Nonprofit Partner Spotlight: CORA Good Shepherd Mediation

CORA Good Shepherd Mediation (GSM) was established in 1984 as a neighborhood justice center that helps people in conflict resolve their disputes through mediation. Their mission is to encourage peace, reconciliation, and social justice by empowering individuals to resolve conflicts. CORA GSM’s services include mediation and facilitation, training and consulting, restorative justice processes, and youth conflict management education. Mediation is a process in which individuals or groups experiencing conflict seek to resolve a dispute with the assistance of a trained, neutral, third party called a mediator. The process is characterized by self-determination and communication. Typical conflicts that come to mediation include custody and divorce matters, neighbor disputes, workplace issues, and conflicts involving the care of older adults. Restorative justice refers to a variety of processes that address a harm that has occurred, with the goal of answering these questions: what happened, why did it happen, what is needed to heal the harm, and what can be done to prevent the harm from happening again. Along with a number of our other nonprofit partners, CORA Good Shepherd Mediation partners with the City of Philadelphia on its award-winning, nationally recognized, Eviction Diversion Program, which offers mediation for landlords and tenants and which has effectively prevented numerous evictions and resolved conflicts for no cost.