ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 1

Over 900 mediators and conflict professionals descended upon our nation's Capitol last week, attending the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's Annual Conference. From bowtie and powersuit arbitrators to casual wear violence interrupters, the conference is regularly billed as the largest annual gathering of dispute resolution professionals in the world. With over 100 concurrent sessions, packed plenaries, a booth burgeoning exhibitors' hall, and attendees from around the world, this year's conference had something for everyone. I'm particularly pleased to have represented NAFCM and share with my community mediation colleagues all the latest updates from this year's conference. 

Below is an update from Thursday, my first day on scene following a restful redeye. It'll be joined by an update from Friday's speakers, sessions, and interactions, as well as a stream of quick hit tweets from throughout the conference.

Negotiating with Terrorists & Mothers-in-Law

Thursday morning kicked off with a plenary speech by Moty Cristal, an experienced Israeli crisis negotiator with a penchant for stand-up. Moty recounted his numerous dealings with labeled terrorists groups and loose-knit groups of bad actors, specifically detailing his experiences negotiating with these counterparts in low-to-no trust environments. One of his takeaways from these hostage-involved and otherwise harrowing negotiations is an appreciation for the difference between Respect and Trust. Trust, Moty posits, places the burden of responsibility upon your counterpart; it beholds the other to act in a way conforming to your expectations. Their failure to conform to expectations damages your trust in them. Respect, on the other hand, retains an internal locus of responsibility. It is an active extension toward the other without (at least initially) the expectation of reciprocal or conforming behavior for those upon which it is bestowed. Under such a framework, you can respect a counterpart during a negotiation without necessarily trusting she will desist from conflict-related behaviors. 

This distinction is important for Moty, and other conflict professionals, because it opens the possibility to extend basic, humanizing, and collaboration inspiring (if not inducing) respect toward momentary or even mortal enemies without the further more cognitively challenging act of also trusting that your counterparts will subsequently act in a particular fashion. Of course, presuming a negotiated settlement is respectfully reached, one would hope to trust their counter would comply with the terms. And indeed, one could logically presume the possibility of such compliance is enhanced following a respectful resolution. Under Moty's model, however, the two need not necessarily be linked to at least initiate the engagement. 

Civil Discourse & Public Conflict

Following Moty's discussion on respect and trust, I made a beeline to the front row of a panel discussion on Civil Discourse and Public Conflict. Facilitated by one of my personal pantheons of conflict theory, Richard Reuben, the front table was full of civil discourse luminaries, such as Susan Carpenter, Anne Gosline, Sandy Heierbacher, Matt Leighninger, and Susan Podziba.

Speaking to a packed room, these leaders in civil discourse, deliberative democracy, dialogue & deliberation, participatory government, and other descriptors of constructive, large-scale public engagement engaged their own colleagues in detailed Q&A. They also shared their 30 second must-know recaps of this category of early-stage conflict engagement processes. Some of these recaps included the following:

• "There is a vast set of well-established tools -- 30 years in the making -- which can be used to address the many public conflicts facing us today. It is beholden upon us to raise awareness of, disseminate, and utilize these tools.
• "'Civic Fusion' is the goal for all these processes. It's a way for folks to connect despite -- or even because of -- their differences, to humanize, and deepen understanding."
• "These processes are a constructive way for folks to discuss fundamental social differences."
• "Careful assessment should occur to fit the appropriate process to the problem it seeks to address."

Participants were (and readers are) encouraged to learn more about the various discourse processes and resources. Great starting points are the Deliberative Democracy Consortium and the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD).

The Future of Mediation Research

Community mediation programs are always on the lookout for new research to help contextualize and validate their impact. The final morning session -- part two of a mediation research mini-conference -- envisioned what the future of that research will look like not only for community folks, but practitioners and academics in all contexts. The panel of academics tackled a broad range of audience-driven issues, including the need for greater practitioner access to the newest research, connecting researchers with interested subjects/sites, and speculating on the up-and-coming in vogue research focus areas.

