Lawrence Community Commission on Homelessness (CCH)

Conflict Resolution Protocols/Guidelines

Once a conflict is apparent concerning an issue directly related to homelessness, CCH would refer the issue conflict to the Community Cooperation Committee (CCC) for determining further response or action.

CCC would quickly analyze the dispute issue(s), identify the involved parties, and determine which dispute resolution approach should be most viable and effective to address the conflict: conciliation, mediation, or facilitation. The CCC would then make its recommendation to the CCH for approval to proceed with one of the recommended conflict dispute resolution processes.

I.  Conciliation involves the minimal use of a neutral facilitator to attain resolution, and might be employed when the dispute issue is singular, straightforward, and simple and when a dispute is only between two essential parties with a proposed or apparent resolution option apparently available and no formal agreement is required.  If the conciliation process determines greater issues or deeper conflict, then mediation or facilitation could be recommended.

II.  Mediation involves the more formal involvement of a neutral facilitator(s) to meet with the parties to attempt to attain resolution, and might be employed when issues are somewhat narrow in scope and probably involve no more than three distinct parties, and a formal agreement may be required or helpful.

III.  Facilitation involves a more elaborate use of neutral facilitators to provide a formal gathering or series of meetings between multiple parties to typically work on relatively broad issues, and a formal agreement is desirable.

With CCH consent to proceed, CCC would then utilize its facilitation subcommittee to contact parties and to determine if they would engage in the proposed dispute resolution process.  If so, the CCC would facilitate providing the determined and agreed process for the parties utilizing its own set of trained volunteers. Or, if CCC determines it would be necessary to utilize an outside neutral for mediation or facilitation, it would make this recommendation to CCH for approval.

If parties are not agreeable to engage in any possible dispute resolution process, CCC would make this assessment known to CCH together with recommendations, if any, as to how the CCH might best attempt to further address the conflict issue(s), and to utilize the CCC to facilitate communications and possible informal negotiations.