Baltimore Curriculum Project’s (BCP) Peer Mediator program trains selected students to work with their peers on active listening, conflict resolution, and controlling one’s anger — all key skills for BCP’s Restorative Practices program.
The Peer Mediator Program was created in January 2023 at City Springs Elementary / Middle School by Todd Wade, City Springs’ Director of Restorative Practices and of the Peer Mediation Program. The program extends to five of the six BCP schools with 80 trained student mediators from 3rd through 8th grades.
On April 8, the mediators and several BCP Principals and administrators attended a day-long Peer Mediator conference hosted by the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Mr. Wade and Nancy Schertzing, the Law School’s Director of Restorative Approaches in Education Program, co-planned the program for the 70 BCP students who attended along with students from other Baltimore City public schools with whom Ms. Schertzing works.
The program included a keynote from Baltimore City Public Schools Commissioner Mujahid Muhammad, who shared his expertise on positive problem-solving and restorative community building through his work as behavioral healthcare executive (he’s CEO of KEYS Enterprises), a licensed master social worker, and a mental health clinician with 20 years of leadership experience.
Students attended four stations designed to deepen their skills:
- Improv active listening activities with Baltimore Improv Group (BIG), a group that worked with BCP since September 2023 on BCP’s innovative program using improv to teach effective listening and collaborative conflict resolution with SNL’s Ego Nwodim.
- Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) with City Springs’ SEL Director Nyjah Rollins
- Role playing Peer Mediation scenarios with UMD Law students, and
- Understanding the root causes of conflicts, presented by Ms. Schertzing.
The day’s focus on enhancing the BCP Peer Mediators’ skills and understanding of how to most effectively use the tools of Restorative Practices will serve to deepen the sense of community across the BCP network.
Read more about BCP’s Peer Mediator program.
Read about how Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and BCP are partnering to study the efficacy of BCP’s improv program for faculty and students.
Check out Mr. Wade’s BCP blog post on how Restorative Practices changes a school culture and community.