Some of my session notes were as follows:

• Theory to practice jam sessions. Could be a regular, scheduled hangouts with a dedicated online discussion group. This could be opened to a very wide group of interested academics and practitioners.
• Cultural Competence: Is it exclusively a passive competency, or does it require of a culturally competent mediator an active, responsive adaptation of process and/or skills?
• Where's the future of mediation research headed? (1) Long-term impacts, (2) Unpacking the black box of the mediation session, (3) Moving beyond anecdotal, and (4) Affect of party preparation on outcome and perceptions of the experience.
• Resonant research will help move the field from an art to a science.
• How does mediation compare to extant, popularly ascribed settlement processes rather than the more traditional mediation v litigation comparison?

Regulating Mediators

Capping the day was an afternoon-long town hall meeting which tacked the ever-timely and polarizing (yes, even for mediators) topic of regulation. Facilitated by AmericaSpeaks and including 100 participating mediators and arbitrators, this ambitious event was organized using a dozen or so practice-oriented tables, each with their own impartial table-side facilitators; nifty electronic keypads; a designated thematic review group; and near instant display of aggregated input. The near three-hour session was an engaging, insightful, and data-rich -- if not decisive -- experience. Not to let the conversation fade, the ABA Section of Dispute Resolution's task force on regulation will use the info gathered during the session as they continue their discussions about whether and how to move forward on this issue.

Not wanting to wait for any task force proposal, I hurriedly took copious notes on the detailed feedback received from the meeting's many questions. Here are a few of the more interesting aggregated responses revealed during the meeting:

Notable participant demographics:

• 100 Participants (89 mediators, 11 arbitrators)
• Only 9% younger than 35
• 65% were attorneys
• 36% actively volunteer
• 61% began their ADR involvement through legal work, while 17% were first-career ADR practitioners

Regulation is important to: ("Me" refers to town hall participants)

                                   Me          Clients     ADR Profession

Strongly Agree           15%           26%              24%
Agree                         18%           29%              31%
Neutral                       24%           16%              14%
Disagree                     18%           13%              13%
Strongly Disagree       26%           16%              19%

Mediators should be regulated:

21% - Strongly agree
24% - Agree
17% - Neither agree nor disagree
14% - Disagree
24% - Strongly disagree

If a national regulatory system were developed, would you seek to become certified?

52% - Definitely
27% - Maybe
16% - No
  5% - Don’t Know

Mediator Competency Themes (choose top two):

53% - Listen openly, reflectively, and without judgement
25% - Intellectual acuity/flexibility
24% - Competence in the process
22% - Neutrality
19% - Facilitate communications
12% - Engendering trust
12% - Professional Experience
11% - Comfort with tension/conflict
  8% - Sense of ethics
  6% - Patience

Regulation would help which of the following (choose top three; mediators' responses):

18% - Ensure adherence to professional standards
17% - Enhance the quality of practice
16%- Restrict entry to the profession
16% - Enhance the public image of the profession
16% - Protect consumers from unethical practice
  9% - Clients could make better decision about services
  5% - Increase compensation for practitioners
  4% - Increase practitioners' competitive edge
  1% - Increase entry to the profession

What are the two best ways to measure the competency of mediators?

21% - Mentoring or supervision
18% - Program evaluation criteria/Experience
14% - Performance tests or live or taped demonstrations
14% - Training requirements
13% - User evaluations
  8% - Continuing education or training
  5% - References
  4% - Degrees/education
  1% - Complaint procedures
  3% - None of the above— Mediators should not be regulated

A single national regulation system, if developed, should apply to which of the following? (Select all that apply)

31% - Entry level
21% - Every 5 years for active professionals
21% - Part-time practitioners
18% - Seasoned practitioners
  9% - Other

There was a lot of interesting feedback from the town hall that deserves further discussion. For example:

• While 38% of mediators disagreed they should be regulated, only 16% replied they definitely would not apply to such a system if implemented. Does this suggest to possible regulators that a "build it and they will apply" approach will work, regardless dissonance during the design phase?
• The third most desired role for regulation is to "restrict entry to the profession." How does this jive with community mediation's fundamental drive to train leagues of neighbors, family, and friends to become both formal and informal nearby mediators?
• Just over half of the participants identified listening skills as a top competency for mediators. Beyond that skill set, however, there was little agreement as to what else is important for mediators. Why is there such disagreement about key competencies?
• Why is it that fewer than a fifth of participants believed "seasoned practitioners" should be regulated? What implications would arise if a two-tier system of regulation were to be developed for mediators of varying levels of experience?

