07 Jul 2016
In June, three recent graduates, Mary Rose Richter, Tiffany Thompson, and John Duggar, assisted Office of Dispute Resolution Director Debora Denny, '80, in a basic mediation training (BMT) for the Winnebago Tribe. All three of these students have significant mediation training and experience, and they were an integral part of the success of the training. The BMT held in June is a required prerequisite for Family Group Decision Making training to be held later this summer. The Winnebago Tribe’s Human Services Office is implementing a five-year grant in which mediation and Family Group Decision Making are the evidence-based processes being used to achieve permanency for children in foster care. Family Group Decision Making (FDGM) is based on the indigenous New Zealand Maori way of extended family coming together to talk and make its own family decisions on how to care, nurture and raise children whose parents are abusing or neglecting them. Denny has practiced and trained the Maori model of FDGM for nearly two decades, including working with families and professionals in the Winnebago Tribe. The Office of Dispute Resolution BMT manual was written and developed by Kathleen Severens, '81, who was the first director of the Office of Dispute Resolution. Richter, Thompson, and Duggar provided excellent coaching to the Winnebago trainees, expanding the trainees’ exposure to differing mediator styles.