news from the front (office)

CMC received a technical assistance grant this year from Knoxville Leadership Foundation.  Through this grant, we have consultants to help us with three facets of our work with at-risk youth--in other words, our peer mediation program and our juvenile court mediation program:  The first two facets are to develop and implement a funding plan and a marketing plan.  These two tasks relate to one another.  As a nonprofit organization, CMC serves the public good, and works to promote mediation in ways that private, for-profit entities could never do and still be profitable!  Most of our disputants come to us through Sessions and Juvenile Courts, and are unrepresented because they cannot afford counsel, much less afford mediation.  But CMC also needs to think of how its work can be sustained---how to make sure we can always conduct charitable work and still keep the lights on!  We need to raise money from a variety of sources, and we need to market our services, so that the courts and community understand what we do and why we are so integral to a well-functioning justice system. 

KLF is also helping us with a third, very important and sometimes overlooked task:  outcome evaluation.  CMC has always kept statistics on numbers of mediations, outcomes, number of people served, how many hours of mediation, hours spent by our volunteers.  But how much better can we gather and use outcomes?  We all know instinctively that mediation is the best process for many disputes to get resolved and stay resolved.  As well, we suspect that disputants who go through a mediation, even one that doesn't result in a successful agreement, are changed for the better by the experience, and are much more likely to solve their disputes peaceably in the future.  Wouldn't it be great if we could use our well-gathered data to partner with ethical researchers to test our hypotheses and relate the findings to Knox County mediation?  CMC will also learn to use outcome data to give useful feedback to foundations and other donors, to the courts and bar, and to our own mediators!

CMC is now fully wireless and capable of high speed internet activity.  We continue to thank our technical support, Richie Ward at Avalon Sites.  We got a great nonprofit deal from Dell Computers, and will soon be prepared to set up our older computers (still wireless and internet connected), one in eachof our three mediation rooms at the CMC Annex.  Mediators can begin to learn to use computer parenting plan and mediator forms which will be printed out for parties and mediators to sign.  The next step of making the mediation rooms computerized should be accomplished in a month or so. 

We also conducted a peer mediation training for the Chi Sigma Iota Honor Society , an organization for graduate students who are getting their PhDs or MAs in order to be school counselors. (We used to call them "guidence counselors.)  Thanks to our Board Chair, Lisa Carroll for all the work and connections on this effort, as well as Professor Jeannine Studer, who invited us to do the training. 

CMC collaborated very successfully with the UT College of Law Mediation Center to train new community mediators, as well as 18 law students.  Becky Jacobs, professor of law and director of the Mediation Clinic, provided so much support as a co-trainer, as well as providing copying for training materials, space, parking, and even sandwiches!  It reminded me of the pre-CMC olden days when the community mediators were trained at the law school by a collection of excellent practitioner-trainers, and learned so much from them and each other.  Most of the law students and some of our community members will mediate in General Sessions Court with our CMC mediators, under the supervision of Bob Swan, Judicial Clerk and Administrator.  Most of our new community mediators will be mediating in Juvenile Court cases.  We have not completed the training process yet, but when we do next month, we will publish a big welcome to CMC in the newsletter, profiling the volunteers.  In addition, so many experienced CMC volunteers pitched in to help with training, coaching, role-playing, and observing and providing feedback on student roleplays. 

Huge thank yous to our wonderful mediator-trainers: Lisa Givonetti, Dale Robinson, Jean Munroe, Paul Rajkowski, and Bob Swan.  In addition, we had excellent observors and coaches: Judy Toole, Jim and Julia Malia, Lisa Carroll, Lisa Beckman, Mary Jendrek, Nancy Onks, Don Ferguson, Andy and Debbie Agnew, Lon Young, Jim Davis, Marsha Lehman, and Pam Brown.