After jotting the above notes, I learned a summary Preliminary Report of the session would be shared with participants. If you're interested in this topic, do be sure to give it a thorough read. This is the same info potential regulating bodies, including (possibly) the ABA's SDR, will review when designing any future regulatory scheme.

What are your thoughts? Is mediator regulation an idea whose time has come? Would such a system adversely affect community mediation programs or their volunteer mediators? What, if any, community-related special considerations should be built into any future regulatory system? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Sustainability Research on Community Mediation

Community mediation programs regularly search for new ideas and resources to address issues of center sustainability -- and sometimes even survivability. Given the painfully slow economic recovery and several states' still worsening financial woes, I'm glad to share a recent research article specifically focusing on community mediation sustainability. 

This article was originally published this past Spring and is co-authored by myself and Wendy E. H. Corbett, Program Coordinator for Solve-It! Community Mediation Service, a Ph.D. student at ASU studying conflict resolution in market economies, a NAFCM Elder, my lovely bride, and consistent competitor for my job! It was published in the Nevada Law Journal as part of a UNLV symposium issue on Conflict Resolution and the Economic Crisis, at which we also presented our initial research findings. The article analyzes numerous surveys administered during 2009 and 2010, and provides a number of sustainability recommendations for programs continuing to feel the economic pinch. 

Thanks to the generosity of the Nevada Law Journal, you can access the complete article to read about our findings and recommendations. I've also included a short excerpt which introduces the article's recommendations section:

Community mediation centers are weathering possibly the most challenging iteration of what has become a cyclical affront to their sustainability. These centers, serving as the nation’s constructive, structured, and professionalized mechanism through which the conceptual benefits of community mediation are realized, again confront economic challenges detracting their attention from a mission-oriented community focus and toward an operational defensiveness at ever increasing acuity and regularity. This shift from a ‘community’ to ‘continuity’ concentration threatens local impact, responsiveness, and overall relevance as the hastening whirl of expending resources in pursuit of resources further stresses staff, strains optimism, and distances centers from actualizing their principled objectives. 

This shift reflects neither the desire nor intent of the field’s dedicated professionals. Rather, it highlights a historical reality of the field’s precarious parabolic coupling with larger economic booms and busts. For while it is a cyclical certainty this current economic downturn will meet its sister’s rise, the nation’s network of community mediation centers will have suffered lasting injuries from the field’s contraction and distractions.  

Decoupling the field from this subjugation, thereby hastening our current ascension and shoaling future crevasses, requires operational measures practical within current limited resource realities. The following recommendations proffer several such measures. Some focus on individual centers’ activities, while others require the collaborative efforts of broader state and national actors. Many of these recommendations have been previously suggested in times of both economic certainty and distress—a testament to their foundational importance to the field. New insights gleaned from current research are incorporated where applicable to further enhance their practical benefit. All recommendations should be considered, chosen, and implemented in light of the realities within which individual centers currently operate.  [continue reading] 

We hope you find this recent research practically valuable and a solid contribution to the field's growing literature. We (Wendy, especially) look forward to continuing to provide fresh research that both analyzes and informs our field.

In community,

Justin R. Corbett  [email]

Executive Director, NAFCM

Restorative Programs & Community/State Collaboration

How does a restorative justice program balance diverse community and state resources to achieve even greater impact? Is it even possible to create a right or optimal mix of resources given these stakeholders' often misaligned roles?

Ted Lewis, Executive Director of the Barron County Restorative Justice Programs (BCRJP) in Northwest Wisconsin, thinks there is an ideal collaborative structure in which community and state actors  can engage to propel RJ programs toward greater integration and impact. His recent article, published in the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's inaugural issue of the Journal of Juvenile Justice, reviews his experiences with BCRJP and its connection with various state collaborators. Detailing BCRJP's partnerships with municipal courts, police departments, schools, Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Corrections, and numerous nonprofits, Ted takes a conceptual step back to consider how this 'interdependent' nonprofit balances community and stated interests for victim and offender benefit.

"A Partnership for Balancing Community and Government Resources for Juvenile Justice Services" is a quick, informative read full of intriguing info and ideas. The article outlines BCRJP's extensive service portfolio, core program statistics, and benefits, including lower rates of recidivism, reduced higher-level interventions, reintegration of youth offenders in the community, and a tangible cost savings to the county  of $378-$392 per offender. 

