About the Community Mediation Center

The Carroll County Community Mediation Center (CCCMC) was founded in 2000 as a parent-teen mediation program with support from DJS, the Family Law Administrator, MACRO, CMM, and the Carroll County Youth Services Bureau (CCYSB). It provided families a collaborative way to address issues like school performance, curfew, and communication, using a unique co-mediation model with both adult and teen mediators.

Over time, the Center expanded to include a wider range of family and community conflicts, including neighbor, landlord-tenant, workplace, and business disputes.

Originally part of CCYSB, the CCCMC transitioned to Carroll Community College in 2008, where it continues to operate today.

Since then, the Center has helped thousands of Carroll County residents, businesses, and organizations resolve conflicts constructively. It also continues to provide mediation services, education, and training to support a stronger community.

Carroll County Community Mediation Center’s vision is for every Carroll County citizen to have awareness of and access to high quality conflict resolution services at the community level, such as mediation and conflict coaching.

The Mediation Center promotes peaceful resolution of conflict and collaborative problem solving by providing a range of conflict resolution services, education and professional training to the Carroll County community.

The 10-point model of community mediation strives to:

1. Train community members who reflect the community’s diversity with regard to age, race, gender, ethnicity, income and education to serve as volunteer mediators.
2. Provide mediation services at no cost or on a sliding scale.
3. Hold mediations in neighborhoods where disputes occur.
4. Schedule mediations at a time and place convenient to the participants.
5. Encourage early use of mediation to prevent violence or to reduce the need for court intervention, as well as provide mediation at any stage in a dispute.
6. Mediate community-based disputes that come from referral sources including self-referrals, police, courts, community organizations, civic groups, religious institutions, government agencies and others.
7. Educate community members about conflict resolution and mediation.
8. Maintain high quality mediators by providing intensive, skills-based training, apprenticeships, continuing education and ongoing evaluation of volunteer mediators.
9. Work with the community in governing community mediation programs in a manner based on collaborative problem solving among staff, volunteers and community members.
10. Provide mediation, education and other conflict resolution processes to community members who reflect the community’s diversity with regard to age, race, gender, ethnicity, income, education and geographic location.

• Patricia Ryan, Director pryan@carrollcc.edu
• Mary Johnson, Mediation and Outreach Specialist mjohnson3@carrollcc.edu

• Dr. Kristie Crumley, Vice President, Academic and Student Affairs and Dean of Faculty, Carroll Community College
• Richard Gibson, Deputy Chief of Westminster Police
• Madeleine Ryan, Director of Operations, Carroll County Youth Services Bureau
• Patty Sundberg, Volunteer Mediator, Branch Manager, Carroll County Library
• Gina Valentine, Bureau Chief, Bureau of Aging and Disabilities
• Powell Welliver, Family Law Administrator of Carroll County
• Laurie Blake, Director of Human Resources for Fuchs of North America
• David Dellman, Community Member
• Ashley Joslyn, Opportunity Works Program Manager, HS