The Center for Social Gerontology, Inc. (TCSG), since its inception in 1972, has been a non-profit research training and social policy organization dedicated to promoting the individual autonomy of older persons and advancing their well-being in society.
TCSG in the late 1980s pioneered the use of mediation in situations in which family members or friends had already petitioned for guardianship over an older person. TCSG’s goal was to determine if mediation might provide an alternative means of addressing the issues which were prompting the guardianship petition, particularly whether an alternative might be available which would address the issues without taking away the rights of the older person to make all or most of their own decisions about her/his life. TCSG pilot tested the use of mediation in adult guardianship cases in Washtenaw County, Michigan and then expanded this approach to a number of other sites. The result was the development of TCSG’s adult guardianship mediation training which has now been used to train hundreds of mediators across the country. TCSG also produced its highly praised Guardianship Mediation Manual which has been widely disseminated nationally and internationally.
In the mid 1990s, TCSG expanded its guardianship mediation initiatives to also include pre-petition cases, and, early in the 2000s, further expanded to include elder/family caregiver cases involving difficult and stressful decisions, discussions and disputes.
The TCSG Publications section of this web site contains numerous and valuable information and materials on the uses of mediation with older persons, particularly in situations in which guardianship or caregiver assistance is involved.