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The Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center (PCRC), founded in 1986, is a nonprofit organization that serves individuals, groups, and organizations in San Mateo County, California. As a neutral third party, PCRC assists people in conflict to develop mutually acceptable agreements. It offers mediation, facilitation, training, and community building services. It is the largest provider of community-based conflict management and prevention services in San Mateo County.
The Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center's mission is to promote collaboration and active engagement in the communities it serves. [1]
PCRC's community mediation program is available for free or low cost to everyone who lives or works in San Mateo County. With the help of approximately 160 trained volunteer mediators, PCRC handles over 500 mediation cases and conducts approximately 150 mediations per year. [2]
Typical issues resolved in the community mediation program are: neighbor disputes about noise, fences, parking and yard/tree maintenance; landlord/tenant conflicts; disagreements between a consumer and a business; workplace disputes; and other interpersonal situations.
Through its facilitation services, PCRC helps organizations plan and run meetings. When facilitating a meeting, PCRC seeks to promote participation, support dialogue in communities, aid decision making, and help groups work productively.
Some situations in which PCRC provides facilitation services include organizations that need to develop a strategic plan, public meetings in which neighbors come together to share concerns and ideas, staff or work groups who want to work out a conflict, organizational retreats, and city government public participation processes.
Unlike most of PCRC's services, facilitation usually requires a fee.
PCRC offers workshops to groups and organizations, training participants in communication and conflict resolution skills.
The Civic Engagement Initiative, begun in 1997, is designed to increase residents' active involvement in their communities, schools, and democracy. Civic engagement can take many forms, including volunteering, voting, community organizing, mentoring, running for public office, and public dialogue. The Civic Engagement Initiative seeks to build a sense of ownership and interconnectedness in communities and to help individuals understand that their participation matters.
Through the Civic Engagement Initiative, PCRC promotes parent involvement in schools, facilitates dialogues on public issues, trains community leaders, partners with community agencies and links residents to public policy makers.
As an expression of its global vision, PCRC also sponsors the local Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue with its domestic effectiveness and global impact.
Mediation is a negotiation facilitated by a third-party neutral. It is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party, the mediator, assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are encouraged to actively participate in the process. Mediation is a "party-centered" process in that it is focused primarily upon the needs, rights, and interests of the parties. The mediator uses a wide variety of techniques to guide the process in a constructive direction and to help the parties find their optimal solution. A mediator is facilitative in that they manage the interaction between parties and facilitates open communication. Mediation is also evaluative in that the mediator analyzes issues and relevant norms ("reality-testing"), while refraining from providing prescriptive advice to the parties. Due to its voluntary nature, a person cannot be compelled to use mediation to resolve their dispute. However, a suggestion from the Court may be difficult to resist.
The National Civic League is an American nonpartisan, non-profit organization founded in 1894 as the "National Municipal League," it adopted its new name in 1937. Its mission is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. To upgrade quality and efficiency of government in cities it enlists the business and professional classes, and promotes greater involvement in government. It also sought create merit-based systems for selecting public officials. The League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good. It also promotes professional management of local government through publication of "model charters" for both city and county governments.
Citizen participation or public participation in social science refers to different mechanisms for the public to express opinions—and ideally exert influence—regarding political, economic, management or other social decisions. Participatory decision-making can take place along any realm of human social activity, including economic, political, management, cultural or familial.
E-democracy, also known as digital democracy or Internet democracy, uses information and communication technology (ICT) in political and governance processes. The term is credited to digital activist Steven Clift. By using 21st-century ICT, e-democracy seeks to enhance democracy, including aspects like civic technology and E-government. Proponents argue that by promoting transparency in decision-making processes, e-democracy can empower all citizens to observe and understand the proceedings. Also, if they possess overlooked data, perspectives, or opinions, they can contribute meaningfully. This contribution extends beyond mere informal disconnected debate; it facilitates citizen engagement in the proposal, development, and actual creation of a country's laws. In this way, e-democracy has the potential to incorporate crowdsourced analysis more directly into the policy-making process.
Michael Melchior is a Jewish leader, Orthodox rabbi, thinker, and activist. He is a former Minister of Social and Diaspora Affairs, a former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a former member of Knesset for Meimad. He is the Rabbi of a community in Talpiyot, Jerusalem, while still holding the title of the Chief Rabbi of Norway.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), founded in 1947, is an independent agency of the United States government, and the nation's largest public agency for dispute resolution and conflict management, providing mediation services and related conflict prevention and resolution services in the private, public, and federal sectors. FMCS is tasked with mediating labor disputes around the country; it provides training and relationship development programs for management and unions as part of its role in promoting labor-management peace and cooperation. The Agency also provides mediation, conflict prevention, and conflict management services outside the labor context for federal agencies and the programs they operate. The FMCS headquarters is located in Washington, D.C., with other offices across the country.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) is an initiative that attempts to "galvanize international action against extremism" through the forging of international, intercultural and interreligious dialogue and cooperation. The Alliance places a particular emphasis on defusing tensions between the Western and Islamic worlds.
