CDSC released our annual report for fiscal year 2024. The Community Dispute Settlement Center (CDSC) had a successful year in FY24, providing key services to a many individuals and organizations under the leadership of new Executive Director Pedro Spivakovsky-Gonzalez following Gail Packer’s retirement.
We continued to provide top-notch conflict resolution services, with over 55% of all cases mediated at CDSC reaching settlement. We began the foundational work necessary to create restorative justice sessions in Juvenile Court, expanded our Peer Mediation work, revamped our Basic Mediation Training curriculum, and reorganized our intake, assignment and evaluation processes for both our court and community cases. We continued our Practicum program, creating an effective way for new mediators to join our roster. In the spring, in addition to our usual programming, we took the large step of moving to a new office space in the same building and held our first CDSC-wide in-person event in years, honoring Gail Packer.
Mediation services were provided thanks to a robust roster of more than sixty volunteers, and services were available both in person and virtually. We thanked our volunteers through our annual volunteer acknowledgement, and recognized the peer mediation students of Acera School in Winchester as Peacemakers at our annual BASH. CDSC continued to lead in training work and updated its training curriculum – providing Basic Mediation Training to 36 individuals, apprenticeships in mediation to more than a dozen, and providing 518 individuals with conflict resolution skills training. Overall, in FY24, CDSC served 767 people with conflict resolution services and 673 community members with training services, totaling over 1,400 people–an increase of over 60 percent compared to the previous fiscal year.
We created a strong mission statement, core values, and new vision statement. We also added five new members to our Board of Directors. Finally, the past year saw growth in CDSC’s ability to engage in strong management practices—from a reorganized Board of Directors, to a menu of effective ways to communicate with our community (including a quarterly newsletter, a growing social media presence and revived set of monthly roundtables), to a well trained and committed staff. CDSC is in a strong position to continuing carrying forward the legacy of community mediation.
Read more in our report: