Domestic Mediation
In October 1999, while Community Mediation Center (CMC) was in its early developmental phase, the judges in the 9th Judicial District (Harvey County, KS) expressed an urgent need to move low-income domestic mediation out of court services to a private contractor. KIPCOR/CMC was awarded the Harvey County low-income domestic mediation contract and CMC received its first domestic mediation case referral in October 1999.
By early 2000, mediation became well integrated into the domestic court process and all disputed domestic cases in Harvey County that involve child custody and parenting plans are now referred to the CMC. CMC currently does the intake, assigns cases to members of its panel of professional state-approved mediators based upon intake information and provides other administrative services for all clients who qualify for Harvey County’s Low-Income Domestic Mediation Program.
For clients whose combined annual income is at least $40,000, CMC’s responsibilities are similar; however, instead of CMC assigning a mediator, information is provided to the clients regarding all Harvey County state-approved domestic mediators. If needed, CMC helps with the selection of the mediator.
Since 1999, CMC has handled approximately 400 child custody and parenting disputes involving mediation or limited case management.
- "I was dreading coming today and cried myself to sleep last night since I was afraid we’d just be fighting and yelling at each other like we always do. I can’t believe that we were actually able to talk with each other and work out some things for our kids."
- Statement made by a CMC mediation client - "I think we’ve talked more in these two sessions than we had all together in the past 15 years! Now that we’re talking again, maybe we’ll be able to do it more on our own."
- Statement made by a CMC mediation client
