Message from Jackie Kittrell, Interim ED

I wanted everyone to know that I've been appointed by the Board as the Interim Executive Director, and am still sane!  And what's more, I want to engage volunteers---our most precious asset---along with our board and our staff, in developing a plan to move the organization forward. Ten years old, CMC has made it through its childhood---its here to stay!  In its next phase of development---adolescence?---it needs to be guided toward realizing its potential.  Because CMC has become integral to the administration of justice in several of the Knox County courts, it is all the more important that we maintain and expand our vision. 

In late April, CMC began the process of strategic planning, under the Board's leadership and the individual stewardship of Jim Johnson, Executive Board member and long-time volunteer mediator.  Much of how we will plan our forward movement will come from our "teams".  I encourage all of you to consider joining a team and helping with this important task. 

As the Interim ED, I would like to have discussions with our mediation community to generate ideas and actions...Some ideas to begin the discussion:

• We need to show appreciation to our Volunteer Mediators in many ways, including developing regular refresher training programs about topics of wide interest, institute mentoring by staff and veteran volunteers for the new volunteers, planning and holding social & discussion gatherings for Volunteers. 

• Along those lines, we need to seek out the opinions and input from our Volunteers so as to better schedule and communicate about what we do---mediation! 

• We need to ask for donations from individuals and organizations who support our work, and be able to tell them how much VALUE we add to work which would otherwise supported only by tax dollars.  Can you imagine how many more hours would be spent on a given case if CMC mediation services were not available?  Scary!

• We need to strengthen our ties with our community:  Tennessee Valley Mediation Association, Community mediation centers around the state and region, and our new fundraising partner, Community Shares, and its member groups. 

• We need to reconnect with some of our allies in the mediation world:  the Knoxville Bar Association, Legal Aid of East Tennessee, the U.T. College of Law.  Did I mention, I'm an attorney?  I would like to bring these connections to CMC so that our co-mediation model can positively influence our community, and so we can gain valuable insight from those: whose practice of law includes both mediating and participating as an advocate in the mediation process; who teach mediation every day; and who value the delivery of services to the "legally underserved". 

• We need to continue our participation in various local and state-wide alliances to support mediation and all it stands for:  the AOC Pro Se Litigation Workgroup; the Tennessee Coalition of Community Mediation; the Community Coalition on Family Violence's Family Justice Center; the Triage Team; and others. 

• We need to explore how to partner with various university researchers to undertake analysis of mediation and its effect on family conflict outcomes, including married and unmarried family mediation, to result in published studies. 

• We need to increase the profile of our excellent roster of CMC-listed Rule 31 mediators with the local bench and bar, including introducing and promoting our non-attorney Rule 31 mediators . 

• In partnership with TVMA and KBA, we need to develop interesting, inexpensive, and accessible CLEs and CMEs for those with professional requirements.  In June, I presented a CLE/CME on juvenile court mediation and our co-mediation model to the ADR section of KBA.  Thanks to Marsha Hupfl and Sarah Krivenki for assisting in the role playing and insightful explanation of co-mediation. 

• We need to improve our delivery of mediation and community services to our grantors and clients, and come up with new ideas to try to better serve those who need mediation. 

• We need to develop an interactive website with pages targeting our constituancy:  the courts, volunteer mediators, rule 31 mediators, peer mediators, members of the public interested in mediation. 

• We need to develop a "cross-over" training both for those volunteer mediators trained by CMC who would be qualified and interested in acquiring Rule 31 training, and for those Rule 31 mediators who would like to train in co-mediation and volunteer for CMC.   

• We need to keep our peer mediation program alive and kicking in the public middle and high schools, expand the program to private schools who can pay a fee for training, and continue to expand the peer mediation agenda to upper elementary schools. 

• We need to work on expanding the CMC volunteer model to surrounding counties in need of a community base of support for court-referred and other mediations. 

    There are so many more ideas---and I'm sure each of you can think of even more.  Please don't hesitate to send in your thoughts and action plans, and please consider joining us on a strategic planning team to flesh our ideas out and put them into action!  Taking personal responsibility for making CMC the best it can possibly be is more important now than ever before...Contact me at  jkittrell@2mediate.org or Jim Johnson at advantagespeakers@comcast.net

TVMA News

The May TVMA meeting was a real blockbuster.  

Two judges and a Juvenile Court Referee delighted the audience with interesting presentations and interactions of their personal experiences on the bench. Most important of all was the uneqivocal and indispensable role of mediation to the court system. All three agreed upon this point. Judge Cerny sited the growing number of Pro Se cases (individuals representing themselves) in the courts. He noted, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that he is glad people are suing each other more now than ever before. The humor belied his concern over the violence in our society, but at least the fact that people are suing one another rather than choosing violence is a good thing. The problem with Pro Se cases is that they take much longer than cases where lawyers represent the individuals. The Pro Se cases are the ones designated for mediation before coming before the court.   The Judges’ support of this process of assigning these cases to mediation accomplishes two things:
 

    1) the people, who are often in a very tense and antagonistic mode of behavior, tend to go through the mediation process and are able to come back into the courtroom with a new calmer demeanor;

    2) because of this change of demeanor, the cases move more quickly, often because they have an agreement that was reached through the empowering process of mediation.  The parties feel that their own abilities have been acknowledged, and that at least they have been heard by someone.   According to all the presenters, this empowerment and the mediation process itself, seems to begin a healing process between the individuals, which is especially important to people who have ongoing relationships.
 

All the Judges were very supportive of what we do.   They recognized that mediation plays an increasingly important role in reducing the ever-increasing case load of all the courts.   And they all offered their assistance in helping us mediators overcome any difficulties we face in pursuing our mediations. 

Coming up in June:   On June 21, TVMA will meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Candy Factory, 6^th floor meeting room.   The TVMA Board will present the program and conduct a planning session for upcoming programs.  Come and join us and provide some input to help us schedule another exciting year of programs.