New Haven Independent

Thirty-one peer mediators from Mauro-Sheridan K-8 and 15 from New Haven Academy were honored along with Pillsbury (pictured below) and two former board chairs at a lively celebration Wednesday night at the Lawn Club, which also served as a fundraiser for Community Mediation.

(Click here to read a previous interview with Pillsbury about his tenure at the organization.)

These are two of the 19 schools where the agency has trained young people in the past year. The students learn a six-point process, which they carry out in pairs whenever tackling a problem between two other students at their schools. Pictured at the top of the story are Alex Knight-Hernandez and his partner, Danielle Palmieri.

Knight-Hernandez said mediators conducted 100 problem-solving sessions last school year, and 40 already this year, in a school with only about 200 students. “Most of them are misconceptions, rumors starting about you … you know, teenager problems,” he said.

He described his toughest assignment, this school year: “Two students had been having conflicts for the entire year. They came in to mediation, and they were planning on fighting. They weren’t going to do mediation; they were dead set on fighting.”

He described the back story: “They were practice wrestling; it was supposed to be for fun but one of the individuals took it seriously because he was beaten by the other. He had harsh feelings about it and went up afterwards and got into a physical confrontation. There were a lot of rumors going around and things were blown way out of proportion.”

The dean of students referred them to mediation. For a case this serious, he assigned a team of mediators. (For less serious problems, the students having the problem can pick their own team.)

Alex picked up the story: “They agreed to sit down, but they didn’t want to talk. They didn’t want to tell their story [which is the second of the six mediation steps]. So we spent 10 or 20 minutes trying to make them more comfortable, saying, ‘We’re here to help you or else it goes to the parent level, which involves suspension.’ So they finally agreed to talk. But each wanted the other to go first, so it came down to a coin toss.

“Once they started talking, one got offended by what the other said and walked out. Danielle stayed with one while I went after the other. I repeated that we really want to help him out and not make it worse than it already is. We got him calmed down and went back in and finished the storytelling part of the mediation.”

Looking for common ground is another part of the process. Both participants agreed they wanted to put the situation behind them and move on. In brainstorming possible solutions, they came up with avoiding each other, stopping the rumors and returning to mediation if there are any further conflicts.

Then they signed a written agreement to abide by their resolution.

Alex said he’s friendly with everyone at school, including the two having the conflict. “I’m closer to one than the other but I put my biases behind me,” he said.

The two who had the fight were acquaintances more than friends. After the mediation? “I’d say they left just tolerating each other, but now I think they’re on much better terms than when they first started, because they know each other’s feelings. And they know they’re secure because they both agreed to something.”

If they do violate the contract, they could be sent to mediation again. Or the issue could go to the administrative level with a parent meeting, possibly leading to suspension.

Principal Greg Baldwin said the work of the 15 mediators has had a direct impact on cutting the number of in-school suspensions in half (55 fewer than the previous year) and out-of-school suspensions by 44 percent (40 fewer).

Charlie Pillsbury himself was mildly roasted during Wednesday’s evening by a former board chair, Alison Bonds (pictured with her successor, Ronald Netter). She teased him about always ordering the same thing when they met for lunch at Clark’s Dairy: “soup, a toasted corn muffin and a toasted bran muffin, water and a cup of decaf.” She also encouraged him to dress a little better, ditching the well-worn pilly sweaters.

Community Mediation’s current assistant director, Brenda Cavanagh, said on her very first day, she heard Charlie having a “huge fight” with another staff member.

“I thought, ‘Hmm, this is interesting … Community mediation.’ What I learned after that day is that Charlie welcomes conflict. He allows staff to speak their minds, and that has created a staff who are mindful, thoughtful, responsible, and that is one of the reasons why people stay for so long.”

Chet Brodnicki, who served 20 years as executive director of Clifford Beers Clinic before retiring, will take over next week as interim executive of Community Mediation. Meanwhile Pillsbury moves on to be volunteer executive director of Mediators Beyond Borders, which seeks to bring some of the mediation techniques that work so well in New Haven schools to hot spots around the world.

Click on the play arrow to watch Mayor John DeStefano’s tribute remarks to Pillsbury Wednesday night, courtesy of v-logging State Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield.