Youth Program FY2024 Evaluation Report December 2024

The Youth Conflict Resolution & Restorative Practices Program (Youth Program or Program), administered by the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) in collaboration with 10 community mediation centers (Centers), aims to reduce youth conflict and/or violence through a social and emotional learning (SEL) and positive youth development framework. This approach leverages mediation and restorative practices to equip youth with essential SEL skills and improve school climate. This FY2024 program evaluation report assesses the Youth Program’s effectiveness across multiple domains, including school climate, student SEL competencies, engagement/awareness, training, and resources

Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program (CMC-GP) Fiscal Year 2023 Report and Evaluation

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts (MA) continued its investment in affordable, cost-effective community mediation by appropriating $2,713,465 in Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 for the Community Mediation Center Grant Program (CMC Grant Program or Program), the Program’s eleventh year. This appropriation funded the continued operations of qualified Community Mediation Centers (Centers) that deliver free or low-cost dispute resolution services to the public. The Centers serve as the backbone of mediation across the state and are the publicly funded infrastructure on which statewide dispute resolution programs are built. The FY2023 state funding in the CMC Grant Program budget appropriation amounted to$2,713,465, which, with the prior appropriation continued from FY2022 of $268,074, totaling$2,981,539. In FY2023, 76% of this state funding, or $2,272,500 was awarded in operational, programmatic and technical assistance grants to 12 Centers across the state. CMC Grant Program funds constituted half of Centers’ collective cash income in FY2023 and were critical to the sustainability of Centers and, as a result, to the preservation of statewide access to community mediation. The 12 MA Centers used the state operational investment to leverage an additional$1,857,218 from other private, state, local and/or federal government sponsors/funders, including private foundations. Centers used these funds to address critical public needs and to further expand their community mediation missions under the Grant Program’s Twelve-Point Model of community mediation. The Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC), the statutory state dispute resolution office at the University of Massachusetts Boston (UMass Boston) and the CMC Grant Program administrator, brought operational support through both grant management and the management of statewide programming under CMC Grant Program auspices to attract additional funding and address community needs regarding homelessness, recidivism, youth violence, and systemic injustice. Accordingly, 50% of the grants awarded to Centers consisted of grants to support Centers’ participation in statewide programs consisting of the MA Housing Mediation Program (HMP), MA Re-entry Mediation Program (ReMAp), MA Youth Conflict Resolution and Restorative Practices Program (Youth Program), and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) organizational capacity building initiatives. The award of these grants was an investment in staffing infrastructure to reinforce Center participation in these Grant Program programs. The FY2023 funded Centers were community-based grassroots organizations. They delivered their dispute resolution services through a workforce composed of both paid and volunteer workers. Centers operated with an average of two full-time and three part-time staff per Center. Mediations were mostly conducted by 207 active volunteer mediators from a pool of 501 total mediators across 12 Centers. Centers depended on trainings to recruit additional mediators. A total of 708 trainings, including trainings/workshops in conflict resolution for community members, were offered across the 12 Centers. An estimated 7,491 people participated in the trainings and workshops and a total of 814,772 people overall were reached through public education and outreach conducted by the Centers in FY2023. Initiatives were undertaken to strengthen the quality of mediation services and training across all Centers. A committee convened to examine the impact of Center volunteering practices on DEI crafted recommendations to address structural barriers to community involvement in Centers. Data regarding 280 mediators revealed that, like the state’s population, females, males, Asians, African Americans/Blacks, Hispanics/Latinos, Whites, and multi-racial individuals were represented among the totality of Center mediators. Although the FY2023 data indicated that most Center mediators continued to be White (103 of 280) and the majority female and White, the number of mediators identifying as non-White has increased (69 out of 280) since FY2022. Regarding parties served, based on 2,025 parties identifying race in demographic surveys, 843 (compared to 755 in FY2022) identified as White while 1,182 (compared to 892 in FY2022) identified as non-White, revealing an increase in party diversity. In FY2023 MOPC completed a one-of-a-kind study on DEI in community mediation based on community listening sessions that involved literature reviews and creating a new analytical tool to understand the complexity of the structural barriers to engagement of underserved communities. The study will be instrumental in eliminating institutional racism in the delivery of dispute resolution services through grantmaking, scholarships, and other practices in the years to come, and will kick off a community engagement process to re-envision community mediation through a DEI lens in the coming year. In addition to publishing the report, MOPC published an article on this research and presented research findings at several conferences in FY2023. The services offered by the funded Centers during FY2023 were both in-person and virtual. Pandemic-related limitations on in-person interactions, whether involving individuals or organizations, eased in FY2023 as courts and community-based locations reopened. Centers continued to rely on remote technology to increase the use of their services. The option of virtual services continued to broaden access to parties by providing flexibility in scheduling and ease of attendance at mediation sessions. In FY2023, CMC Grant Program funding helped Centers to provide mediation services to 5,759 parties. The 72% agreement rate achieved through MA community mediation exceeded the typical agreement rate of 66% for community mediation nationally. Among the parties surveyed, a large majority, 92%, were satisfied with their mediation, while 90% were willing to recommend mediation to others, and 84% preferred mediation to alternative services. A majority of responding parties indicated that the impact of mediation on their relationship was positive. Not only did parties benefit from the CMC Grant Program but the Commonwealth also benefited by the estimated $28 million in cost-savings and leveraged resources calculated as the return on the state’s FY2023 investment of$2.7 million in the CMC Grant Program. This is a return-on-investment ratio of ten dollars leveraged for each dollar invested in community mediation in MA. Increasing state investment would produce an even greater return by maximizing the CMC Grant Program’s support of Center operations and the statewide accessibility of dispute resolution services in response to community feedback and research findings about achieving DEI