The complete rundown of services and statistics are being discussed on the Restorative Practices Discussion Group, an online listserve co-hosted by NAFCM and VOMA. We encourage all our restorative colleagues to join us in this free group to discuss this and other RJ research, hot button issues, and field updates. We look forward to welcoming you into the restorative conversation!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Victim-Offender Dialogue for Serious Violence: A Case Study

Victim-Offender Dialogue (VOD) maintains a rich history and continues to be a substantial area of growth within the restorative justice field. This practice, informed by historic wisdom, refined by reflective practitioners, and supported by a growing cannon of research, facilitates unimaginably difficult conversations in the pursuits of restoration, understanding, and growth for all involved. It is a practice undertaken by some of our field's most skilled and empathic colleagues.

On the leading edge of this field are those applying victim-offender dialogue for crimes of serious violence (VOD-SV), including rape, incest, spousal abuse, and homicide. Now, thanks to the generosity of some of these practitioners, we can glimpse into this emotion- and tension-filled practice by way of a recent Conflict Resolution Quarterly article. 

Co-authored by Lynn S. Urban, Jeananne Markway, and Kay Crockett, "Evaluating Victim-Offender Dialogue for Serious Cases Using Umbreit's 2001 Handbook: A Case Study," is a wonderfully reflective piece glimpsing into the VOD-SV room and recommending opportunities for continued field growth.

Drawing on their article, the characteristics, benefits, and stages of VOD-SVs are outlined below. More substantive sections revealing the Missouri Department of Correction's VOD-SV program statistics, the authors' field recommendations, and identified best practices are now being shared within the Restorative Practices discussion group -- a listserve co-hosted by NAFCM and VOMA. I encourage you to join this group to learn about VOD-SV and other restorative practices, connect with colleagues, and share resources. Participation in this discussion group is open to all those interested in restorative justice theory and practice.

Characteristics of VOD-SV:

• Victim-initiated;
• Usually occur several years after the crime;
• Usually occur within a correctional facility; and 
• Involve high levels of emotion and tension.

Benefits of VOD-SV:

• High process satisfaction from victims and offenders;
• Opportunities for apology and forgiveness;
• Victims’ safety concerns related to offenders’ release are reduced;
• Less victim opposition to offenders’ release; and
• Offenders are better prepared to re-enter the community. 

Stages of VOD-SV:

• Case Development (assessment, contracting, and preparation);
• Victim-Offender Dialogue (pre-dialogue briefing, victim-offender dialogue, and post-dialogue briefing); and
• Follow-up.

Be part of the deeper VOD-SV and general restorative justice conversations. Join the Restorative Practices discussion group today!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Research on Victim Offender Mediators

NAFCM is pleased to promote a new research project evaluating victim offender mediators' perspectives on justice. Entitled "Justice Attitudes and Motivations of Victim-Offender Mediation Facilitators," this project, undertaken by Assistant Professor Greg Paul, Ph.D. from the Department of Communication & Theater at Millersville University, will compare mediators' concepts of justice with those held by the general public.

Professor Paul is seeking victim offender mediators to participate in a short online survey to further this research. 

After his research concludes, Professor Paul has graciously agreed to share his findings with NAFCM for distribution to interested community mediation/VOM/VORP programs. 

Read Professor Paul's short description of the project:

Victim-offender mediation programs invest significant resources in training volunteers to effectively manage victim-offender meetings. Are those trainings effective? Why do people volunteer to become mediators in the first place? The purpose of this research project is to explore how facilitators’ justice attitudes compare with those of the public at large, as well as to understand why facilitators volunteer for victim-offender mediation programs. 

This confidential online survey is open to all volunteer facilitators of victim-offender mediation/reconciliation programs. In return for participation, a $2 donation will be made to the participant’s VOM / VORP organization for the first 200 participants who complete the questionnaire. Additionally, every VOM organization whose volunteers complete the survey will receive general and organization-specific summaries of responses. 

If you have any questions, please email Dr. Greg Paul. To participate, please forward the following link to your volunteer facilitators: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/283C5WL

Thank you for supporting important community mediation research!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

The State of Community Mediation: 2011

Complete the 2011 Survey & Receive a FREE Copy!