A facilitator is a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions. In doing so, the facilitator remains "neutral", meaning they do not take a particular position in the discussion. Some facilitator tools will try to assist the group in achieving a consensus on any disagreements that preexist or emerge in the meeting so that it has a solid basis for future action.
Youth engagement is the sentiment young people feel towards a particular person, activity, place or outcome. It has been a focus of youth development, public policy and social change movements for at least forty years. According to a Cornell University program, "Youth engagement is one of the buzzwords in the youth development field. Similar terms are youth voice, youth involvement, youth participation, and youth in governance."
The Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy works to promote peaceful, just and inclusive politics worldwide. NIMD's approach is characterized by dialogue, which it facilitates for actors across the political spectrum at the local, national and regional level. The organization's values are based on inclusiveness, pluralism and equality, and it supports joint initiatives of political parties and other stakeholders to improve the functioning of multiparty democracies around the world.
Lawrence E. Susskind is a teacher, trainer, mediator, and urban planner. He is one of the founders of the field of public dispute mediation and is a practicing international mediator through the Consensus Building institute. He has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1971.
National Peace Council of Ghana (NPC) is an independent statutory national peace institution established by the eight hundred and eighteenth (818) Act of the Parliament of the Republic of Ghana, named The National Peace Council Act, 2011. Thus any activity undertaken by the Council must be derived from its mandate under Act 818. The core function of the council is to prevent, manage, and resolve conflict and to build sustainable peace.
The Jewish-Palestinian Living Room Dialogue Group is a non-violent conflict resolution group established in 1992 in San Mateo, California. Its first meeting was held in a local neighborhood residence. As of September 2019, the group remained active and continued to meet monthly in members' homes. The one-to-one, face-to-face method of conflict resolution, modeled by this dialogue group, was increasingly looked to globally by educators, researchers, journalists, activists, trainers, and strategists including the U.S. Department of State, which distributes the dialogue group's instructive films in Africa.
Emmanuel Bombande is a conflict resolution, peacebuilding, and development professional from Accra, Ghana, and is the Chair of the Board of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict.
Intergroup dialogue is a "face-to-face facilitated conversation between members of two or more social identity groups that strives to create new levels of understanding, relating, and action". This process promotes conversation around controversial issues, specifically, in order to generate new "collective visions" that uphold the dignity of all people. Intergroup dialogue is based in the philosophies of the democratic and popular education movements. It is commonly used on college campuses, but may assume different namesakes in other settings.
The Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC) is a Sarajevo-based non-governmental organization, which aims to nurture an enabling environment for sustainable peace and facilitate the restoration of inter-ethnic relationships in Bosnia-Herzegovina. PCRC's expertise consists of innovative multimedia projects and creative educational curricula that engage youth in fostering long-lasting tolerance, mutual understanding, and social activism in the Western Balkans region. The Center’s overall mission is to build a robust network empowering youth with transferable skills and resources to spread an all-encompassing culture of peace among the many ethnic groups composing the country. PCRC’s overall strategy encompasses six core areas of operation: creative multimedia, preventing genocide, mass atrocities & violent extremism, peace education, transitional justice, post-conflict research and consultancy.
The Alternative Dispute Resolution Institute of Alberta (ADRIA) is a non-profit organization with offices in Edmonton, Alberta, that provides Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) services to its members and the public. It was originally founded in 1982, encapsulated within the Alberta Arbitration and Mediation Society (AAMS), but the two organizations split in 2012 so that AAMS could continue to exist with charitable status, while ADRIA emerged and carried on the membership based non-profit work. ADRIA's mandate is to promote the use of ADR while offering education and training to individuals across Alberta and the Northwest Territories in negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and restorative practices. The organization has been used as a source for ADR information, resources and expertise in a range of both private and government matters. This now includes having a key role in the annual Conflict Resolution Day, hosted on the third Thursday of every October since 2007, which seeks to promote awareness for the utility of ADR practices. In 2013 ADRIA helped provide input for the review of the Condominium Property Act with regards to dispute resolution issues.
The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience (ICSC) is a global network of historic sites, museums, and memorials that are dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights across the world. The Coalition is registered as a non-profit association in the United States. The International Coalition of Sites of Conscience is an affiliated organization of the International Council of Museums and maintains consultative status in the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
Brad Heckman is an American artist, educator and entrepreneur from North Catasauqua, Pennsylvania known for his work in conflict resolution. He founded and served as the Chief Executive Officer of the New York Peace Institute, a nonprofit organization providing free mediation services to New Yorkers. Heckman also served as the Vice President of Safe Horizon from 2007 until 2011.