-standing arrangement for work. As I predicted, it was a waste of time, there was no agreement, and I heard a few weeks ago that the staff member has left. Actually it was easy money for me and it met the CEO's needs, so it turned out all right in the end.

The other case I did that comes to mind is a series of conflict coaching sessions I had with a small business manager who was having trouble with staff issues. He's in real estate and basically the problem was female staff members getting pregnant and all wanting special arrangements, extra leave, etc., etc,. I know it's not politically correct, but they really cause havoc when running a business - some of the stories he told me, you wouldn't believe. Anyway, the end result of us working through the issues was that he's been able to terminated one staff member and he thinks he can set up something in the recruitment area to balance out the number of men and women who are employed. It's a real problem when the majority of people who apply for these sort of jobs are women.

The final thing that's been going on for me over the past few months is that I'm trying to find creative ways to get more business in, especially in these tough financial times. I'm going to change my advertising by revamping my website, changing my print advertising and my brochures to be more generic so that I can appeal to a wider potential client pool. I'm also going to remove my charging schedule, and only give this information out after I meet or discuss the case, as this will let me negotiate an hourly fee, or a flat rate, depending on what I think they can afford. I have seen references to 'settlement rates' on other practitioner's websites, I think that might also be a good idea to show I can get results.

This reflective activity has taught me how useful it is to think back over the things that have happened and to confirm I'm on the right track with my business. It was good to rethink about the cases I've done, think about the choices I made and the reasons I made them, which have shown me they were the right ones at the time.