Act fast if you are interested — last chance to apply — applications due Oct. 22! Training begins Nov. 13.
At the beginning of COVID-19’s appearance in our communities, CYS faced the existential challenge of continuing to provide restorative justice mediations while strictly observing safety protocols. Without breaking stride, CYS’s Mediation Unit turned to technology to ensure continuity of services and make restorative justice even more widely available.
With technical and creative guidance from CYS volunteer senior advisor John Manulis, CYS became an early adopter of video conferencing platforms and specialized apps to ensure compliance with legal and confidentiality requirements. Faced with similar challenges when preparing CYS’s semi-annual mediator trainings, the Mediation Unit has just completed the organization’s first live, online curriculum for CYS VORS (Victim-Offender Restitution Services) mediation.
“Preserving the high quality of CYS trainings and learning materials while crossing over to a new platform has been a primary focus of our recent work,” notes volunteer coordinator Alex Rojas. Mediation Unit manager Aida Cerda believes the new curriculum will be a hit with participants, and expects the variety of video conferencing tools will provide opportunities for realistic role-playing exercises that are vital to successful learning and application of CYS mediation methods.
Our community has a high need for volunteers who speak Spanish. Click here to sign up.