Welcome to Citizens Mediation Service’s awesome new website! We are grateful to Working Zombies Studios for their hard work and patience in bringing this site to life. Every month we’ll use this space to bring you opinions, perspectives, and voices that reflect the wide world of Community Dispute Resolution Centers. We hope you will find it useful and thought-provoking.

Intimidation can only occur in the presence of real or perceived power imbalances. It can be an insidious and potent strategy for wielding power in a mediation. The mediator can protect against the negative impact of intimidation on the less powerful party by knowing the sources of power imbalances.

As mediators, we frequently encounter volatile mediation situations. Sometimes it can even be hard to keep our own anger in check as we focus on maintaining our neutrality in high conflict mediations. Anger, however, can actually be our ally in moving toward resolution if we know how to leverage its positive power.

I wanted to start this blog by talking about why a mediation Center like CMS makes a difference in your community. At a time when turmoil seems everywhere in our country, mediation centers are busy relentlessly seeking peace.