Learning to be a mediator: ‘It’s not Judge Judy’

From neighborhood disputes to landlord-tenant quarrels, the Indy Center for Conflict Resolution works to solve issues in Indianapolis before they escalate.

Vanessa Romero, the center’s director, said the program began pre-COVID-19 pandemic in 2018.

It was originally a pilot program and has since become part of the Indy Public Safety Foundation, which is funded by the City-County Council.

“It really was about two people that worked alongside of IMPD just running data to see how much crime or how many calls IMPD was getting, that weren’t actually crime, they were more complex. That data grew to show that there was a need for a conflict resolution center,” Romero said.

Community-based mediation

The center has volunteer mediators who take cases on a referral basis from IMPD, Indiana 211 and people coming to them with their conflict.

Attorney David Remondini was in the first group of volunteers.

The program takes on a class of volunteers who go through 20 hours of training, shadow a mediator, and then co-mediate before taking on a case on their own.

Remondini said he felt a connection with the center because it was initially named the James E. Waters Jr. Conflict Resolution Center.

Remondini said he knew James Waters’s dad when he was an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police detective and Remondini was a reporter at The Indianapolis Star.

He later met Waters, who was an IMPD deputy chief while he was working for the Indiana Supreme Court.

“I immediately felt a connection to the work that we’re doing, and because of my respect for this captain,” Remondini said.

Angela Richie serves as the conflict resolution program manager but before that, she attended a neighborhood meeting where she learned about the program.

The next day she was attending a training to become a community mediator.

“I think that’s one of the benefits of having community mediation as a service and an opportunity is it fills a gap where maybe the legal system doesn’t have something in place that is accessible for everyday citizens or their conflicts and their issues and concerns can’t be resolved through other space services,” Richie said.

Romero said the goal of the program is to serve all 99 neighborhoods in Indianapolis.

Currently, the program has 34 active volunteers and a new class coming up next month.

They take on two classes per year.

“We want to have at least one person representing each neighborhood. So that’s kind of what we’re shooting for,” Romero said.

According to the ICCR website, 301 Indianapolis residents have been trained. Once people become trained community mediators, they are asked to commit to a full year.

Richie added that volunteers who commit to the year receive continuing education with once-a-month classes that are on a more in-depth topic.

The website also lists 82 cases that have been heard, and it has received 154 referrals.

Program leaders have said that in connection with their work they aim to reduce gun violence in the city, tamping down disputes before they erupt.

Romero said as time has passed, they have experienced less resistance to the idea and have had more people calling and wanting to have a conversation.

“The feedback has been, it’s been an uphill climb. I think, just in introducing this to not just residents and community members, but also our city leadership, what this is and why it’s important, why they should invest in this. That’s been one of our main focuses,” Romero said.

Initially, the group taught the transformative model of mediation, which involves just four questions. But now they teach all the models to volunteers.

“We just want to give them every tool that they have in their tool belt because you know, things are going to happen in mediation that we don’t expect,” Romero said.

Remondini added that the transformative model is one he finds his students at Butler University often gravitate to.

“I’ve seen some of my students, when they roleplay, the mediations they gravitate towards those four questions because it just seems more intuitive to them, more conversational,” Remondini said.

Businesses and corporations use mediation to avoid lawsuits and court time, Remondini added. He said most people need to be educated on the process first.

“We still go over it at the mediation and make sure they understand that the mediator is not a judge. It’s not Judge Judy. And really, they were just there to help a conversation,” Remondini said.

Olive branches

One case Remondini mediated was between two neighbors over a walnut tree.

“It was really, really beautiful,” Remondini said.

Romero explained in the case one neighbor was concerned about all these walnuts falling off branches from her neighbor’s tree into her yard.

“It was a nuisance, it was causing, I think, safety concerns for little ones that were in her house. And she had had previous communication with that individual. And they said that they would take care of it, but nothing was ever done,” Romero said.

But then things changed after mediation.

“You really saw all of the anger, all of the confusion, all of the defense that the complainant was having and it just went away. There was understanding, there was empathy. And there was a relationship that was kind of mended during that mediation,” Romero said.

Remondini added that afterward, the neighbor who complained wanted to help her neighbor once she understood the challenges he was going through.•