Talk Listen Restore – The Community Mediation Center, Restorative Justice and More

Host Margo Patterson is joined by Annette Lantz-Simmons Executive Director of the Community Mediation Center to talk about their programs, training and services. CMC provides conflict resolution for schools, businesses, churches, neighborhoods, families in the Kansas City area. Find out what Restorative Justice is and how it is being introduced into neighborhoods and schools in KC. Founded in 2000, the Community Mediation Center (CMC) is a non-profit, 501(c)3 organization providing mediation services, facilitation and training to individuals and organizations, at a reasonable cost. Our goal is to empower people to solve conflict in their lives, giving them lifelong tools they need to find peaceful solutions. After nine years heading a successful mediation center in Davenport, Iowa, Diane Kyser, the Executive Director of CMC, moved to the Kansas City area. Interested community organizers urged her to develop a similar program in this area, a place where people could go to find help in positively addressing the potentially destructive conflicts of daily life. An advisory Council soon became a Board of Directors that incorporated as a nonprofit agency in the spring of 2000. Area police departments and schools as well as courts began to refer people to CMC. In 2001 and 2002,…