Massachusetts Community Mediation Center Grant Program Fiscal Year 2024 Report and Evaluation

In FY2024, the Commonwealth allocated $3,213,465 to the CMC Grant Program, supplemented by$149,674 carried over from FY2023, for a total of $3,363,139. Of the total funding,$2,542,100 (76%) was awarded to Centers in grants and technical assistance, with Centers leveraging these funds to secure an additional $2,199,813 from private foundations and other state, local, and federal sponsors. These grants supported Centers’ participation in CMC Grant Program related statewide programs, including the Housing Mediation Program (HMP), Reentry Mediation Program (ReMAp), Youth Conflict Resolution and Restorative Practices Program (Youth Program), and DEI organizational capacity-building initiatives. These grants bolstered staffing infrastructure, enabling Centers to meet community needs and accounting for over half of their collective revenue, making this state funding vital for Center sustainability and statewide access to dispute resolution for Massachusetts residents. The CMC Grant Program had a significant impact in FY2024. The HMP preserved 355 tenancies and 103 housing subsidies across 1,487 mediated cases, helping 1,188 landlords and 1,376 tenants avoid eviction or housing loss. As one tenant shared, “Thanks to mediation, I’ve been able to get things under control. I will definitely recommend it to others, this is a wonderful program.” A pilot partnership with MassHousing’s Tenancy Assistance Program (TAP) expanded the program’s reach by mediating 12 upstream cases involving issues like noise complaints and discrimination and conducting community-building workshops to equip residents at TAP-enrolled sites with conflict resolution skills. ReMAp worked with 12 DOC and Sheriff facilities, providing pre-release mediation and expanding post-release support to reduce recidivism and strengthen family ties. Party feedback reflected the program\u27s impact, with one noting, “Today was a good day,” and another commenting, “This was great and productive.” The Youth Program showed significant gains in student social and emotional learning skills, with one administrator highlighting the program’s long-term value: “These are lifelong skills that can be applied in both school and life situations.” The DEI Initiative further enhanced the Program’s impact, with Centers improving language accessibility, program flexibility, and policies to support inclusivity and equity. For example, this included the development of Spanish-language conflict resolution workshops, which led to an increase in inquiries from Spanish-speaking individuals. As one Center noted, “We’ve been able to better train staff and volunteers and provide services in ways community members understand.

