Sustainability by Design: Assessment Tool for Just Energy Transition Plans
Community Mediation Center Knoxville
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What is a Community Mediation Center?
• It is a private non-profit or
public agency governed or
advised by a diverse board of
directors.
• Trained community
volunteers are the primary
providers of mediation
services.
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What is a Community Mediation Center?
• It provides direct
access to the public
through self-referral.
• It strives to reduce
barriers to mediation
services, including
physical, linguistic,
cultural,
programmatic, and
economic barriers.
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What is a Community Mediation Center?
• It engages in public
awareness campaigns
and educational
activities about the
values and practices of
mediation and other
forms of ADR.
• By so doing, it increases
mediation awareness for
all practitioners.
5. What is a Community Mediation Center?
It provides a forum for dispute resolution at the earliest
stage of conflict
• It is an alternative to judicial system at any stage of conflict.
It saves public dollars (county and state) by empowering
disputants to resolve disputes outside of court.
6. Community Mediation Center
•Programs began in 1991
•Incorporated in 1994
•Grew out of a collaboration
between the
•Knox County Courts and:
UT College of Law
Knoxville Bar Association
Legal Aid of ET
8. Community Mediation Centers in Tennessee
The first center started in Anderson County in 1986. The
second center started in 1987 in Cumberland County, and the
third began in Nashville in 1990. CMC in Knoxville came
together in 1994 as the fourth center and the first center to
provide mediation for family and civil cases.
There are now 8 centers serving
15 counties, and 2 more
in the works.
9. CMC provides mediation using a
facilitative approach.
• Parties retain control of the outcome.
• Focus is on helping parties find interest-based
solutions that work for everyone.
• Mediators serve as Process Guides, not content
experts.
• Sometimes the mediation is “mandatory” but
settlement is always voluntary.
10. Pro Se/Self-Represented Parties
• Approximately 85% of parties who come to CMC are
self-represented or only one party has an attorney.
• CMC handles close to 900 referrals each year.
• CMC conducts 750-800 mediations/year,
half of them civil or non-court and half family (divorce,
post-divorce, never-married, VORP).
• Using our model and screening tools, our mediation success
rate is 80-85% for Civil & non-court), and 85-90% for family
and juvenile cases.
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Six Step Mediation Process
1. Introducing the Mediation Process/
Agreeing to Mediate
2. Telling the Stories
3. Creating a Task Statement
4. Turning Issues into Choices:
Brainstorming
5. Evaluating Choices
6. Making the Agreement
(Carrying out the Agreement)
13. Volunteer Mediators
• Currently 50+ volunteer
mediators who work
regularly in our program
• All walks of life: law, health,
social work, business
education, parenting, social
justice, retired
• Mediators may choose to be
listed as Rule 31 mediators or
not.
14. Skills & Ethical Obligations
• Values party self-determination
• Impartial
• Upholds confidentiality
• Does not give advice
• Care and safety in concluding the
mediation
• Excellence in training and
continuing education
• Pro bono work
15. Co-mediation
• Two mediators work
together as a team
• They are efficient,
supportive, and model
interpersonal behavior for
the disputing parties.
• They present themselves as
equals, and say “we”
instead of “I”.
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Peer Mediation Training
• Training for students and faculty
in elementary, middle and high
schools to create programs where
student co-mediators mediate
student disputes.
• With an adult supervisor, usually
a guidance counselor
• Mediation can become part of the
disciplinary plan for the school.
19. General Sessions Civil Court
• Two adults suing each other in
cases like:
• Landlord tenant disputes
• Collections
• Consumer issues, sales
• Contracts for services
• Neighbor disputes over dogs,
flowers, boundaries, driveways
• Roommates (“Sessions Divorce”)
• Many involve family members
• Maximum $25,000
20. General Sessions Criminal Court
• Requires close work with the
Judge, DA, Public Defender,
Judicial Commissioner and other
law enforcement.
• And first and foremost, only is
done at the request of the
victim.
21. Victim Offender Reconciliation
• These cases are handled using a
process called Victim-Offender
Reconciliation Conferencing.
