Youth Programs
Youth programs are offered by our Centers to transform youth violence and anti-social behavior into peacemaking and positive behavior so as to improve school climate, community health and safety, and family engagement. Community mediation centers have decades of experience working with young people in schools, neighborhoods and law enforcement settings. Services include peer mediation programs, which de-escalate school based conflict and train youth as mediators, conflict resolution skills training, juvenile diversions which can keep youth offenders out of the criminal justice system and victim offender mediation and restorative practices which build relationships and heal harms.
Centers partner with government agencies, courts, schools and community organizations to provide direct services to youth, which build upon their existing skills, helping them build a sense of purpose and competency and empowering them to resolve their own conflicts. In addition, programs aim to allow marginalized youth a voice to shape programming that affects them in culturally appropriate ways while evaluation of programming helps to test what works.
Examples of Youth Programs:
One Center worked with youth in a city where violence had interrupted into the streets. The Center used a research tool that allowed the young people to reflect on the impact of violence on their lives and how building conflict skills helped them manage it through photographic story telling.
Another Center built programming with youth from indigenous groups, focused on relating the techniques to cultural history and gathering oral histories for exhibit at cultural center.
One Center sponsored an annual Peer Mediators’ Forum to celebrate student mediators and the positive community service they provide their peers and schools.
“The mediation program was very helpful. I used my skills that I learned here in conflicts at home as well as with friends. The skills I learned here are helpful in every part of life and give me a better understanding that everyone has different feelings.” - School participant