About Us

Mission

CDRC’s mission is to foster constructive responses to conflict.

Vision

We envision a future in which CDRC is the lead resource for nurturing constructive responses to the conflicts that inevitably occur in our communities. As a result of our work, the three counties we serve are places where individuals value themselves, value others, and value relationships. Specifically, we envision communities where:

• People accept the inevitability of conflict and understand what it does to human interactions
• People are willing to ask for help when conflict makes decision-making difficult
• People are able to encourage others who are involved in conflict to seek help
• Everyone knows someone with the knowledge and skills to help others who are involved in conflict
• All are encouraged to explore the creative tension between autonomy and connection with others

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Tasks

CDRC accomplishes its mission by:

• educating people about conflict
• teaching people to respond constructively to their own conflicts
• training people to help others who are involved in conflict
• facilitating processes that enable each person to make the best choices he or she is capable of making
• facilitating processes that enable each person to understand another’s perspective and respect that person’s choices
• using the mediation process and mediation skills to facilitate communication between individuals and groups
• partnering with organizations in the community to develop policies and programs that foster constructive responses to conflict
• modeling an organization that welcomes differences, cares for the people who work with it, and deals with its own conflicts in constructive ways.

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CDRC’s History

What inspired the formation of CDRC was the idea that people should have an informal, quick and inexpensive option for dealing with conflict. Mediation offers that opportunity by providing people with a neutral third party who helps them have the most productive conversation possible. CDRC chose to be community-based, recruiting and training community volunteers to act as its mediators. The community members trained in mediation skills would be able to put those skills to use in all of their interactions, not just in the formal mediations held at CDRC.

Several things came together to allow a smooth start for CDRC. New York State’s court system was encouraging communities to start mediation centers. By providing mediation as an alternative or adjunct to court action, the courts hoped to focus its resources on the situations that required judicial intervention to resolve. No one in Tompkins County offered mediation, and Cornell University’s Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP) was willing to sponsor this work.

So in September of 1983, CDRC began as a project of CRESP with a $20,000 grant from Unified Court System of New York. Co-founders Jeff Furman and Judy Saul split one full-time staff position. They recruited a group of willing volunteers, brought in a trainer from an existing mediation center in Syracuse and trained CDRC’s first mediators. See Reflections on Twenty Years for a personal reflection on CDRC’s beginning.

CDRC’s history has been marked by many milestones, including:

• 1986: began to work with area schools on peer mediation and staff training
• 1988: began Parent-Teen Mediation
• 1991: become an independent non-profit
• 1992: began Parenting Mediation, allowing separated or divorced parents to work together on parenting plans
• 1996: began Interface to more effectively respond to conflicts within organizations and among communities
• 1997: became a three-county agency, providing services in Chemung, Schuyler and Tompkins Counties
• 1998: CDRC’s mediators received the Agda Osborn award for Community Service presented by Ithaca’s Family & Children’s Services
• 1999: provided full-time staff person to newly formed Ithaca Drug Court team
• 1999: presented first annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Peacemaker Award to Marcia Fort, director of GIAC
• 2001: became host site for Parents’ Apart©, a class for separating or divorcing parents
• 2002: celebrated five years of service in Chemung and Schuyler Counties

The changes are remarkable. In 1983 CDRC consisted of two people splitting one position, supplemented by 12 volunteer mediators. In 2004, CDRC employs fifteen people in three counties, supplemented by 70 volunteer mediators. Sixteen of our volunteers have been mediating with the agency for over ten years. CDRC’s “alumni” mediators number 367. During 1984, CDRC’s first full year, the agency handled 77 cases, compared to 1086 in 2003. Mediations, which numbered 19 in 1984, were at 627 in 2003. CDRC served a total of 377 people in 1984. In 2003, the agency served almost 4,500 people - 3.167 through mediation and other casework, 572 through Interface and 678 through outreach and training.

Though we’ve grown, CDRC’s mission is essentially unchanged. We understand the ways in which conflict makes each of us less than our best selves. By fostering constructive responses to conflict, we help people get clear about their own needs, the perspectives of others and, weighing both, make the best decisions they can. Twenty years has proven that talk works!

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Mediation Numbers at Twenty Years

While mediation isn’t all that we do at CDRC, it’s what we’ve done the longest and do most often. Here’s an overview of the mediations that we’ve done since 1983:

And that was as of December 31, 2003. There’s been more good work since then. We’ll update the numbers at our next milestone, so stay tuned.

CDRC enjoys membership in or affiliation with the following organizations:

• New York State Dispute Resolution Association
• Community Dispute Resolution Center Program of the Unified Court System of New York
• National Association for Community Mediation
• The Association for Conflict Resolution
• Victim Offender Mediation Association
• The Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation
• United Way of the Southern Tier
• United Way of Tompkins County
• United Way of Schuyler County

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• Thoughts as CDRC Turns 21 (PDF)
• Board of Directors (PDF)
• Staff Directory (PDF)
• Donate Online

Serving Chemung, Schuyler and Tompkins Counties

Families:

Getting Together to Talk