Increasing Housing Stability Through State-Funded Community Mediation Delivered by The Massachusetts Housing Mediation Program (HMP) FY2023 Evaluation Report

The Massachusetts Housing Mediation Program (HMP) is a comprehensive statewide program that provides free housing mediation services as a tool to increase housing stability with the intention of preventing homelessness created by landlord-tenant disputes. It is administered by the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) at the University of Massachusetts Boston and deploys the community mediation system infrastructure with 11 Community Mediation Centers (Centers) participating and serving all 14 counties of the Commonwealth to provide free conflict resolution services for tenants and landlords/property managers with housing disputes at any stage, from the earliest point a problem occurs, up to, and after any eviction action in court. The HMP is a vital public program, particularly against the backdrop of a housing crisis that has worsened. MA residents cited housing as the biggest issue on their minds. The country is also facing a dramatic 12% increase in homelessness, which is its highest reported level as soaring rents and a decline in COVID-19 pandemic assistance combined to put housing out of reach for more Americans. Homelessness among individuals rose by 11%, among veterans by 7.4%, and among families with children by 15.5%. Though a clear causal link between housing mediation through the HMP and homelessness prevention is difficult to determine, several factors support housing mediation’s role in preventing homelessness and increasing housing stability. These factors include: 1) the ability of mediation to improve communication and help reduce landlord-tenant/tenant-tenant conflict; 2) the opportunity afforded by mediation for landlords/property managers and tenants to negotiate in good faith and the option to generate creative solutions to issues surrounding the non-payment of rent, repairs and a host of tenancy-related issues; and 3) the coupling of mediation with housing counseling and other assistance programs. Data from the centralized case management system (MADtrac) indicates that mediating landlord-tenant cases resulted in 65.2% of the tenants preserving their tenancy in FY2023 where Centers served 428 housing cases under the HMP resulting in 279 tenancy preservations. A strong correlation does exist between housing mediation provided through the HMP and tenancy preservation. For example, using a subset of mediated cases and an analysis of a sampling of 163 written mediated agreements reached between landlords/property managers and tenants through housing mediation provided by Centers during the 12-month period from July 2022 to June 2023 shows that 85 agreements, a little over one half (52%), resulted in the preservation of tenancy, suggesting a strong correlation between housing mediation and the preservation of tenancy

Increasing Housing Stability Through State-Funded Community Mediation Delivered by The Massachusetts Housing Mediation Program (HMP) in FY2022

This report presents findings and recommendations from an evaluation of the Massachusetts Housing Mediation Program (HMP) administered by the MA Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) at the University of Massachusetts Boston in partnership with 11 Community Mediation Centers (Centers). The program is funded by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and implemented in partnership with the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). The program was initially part of the Governor’s Eviction Diversion Initiative (EDI), which ended in the latter half of FY2022 and is continuing as an intervention to support housing stability. The evaluation was conducted by MOPC’s research unit comprised of staff and graduate student researchers and does not necessarily represent the views of DHCD. As the statutory state dispute resolution agency, MOPC has been serving as a neutral forum and state-level resource for over 30 years. Its mission is to establish evidence-based public programs and build capacity within public entities for enhanced conflict resolution and intergovernmental and cross-sector collaboration to save costs for the state and its citizens and enable effective problem-solving and civic engagement on major public initiatives. Funding from the Legislature in FY2022 allowed MOPC to award $690,000 in grants and technical assistance to 11 Centers to sustain their staffing capacity to continue delivering free housing mediation services to their service areas, maintaining, or strengthening referral relationships with partner agencies, and fulfilling other duties for the program. Centers employ one to two staff to serve as liaisons for agency and organizational partners as well as coordinate the delivery of primarily remote mediation services. In FY2022, the HMP fielded 937 referrals, of which 812 were screened, resulting in 732 cases. Of these cases, 287 were mediated in 325 mediation sessions. Additionally, 276 tenancies and 32 housing subsidies were preserved. Centers served 660 landlords and 733 tenants located in 13 Massachusetts counties. Many of these services were provided remotely, as necessitated by the pandemic, but as communities, courts, and government agencies began to re-open, some services were provided in person. To assess the impact of the HMP on housing stabilization and homelessness prevention, MOPC deployed a team of staff and graduate student researchers to create data collection and evaluation indicators and metrics vetted by DHCD and the Governor’s Office and produced a HMP evaluation report for FY2021. For FY2022, the MOPC team undertook the following activities to produce this evaluation report for the second year of the HMP operations: Launched a HMP mediation participant survey and collected 11 survey responses from tenants, landlords and lawyers and analyzed the quantitative data. Launched a HMP Eviction Diversion Initiative (EDI) survey and collected 48 survey responses from EDI partners and analyzed the quantitative data. Launched a HMP mediator session survey and a HMP mediator general survey and collected 77 session surveys responses and 1 general survey response and analyzed the quantitative data. Mined and analyzed data from HMP case intake forms and mediated agreements from 148 cases. Interviewed 23 HMP mediation participants, including tenants, landlords, lawyers for tenants and landlords, and transcribed and analyzed interview data. Interviewed 6 HMP case coordinators from Centers and transcribed and analyzed qualitative data. Analyzed written feedback from DHCD from a questionnaire sent to DHCD staff. Examined quantitative data in HMP weekly case data sheets. Drafted evaluation findings, case studies and recommendations tracked to detailed appendices. This FY2022 HMP evaluation report is organized into the following sections: Executive Summary that can serve as a stand-alone document; Findings, based on an investigation of research on housing mediation, landlord-tenant and summary process mediations; Recommendations, for further increasing impact, utilization and effectiveness of housing mediation and the sustainability of the HMP; Appendices, presenting detailed, fully sourced summaries of the survey data and other relevant material with both qualitative data and analysis and quantitative data and analysis presented using the research questions in the methodology section as a guide

