Dozens of students at Harshman Middle School lead a peer mediation group aimed at helping their fellow classmates resolve conflict. IU Health's Community Impact Investment Fund has awarded $1.2 million to Peace Learning Center to pour into this anti-violence program over the last several years, and the impact's been dramatic.
By: Courtney Finafrock, social media senior specialist, cfinafrock@iuhealth.org
Eighth grade students Isabell Gonzales and Kenya Rosales want to make their school, H.L. Harshman Middle, a safer place for students who find themselves in the middle of a conflict. They are returning peer mediators this year for their school's peer mediation program.
"I've noticed how I've become more confident," Gonzales said of her experience in the program. "[I've] learned more skills to help others as well."
The peer mediation program equips students to navigate interpersonal conflicts with fellow classmates. During mediation, students must acknowledge the harm they caused and talk to the person they wronged. Then, they must come up with an action plan to repair the relationship instead of being suspended.
Peace Learning Center, an Indianapolis nonprofit, is working with schools like Harshman Middle School to equip educators and students with necessary conflict resolution skills with the goal of repairing harm and preventing suspensions. And data shows the effort is working.
"We've been involved at Harshman now for six years helping the program, and it really started with help from IU Health," Tim Nation, Peace Learning Center's Executive Director & Co-Founder, said. "IU Health gave us a grant to start doing this transformative work in schools. When we started, there were 571 suspensions the first year we were here, and then last year they got that down to 60."
IU Health's awarded nearly $1.2 million over five years to Peace Learning Center through the Community Impact Investment (CII) Fund. This allows the nonprofit to work with schools across Marion County.
"With that money, we've been able to impact 16 different schools with this kind of full school program where we have staff that visit the schools on a regular basis," Nation explained. "They do training for all the teachers and staff and students, but then also are able to coach teachers and coach administrators. One of the things that we've found overall with the schools that we're in, we see a reduction in out of school suspensions by at least 40 percent across all schools."
Behavioral specialist and peer mediation program leader Grover Edwards is astonished by the changes he has witnessed at Harshman over the last six years.
"I've never seen a building where kids come in and say, I need a mediation," Edwards said. "They come and tell us, 'hey I've got a situation, I need help.' They know we have a program."
Edwards said the process to become a peer mediator requires an application and interview. He is pleasantly surprised by the number of sixth graders who applied this year.
"This year we have an influx of sixth graders," Edwards said. "We have 50 applying; we kept 17 of them. Never had that many. We've got kids coming every day saying, 'can I be a mediator?'"
Edwards recalls multiple fights every day at Harshman prior to the mediation program. Now, students are learning how to resolve their conflicts peacefully, which in turn keeps them in their classrooms instead of suspending or expelling them.
"Now [the students] have an outlet," Edward said. They can say, 'look here, if I fight, I'm going to get suspended. If I don't fight, I've got a mediation, I can save myself and still be in school and have friends.'"
IU Health, is on a mission to improve the health of Hoosiers, and that focus extends far beyond hospital walls and into schools, neighborhoods and community spaces across Indiana. The hope is that through this funding, local organizations like Peace Learning Center are able to expand work that is already making a difference.
"Punishment doesn't work, and it creates kids that are going to be pushed out of society and pushed out of the economy and then we have to pick them up in other ways," Nation said. "So, what can we do while kids are young and they can learn from their conflicts and learn from their problems rather than being punished and kicked out? Ultimately, this is an antiviolence program."
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