Mandell Gisnet Center for Conflict Management

Mission

The Mandell Gisnet Center for Conflict Management (MGC)'s mission is to promote, and apply, a constructive approach to conflict management and to resolve disputes, including litigation.

The Big Idea

The Neighbor Project offers alternative methods for community members to resolve disputes. Whether disputes involve property lines, parking, noise, pets, landlord/tenant issues, safety concerns, complaints, threats, harassment, vandalism, or roommate disputes, the Neighbor Project offers a collaboration of community agencies, resources, and trained third party mediators to help find satisfactory, peaceful solutions amongst neighbors and community members. Additionally, The Neighbor Project offers a specific neighbor mediation training service for Veterans, training lead residents to handle in- house disputes amongst resident program participants.

Feeling listened to and comfortable to express concerns in a safe environment, a disputant shared valuable insight after participating in the Neighbor Project. “I became empowered as a participant in mediation at MGC, learned to understand and value the thoughts and feelings of my neighbors about a shared conflict. Also, I became aware that we each had a different view of a similar issue. I learned more about myself, how I process information and react to a perceived problem. During the mediation process, I became more open-minded about how others view a situation. The mediators modeled effective communication skills to allow me and my neighbors to work through our differences.” “In my opinion, MGC’s NEIGHBOR Project offers a great service to the community to resolve problems...I highly recommend MGC’s NEIGHBOR Project to others to empower them to them to learn to manage conflict."

- Ann