Conflict Resolution Education - National Criminal Justice Reference ...
Conflict Resolution Education - National Criminal Justice Reference ...
Conflict Resolution Education - National Criminal Justice Reference ...
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to traditional school settings. School districts that<br />
use local community mediation programs may find<br />
that these free services are valuable in improving or<br />
reestablishing parent-child communication and in<br />
helping the family understand rules, behavior, and<br />
other mediation issues. This work in turn leads to<br />
improved social behavior and academic success.<br />
Training Youth as Trainers. Young people who<br />
are trained as trainers to help prepare new mediators<br />
for school and community settings are a natural<br />
source of talent for peer mediation programs.<br />
Students are encouraged to participate in the free<br />
neighborhood “Training of Trainers” offered each<br />
year. CBP also finds it valuable to have student<br />
mediators demonstrate the mediation process as<br />
part of its annual community mediation training.<br />
This reinforces the benefits and underscores the<br />
intergenerational, communitywide aspects of conflict<br />
resolution. School and community mediation<br />
programs may also want to explore the possibility<br />
of compensating mediators and trainers for their<br />
training work by marketing the training to youthserving<br />
agencies and other groups in the local community.<br />
The Effective Alternatives in Reconciliation<br />
Services (EARS) program in the Bronx, New York,<br />
has carried out ground-breaking work in this area.<br />
Youth Clubs/Youth Councils. If community and<br />
school mediation programs wish to develop joint<br />
strategies, they may consider developing a youth<br />
club or council. Community mediation programs<br />
benefit from youth groups that provide a focus for<br />
young mediators, help the program retain youth<br />
volunteers, recruit new youth, and provide leadership<br />
opportunities for young people to direct the<br />
program’s youth agenda. A youth club also provides<br />
a forum for developing and undertaking special<br />
youth-initiated projects. Programs might find<br />
it helpful to offer stipends to youth participating<br />
in the club or council.<br />
Encouraging Youth-Initiated Cases in Community<br />
Mediation. Most programs strongly desire more<br />
youth to come forward as “first parties” in the community<br />
mediation process. Typically, youth are involved<br />
as “second parties,” with adults bringing<br />
concerns and complaints as the first parties in the<br />
case. This situation represents a failure to recognize<br />
and respond to the needs of young people. CBP<br />
60<br />
staff and volunteers are performing outreach to<br />
youth-serving organizations and schools to inform<br />
students about ways to refer disputes they experience<br />
to the local Community Board Program.<br />
Youth-initiated referrals can be increased by developing<br />
working relationships with youth-serving<br />
organizations involved in efforts to organize youth.<br />
The work of these groups can create, in effect, collective<br />
first parties of young people for mediation. A<br />
youth organization would identify and analyze their<br />
issues, such as the lack of afterschool programs or<br />
jobs, school policies, and the like; consider who their<br />
allies might be; and identify the second parties of the<br />
dispute. The needs of young people are better met<br />
when youth organizations reach out in a proactive<br />
manner to work with community groups to resolve<br />
issues before they become conflicts.<br />
Boys & Girls Clubs of America<br />
The Boys & Girls Clubs of America recognizes<br />
that many of its young members live in communities<br />
where conflict and violence are daily occurrences.<br />
<strong>Conflict</strong>s in the lives of many youth—whether experienced<br />
personally or vicariously in school, at home,<br />
in the neighborhood, on television, in the movies,<br />
or in a computer game—may often lead to or result<br />
in violence.<br />
Through a grant from the Bureau of <strong>Justice</strong> Assistance,<br />
Office of <strong>Justice</strong> Programs, U.S. Department<br />
of <strong>Justice</strong>, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America has<br />
developed a violence prevention program that includes<br />
the Second Step foundation skills curriculum<br />
developed by the Committee for Children. The program<br />
teaches club members the problem-solving<br />
processes of conflict resolution, anger management,<br />
impulse control, and empathy. Also, the Boys &<br />
Girls Clubs provides information and training on<br />
peer mediation through the Community Board’s<br />
<strong>Conflict</strong> Managers program. These programs have<br />
been implemented in more than 60 Boys & Girls<br />
Clubs located in public housing developments across<br />
the country. 7<br />
Each program presents the message “<strong>Conflict</strong>s are<br />
natural daily occurrences that can have nonviolent<br />
resolutions” in a variety of situations to help youth<br />
see a range of contexts in which conflicts can arise
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