• The crime is not mediated, but
the underlying issues of
restitution, community, terms of
probation, and sometimes
apology & forgiveness.
• Usually involves people who
have long-standing
relationships which will need to
continue.
22. Mediating Underlying Issues
• CMC can help the victim and
offender resolve underlying
issues which causes conflict to
reoccur.
• Parents or grandparents with
children to raise
• Grandchildren feuding over
their grandmother’s estate
• Ongoing issues between
family friends.
23. Violation of City & County Ordinances
•Animal control
•Noise
•Parking
•Litter
•Land Use
24. Neighborhood Disputes
• Housing issues
• Parking
•Dog issues
• Property line disputes
• Noise issues
•Neighborhood or
subdivision association
disputes
25. Can be referred before court case filed
• Neighborhood Organizations
• City Office of Neighborhoods
• County Mayor’s Neighborhood Liaison
• City Police Citizens Complaints
• Metropolitan Planning Commission
• Judicial Commissioners
• Law enforcement
• Other neighbors
• Self
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27. Workplace Mediation
• Mediation
• Conflict coaching
• Part of progressive discipline
• Small workforces and
nonprofits
• State agency (DOL) provides
training for in-house
mediators
• TN Human Rights Commission
complaints/EEOC
29. Elder mediation
- family conferencing
& decision-making
- elder abuse,
including financial
abuse
- medical & capacity
issues
“Not about me,
without me.”
30. Juvenile Court has 4 mediation programs
Delinquency Status offences
Visitation & custody Dependency
31. Juvenile Delinquency Cases
• First offenders,
• School fights, theft,
bullying, vandalism,
harassment
• Cases when child is in
detention and needs
a probation plan
before going home.
• Referred by school or
DA.
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Dependency Mediation
• Referred by the Tennessee
Department of Children’s
Services, the GAL or the
Juvenile Judge
• Involves families whose child
has been removed from the
home because of abuse/neglect
• Child is placed in foster care
• The goal is permanency for the
child:
• Return to parents or relative
• Surrender of parental rights
• Adoption
35. Referral of Visitation Disputes
• After visitation petition is filed in Juvenile Court, referral to CMC is
done as a routine “next step”.
• CMC does face to face intake and screening for domestic violence
issues FOR BOTH PARENTS.
• We provide a referral to reduced/no fee 9 hr co-parenting class,
ideally taken before mediation begins.
• Parties pay a small application fee and receive all mediation services
for free.
• Parents can come back to mediation as the child ages without filing
another petition.
36. Mediation of Visitation Issues
•Never-married parents
who need to address
co-parenting time and
decision-making.
•May involve
grandparents and other
legal custodians.
•All child support issues
reserved.
37. Custody cases
•Petition for custody
usually contains unproven
allegations of harm to the
child
•Court appoints a Guardian
Ad Litem to investigate.
DCS and other agencies
can be involved.
•Referred to mediation
AFTER initial investigation.
•Judge/Magistrate will
create parameters for
mediation.
•GAL attends mediation
38. Divorce & Post-Divorce Mediation
• Referred by judges, lawyers,
agencies or self-referred.
• Both parties must be willing
to participate voluntarily
(not ordered)
• Mediators help parties
create the agreements
needed to get an Agreed
Divorce.
• CMC Sliding scale fee
structure (family size &
income)
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Post-Divorce Mediation
• Parents may not be together
as partners, but they must
still co-parent their children.
• The divorce decree of
already-divorced parents may
specify mediation for any
post-divorce parenting issues.
• Examples: School choice,
relocation, parenting plan
unworkable
40. Referrals to
R31 Family
Mediators
• State law requires divorcing
parties to mediate marital
dissolution and parenting issues
if they cannot otherwise agree.
• A judge may order them to
mediate using TSC Rule 31
before they can ask the judge to
decide their case.
CMC keeps a list of R31 Family
mediators who will agree to accept
pro bono and “low-bono” divorce
cases from us.
We answer questions and provide
the intake, screening for domestic
violence, and referral to other
services.
