Community Mediation Services (CMS) provides group facilitation to several neighborhoods and organizations around the St. Louis metropolitan area.
- Proposed new construction or renovation of facilities within a community
- Concerns over changes within a neighborhood
- Disagreements between residents within a condominium association
- Improved cooperation within neighborhood and organizational associations
- Supporting dialogues on issues where attendees have strong opposing viewpoints
Topics have included race relations, community police relations, the role of small businesses in a neighborhood, crime, poverty, and many others. In each of case, neighborhood organizations sought a forum in which residents could come together to talk about ways they could work together to improve their communities in these key areas, and the resulting discussions helped create the tools for positive change.
CMS has been active in supporting meetings in Ferguson since November 2014. The value of CMS’s support to the residents was formalized when the Community Mediation Services was identified in the Ferguson Consent Decree to provide mediation and facilitation services.
Group facilitation is a service CMS is proud to include in its portfolio. CMS provides ground rules for promoting constructive conversation. CMS’s responsibility is to ensure everyone is heard and relevant issues are identified even on occasions when a meeting participants become adversarial.