2017-481-E Finance - Dispute Settlement Center, Inc. - Outside Agency Performance Agreement

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DocuSign Envelope ID:88AEE9BF-924A-442D-BD41-DC640F1 E1 BAC EXHIBIT A PROVIDER'S OUTSIDE AGENCY APPLICATION allocation is recommended. Without funding, we could not attend Criminal District Court. After the NC Legislature de-funded mediation throughout the state for FY11, Orange County picked up support for this needed service. Note that in FY02, the NC Legislature was providing $84,530 in support for this program. Over time, we have found some general support for mediation. We believe that it can be agreed that court mediation, however, is properly supported by government. k) Include any other pertinent information. We would like to note that mediation is a practice which does not lend itself to easy evaluation. We maintain demographic information on clients and resolution rates, but this does not tell the whole story. In many cases, we talk the parties separately through the conflict, encourage ways of conciliation, and then they may not mediate, or one side refuses. In other cases, there may be a long mediation but no resolution — nonetheless progress has been made. Mediators are trained to not focus on resolutions but on first, doing no harm, and second, empowering the parties to communicate and negotiate for themselves. Of course, resolutions can be great things, and we note that in over 80% of mediations held, there is a resolution. In Criminal District Court, the cases can be very involved and take a few hours of mediation, or be short. Orange County support enables us to give each case the attention that is needed. We are trying to be realistic in setting number goals. It all depends on the number of appropriate cases that are referred to us, and this may vary widely. The agency must maintain trained available personnel no matter how many cases there are. PROGRAM INFORMATION 2/8/2017 11:26:12 AM II I:' 1G r 22