In 2004, NAFCM published "The State of Community Mediation." Still today, this is one of our most popular publications. It contains critical data outlining the shape and scope of the entire community mediation field. Programs administrators across the country have used this publication to better understand how their program fits into the broader movement, to identify creative new ideas, and to source key data in support of fund and program development. Put simply, it is one of the most accessible, thorough, and illustrative publications on community mediation currently available.

Now, NAFCM is completely revising this landmark publication! With the generous and dedicated support of the JAMS Foundation, NAFCM is preparing: "The State of Community Mediation: 2011 Report."  This new publication will build upon the data and analysis in the 2004 report and highlight changes throughout our field since the original publication's debut. 

The new data and analysis will provide program administrators with the most up-to-date statistics and helpful examples of how our field currently operates. Including categories on program design, finances, operations, outcomes, services, staffing, and volunteers, the revised 2011 Report will contain a trove of new information and insights.

As we ready this publication, we are currently seeking wide participation in the 2011 Report's key survey. We invite all community mediation programs to complete the 2011 Survey to ensure your experiences are not overlooked. In appreciation for your time, we are offering a FREE digital copy of "The State of Community Mediation: 2011 Report" to all programs that complete the 2011 Survey by the end of Friday, July 15th. (Limit one copy per program.)

We look forward to reviewing your contributions and thank you for being such an important part of our community!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

ABA Dispute Resolution Conference Recap - Day 1

The American Bar Association Section of Dispute Resolution's 13th Annual Spring Conference is in full swing here in Denver! With the first full day of regular sessions down, I'm here to report the community mediation angle and share our thoughts on the latest topics entering the collective conversations. Feel free to use the comment feature to provide feedback or answer some of the questions below.

Basic Setup: The community mediation crowd tends to be comparably smaller at ABA conferences than at other national gatherings, such as the Association for Conflict Resolution's Annual Conference. Still, for those able to swing it, there's plenty of good sessions that address community mediation-related topics. This year, you can find several restorative justice, research, ethics, and emerging practice areas that'll inspire your program and whet your apetite for continuing education.

Who's Who: NAFCM is here to help keep community mediation on the broader ADR agenda. Luckily, we have several colleagues joining us in those efforts. Tim Hedeen and Debora Brownyard are at least two of NAFCM's Board Elders making the rounds. Representatives from numerous community mediation programs are also engaged in the session shuffle, including Brad Heckman and crew from Safe Horizon (soon to be the New York Peace Institute come July), Tobi Inlender and staff from the Center for Civil Mediation, Community Service Programs, and likely several others. There's also strong community mediation supporters here, such as the JAMS Foundation, Resolution Systems Institute (RSI), MACRO, and Mediators Beyond Borders, to name a few.

Here are some of the topics I've heard and provocative questions I'm now asking of community mediation:

Topic: Conflict, Retribution, & Spiritual Traditions. 

Question: Are (self-) interest-based approaches toward conflict resolution truly universally applicable?

Question: Should community mediation programs develop specialized services to provide non-neutral neutrals for those clients' whose cultural or religious norms expect vested third-parties?

Resources: Hawaiian Ho'oponopono, Balinese Hindu Banjars, Japanese Zen, Arabic Sulhas

Topic: Manipulation and Coercion in Mediation - Strategy or Sin?

Question: If coercion happens in the mind of the coerced, what innocuously intended mediator actions might be interpreted by one or more party as being coercive?

Question: Where do you draw the line? Should community mediators suggest solutions, pressure parties, suppose non-settlement outcomes, or engage in other similar actions to get the mediation 'resolved'?  

Resource: Database of Mediator Ethics Opinions (not necessarily community-focused, but still good)

Topic: Accessing Justice through Mediation. 

Question: How does community mediation fit within the larger concept of social justice?

Question: How integrated with traditional legal systems should the community mediation field be, given concerns over potential co-optation and the (at least perceived) 'legalizing' of community mediation services? Is there a bright line beyond which we must resist integration...even if it would seem to provide greater access to justice? 

Resource: Accessing Justice through Mediation - Pathways for Poor and Low-Income Disputants

Topic: Helping At-Risk Families Help Themselves

Question: How many community mediation programs partner with child welfare and the family court system?

