Civil Rights Mediation
Oral History Project Phase I

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Civil Rights Mediation
Oral History Project Phase I

Home | Overview | Phase I | Phase II

 

Topics Addressed by
Nancy Ferrell


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  .When did you begin at CRS? When did you leave?
 
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        A. What did you do before coming to CRS?
                   
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        B. Why did you decide to work at CRS?
                   
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        C. What did you do at CRS (what was your role)?
                   
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  .Background information on a case
 
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  .When the case first came to your attention, what did you do?
 
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        A. When making an initial assessment of a case, with whom did you talk first? Next?
                   
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        B. Did everyone want you involved? If not, what did you do about that?
                   
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        C. How did you prepare for your intervention?
                   
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        D. Did you phone all parties before your arrived?
                   
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        E. Did you assist them by phone only? What types of assistance did you provide? Can you provide an example?
                   
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  .How did you do your onsite assessment?
 
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        A. Who did you talk to first on site?
                   
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        B. Were your initial meetings during your intervention private and confidential?
                   
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        C. How did you respond if you thought that CRS intervention might harm a legitimate protest activity?
                   
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        D. How did you identify the proper people to talk to or get involved?
                   
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        E. How did you identify leaders?
                   
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        F. Did you set goals for your intervention? At what point in the process?
                   
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        G. Did the parties assist in the goal-setting process or influence your choice of goals? How?
                   
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        H. How did you determine your own role (e.g., to act as an advisor, conciliator or a mediator)?
                   
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  .What did you do to build and sustain trust with the parties?
 
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        A. How important was it for you to gain the trust of the parties?
                   
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        B. How did you build trust with the disputants?
                   
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        C. How did you detect whether your trust-building efforts were successful?
                   
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        D. Can you recall any examples of when you served as a scapegoat or in some other way helped a party save face?
                   
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        E. What factors contributed to your ability to build trust?
                   
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        F. Were parties ever reluctant to participate because of a lack of trust in you or the process?
                   
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  .How did you identify underlying issues?
 
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        A. Did you find it necessary at times to help the parties define or prioritize their issues? How did you do this?
                   
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        B. Did you find yourself assisting one party to understand the other party's perspective?
                   
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        C. How would you deal with a demand on one party's agenda that the other party said was non-negotiable?
                   
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        D. Did you ever deal with a conflict that seemed to be truly intractable?
                   
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  .Tell me about your meetings with the parties when you were helping them to resolve their differences.
 
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        A. How did you decide who would be at the negotiation table?
                   
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        B. How did you decide when to meet separately with the parties and when to bring them together?
                   
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        C. Was timing of the discussions critical? Did you ever need to wait or hurry up in order to get people to come together?
                   
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        D. How did you assist in opening communications between the parties, to get them talking and listening to one another?
                   
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        E. How would you respond when you were called upon to carry messages between the parties?
                   
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  .What did you do to diminish tension between the parties?
 
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        A. Did the situation ever become violent or potentially violent? What did you do to diminish that?
                   
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        B. Did you ever separate people into small groups and work with them that way?
                   
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  .Did you find yourself helping the parties strengthen their own capacity to deal with conflict?
 
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        A. Did you provide technical assistance to the parties? Can you give some examples?
                   
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        B. Did you provide training for the parties? What types of training? Who did it?
                   
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  .What did you do when you hit a brick wall in your effort to bridge differences between the parties?
 
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  .Did you try to analyze or address power disparities between the parties? How did power differentials effect the process?
 
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        A. When you perceived a significant power imbalance did you try to level the playing field? How did you do this?
                   
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        B. Did you ever provide assistance to one party without the knowledge of the other?
                   
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        C. Did you ever have a need to strike a balance between helping the parties reach a settlement and achieving equity?
                   
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        D. Did you work on cases involving hate groups such as the KKK or neo-Nazi groups?
                   
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        E. Were there techniques you used to help you maintain your impartiality?
                   
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        F. Did you have techniques for managing your emotions during case work?
                   
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        G. Did you ever intentionally act as an advocate for one side? Did you ever do this unintentionally?
                   
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  .Are there other aspects of the process that you used that are worth noting?
 
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        A. What role does listening play in your work?
                   
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        B. How much direction did you give the parties in mediation?
                   
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        C. Did you ever try to pressure the parties to change their approach?
                   
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  .What cultural or racial factors influenced the process?
 
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  .What brought the parties to the table?
 
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  .How did you provide a "safe space" for discussions?
 
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        A. Did you ever draw upon resources or refer parties to resources from outside the community?
                   
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        B. Did you provide information about outside resources that could help the parties in conflict?
                   
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  .How did you deal with issues of confidentiality during your casework?
 
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  .How did you deal with the media? Were they an asset or a liability to your work?
 
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        A. When the needs of newspaper, radio, or television reporters interfered with your work, how did you deal with the problem?
                   
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  .How did you determine when to end your involvement in a conflict?
 
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        A. Before terminating a case, did you help the parties develop a contingency plan to help prevent a recurrence of the conflict?
                   
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        B. What might a contingency plan include?
                   
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        C. Did you assist the parties design other structures to prevent a recurrence of the conflict?
                   
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        D. Did you plan any follow up after the case was closed?
                   
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        E. What would you say were the positive outcomes of the contingency planning process?
                   
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        F. Were other enforcement mechanisms put in place?
                   
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  .What were the overall outcomes of the intervention?
 
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  .Were you able to bring about organizational or structural change?
 
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  .What were your measures of the success of your intervention?
 
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        A. How did CRS measure the success of your work?
                   
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  .Have there been changes in CRS over the years?
 
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  .What do you think are the most important skills and attributes of an effective civil rights mediator?
 
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        A. What do you think has been your greatest strength as a civil rights mediator?
                   
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  .Interesting anecdotes.
 
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  .Agency-related information
 
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        A. Trust between CRS workers
                   
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        B. CRS reputation
                   
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        C. Collaboration between CRS workers
                   
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        D. CRS structure
                   
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        E. CRS cooperation with other agencies
                   
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  .Mediation of identity conflicts
 
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  .Mediation theory
 
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  .Descriptions of CRS institutional programs
 
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Copyright © 2000-2007
by Conflict Management Initiatives and the Conflict Information Consortium

Beyond Intractability maintains this legacy site as it was created in 2007 with only minor formatting changes made in conjunction with the posting of Phase II of the Civil RIghts Mediation project in 2025.


Copyright © 2000-2007
by Conflict Management Initiatives and the Conflict Information Consortium

Beyond Intractability maintains this legacy site as it was created in 2007 with only minor formatting changes made in conjunction with the posting of Phase II of the Civil RIghts Mediation project in 2025.