Addressing Barriers to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Massachusetts Community Mediation

This report presents over three years of systematically engaging, documenting and analyzing the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) needs/gaps and assets of state funded community mediation centers in Massachusetts. The report was compiled by researchers and an in-house DEI expert at the statutory state office of dispute resolution, the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The office has been serving as a neutral forum and state-level resource for over 30 years. The report is based on qualitative research that falls into the category of community based participatory research conducted through a series of community listening sessions organized and facilitated by seven community mediation centers from 2021 to 2022 involving residents from Cambridge, Framingham, Lowell, Lynn, Vineyard Haven, Greenfield, and Leominster in Massachusetts. The report also contains a literature review of diversity, equity and inclusion research, particularly on nonprofits and DEI in mediation/ADR. This research offers findings for Massachusetts community mediation to increase diversity, equity and inclusion and offers recommendations that are broadly applicable for all community mediation systems interested in developing their own DEI systems across the globe

Addressing Barriers to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Massachusetts Community Mediation

This report presents over three years of systematically engaging, documenting and analyzing the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) needs/gaps and assets of state funded community mediation centers in Massachusetts. The report was compiled by researchers and an in-house DEI expert at the statutory state office of dispute resolution, the Massachusetts Office of Public Collaboration (MOPC) at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The office has been serving as a neutral forum and state-level resource for over 30 years. The report is based on qualitative research that falls into the category of community based participatory research conducted through a series of community listening sessions organized and facilitated by seven community mediation centers from 2021 to 2022 involving residents from Cambridge, Framingham, Lowell, Lynn, Vineyard Haven, Greenfield, and Leominster in Massachusetts. The report also contains a literature review of diversity, equity and inclusion research, particularly on nonprofits and DEI in mediation/ADR. This research offers findings for Massachusetts community mediation to increase diversity, equity and inclusion and offers recommendations that are broadly applicable for all community mediation systems interested in developing their own DEI systems across the globe

A Case for Better Monitoring and Preventing Hate Crimes in the United States

This report is a joint publication of the Center for Peace, Democracy, and Development (CPDD) through its conflict early warning arm, the Conflict Early Warning Analytics Program (CEWAP) and the TRUST Network (TN), which is the first conflict early warning system in the United States. CEWAP is the conflict early warning analytical hub of the TRUST Network. Together, CEWAP and the TRUST Network aim to expand the utilization of authentic community-based conflict early warning and early response through practice, research, technology development, training, and community empowerment. This report focuses on hate crimes, hate groups and their connection to domestic extremism, and the threats posed by these crimes and groups to social cohesion. Hate crimes have a significant impact on communities beyond the direct victims, as they create a climate of fear and tension and contribute to the targeting of society’s most vulnerable groups. Addressing hate crimes and promoting tolerance and inclusivity is thus an important priority for both law enforcement and civil society. This report argues that any analysis of hate crimes, hate groups, or violent domestic extremism must be data driven and evidence based to track these threats more accurately and to respond to hate crimes, hate groups and domestic extremism more effectively