Question: What creative uses of our conflict engagement skills can we envision for disputes involving foster placement, child/social worker, and related systemic conflicts?

Topic: The Mediation Post-Mortem - A Model for Enhancing Mediation Learning and Practice

Question: Are there micro or meta conflict patterns we see in community mediation but haven't systemically addressed?  (As a field, community mediation mediates thousands of conflicts each year and hears tens of thousands of 'conflict stories'.  Though each is intimately personal for the participants, are there larger  trends we're failing to acknowledge?  Given confidentiality issues, how could we even know?) 

Question: Personally, do community mediators do enough self-reflection (or "intervision," as the Austrian's call it) to continually improve their capacity to help?  Programmatically, should we build in more formal opportunities to engage in such reflection?  

Closing out the day's session was the Mediation Plenary, at the beginning of which the Conflict Resolution Center in Minneapolis was recognized for it's video: The Power of Mediation.  This video won first prize in the Section's Second Annual Mediation Video Contest on YouTube! Unable to attend the conference personally, Karmit Bulman, Executive Director of CRC, asked that I receive the award on her behalf.  I did so with the following sentiment:

I am very pleased and honored to accept this award on behalf of the Conflict Resolution Center, which serves the broader Minneapolis region. CRC’s video, The Power of Mediation, is an exceptional example of what we do as mediators, why we do it, and, indeed, the great potential our entire field represents for those caught in harmful conflicts. 

Each year, this conference convenes practitioners from all corners of our field.  The Conflict Resolution Center’s corner is community mediation, a sector composed of roughly 400 community mediation programs serving tens of thousands of neighbors, family members, and many others each year.  CRC’s specific work in Minneapolis is of exceptional quality and solidly represents our field to those with whom it interacts, partners, and serves.  It’s now award-winning video as you’ve seen, is, of comparable quality and representation for all of us. 

Thank you for recognizing the Conflict Resolution Center and its video The Power of Mediation.  Thank you to the ABA’s Section of Dispute Resolution for choosing CRC’s video to sit atop its broad public platform.  And thank you to each of you for all you do to help those in conflict.

I'm looking forward to the second full day of events!  I'll post a recap for Friday's developments, as well.

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM

Introducing NAFCM's "Website Wednesdays"

This week, we're pleased to launch a new feature on NAFCM's Blog, entitled: "Website Wednesdays."  

Each Wednesday (or as close thereto as our schedule allows) we will highlight a particular feature on NAFCM's website worthy of your review.  By highlighting specific components of our website, we're hopeful you'll become better equipped to take full advantage of all the resources we've packed into our mighty site.  Once you've checked out this week's feature, we invite you to continue clicking and discover even more!

  

This week's "Website Wednesday" feature: News & Resource Feeds

With over 400 community mediation programs throughout the U.S. and hundreds more internationally, our field definitely moves and shakes.  Trying to stay on top of it all can be an incredibly difficult and time consuming undertaking.  As a result, many of our colleagues only have time to learn what's happening at nearby programs or, for the ambitious, around their state.

Now, community mediation programs, their staffs, volunteers, and Board members can easily plug-in to the entire field directly from NAFCM's website.  We've created a single page titled "News & Research" containing up-to-the-minute activities and resources from Washington state to Washington D.C., Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, and all points in between.  

We've scoured the web, subscribed to countless feeds, and set up dozens of alerts that capture and notify us of everything from newly published research to realtime tweets.  Using this system, roughly 20 items of note cross our desk each day.  (This number will continue to grow as we further build upon and refine our notification system, and as more community mediation programs expand their online activities.) Once notified, we personally vet each item and link only the most interesting, noteworthy, and otherwise helpful information to be featured on our website.  

In just the first month of our new website going live, we have featured over 100 items, including 20 job  announcements, 20 links to the latest research, over 30 national and local news stories, and links to 30 social updates, all specifically related to community mediation.  (Of course, if you find we're ever missing anything, please don't hesitate to let us know.)  Regularly visiting NAFCM's website will give you access to all these updates without having to wander the web alone.  With so many updates added daily, staying on top of community mediation is as easy as NAFCM.org!

We hope you enjoy this new feature!

In community,

Justin R. Corbett

Executive Director, NAFCM