Project PEACE (Peaceful Endings through Attorneys, Children and Educators) is a peer mediation training program implemented in Pennsylvania by the Pennsylvania Bar Association (PBA) and the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. This public-private partnership introduces dispute resolution techniques to elementary school students throughout the Commonwealth. Originally brought to Pennsylvania by then Attorney General Mike Fisher in 1999 after the tragedy at Columbine High School, the program has been continued to flourish under new Attorney General Jerry Pappert. Six presidents of the PBA have endorsed the program and over the past five years Project PEACE has brought peer mediation programming and conflict resolution education to 60 schools directly and another 100 indirectly.

Project PEACE strives to reduce conflicts and violence in schools by teaching children how to discuss and mediate their disagreements. The objective of Project PEACE is to neutralize minor conflicts before they become the kind of explosive confrontations that might lead to violent acts. Children become active participants in controlling behavior in their schools by taking the role of mediator. The purpose of Project PEACE training is to introduce participants to the peer mediation process and to provide them with instruction to teach their students.

The past school year has seen a sad increase in deadly violence targeting school age children in Philadelphia. Although mediation training and conflict resolution education alone are not magic formulas for stopping these violent acts, research on elementary peer mediation programs and conflict resolution education show that they can positively impact the school climate. Project PEACE is uniquely structured to bring such benefits to schools because of its partnerships. Parents, administrators, line educators and community members represented by attorney partners all are part of the Project PEACE effort.

Attorney General Jerry Pappert, the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Philadelphia School District CEO Paul Vallas have agreed to bring Project PEACE to all Philadelphia Public School elementary buildings for the 2004-2005 school year. The plan calls for each school to survey its conflict resolution needs and develop a plan to be implemented by school-based Project PEACE teams. School teams – composed of one administrator, one educator, one guidance counselor or a second educator, one parent and one attorney - write their own mediation plans, which are then implemented by each school. The unique partner in this process is the attorney assigned to the school through the Project PEACE partners. The attorney serves the school as a partner to the larger community and helps the school implement its plan.

School teams are introduced to the peer mediation process and conflict resolution education through hands-on learning activities in materials from Community Boards. The materials provide instruction in such areas as adjudication vs. mediation, diffusing conflict situations and the skills of conflict resolution. The school teams decide how and when to select and train their student mediators, and the student mediators—once trained-- then begin helping fellow students resolve disputes peacefully.

The original Project PEACE training model that started in Indiana in 1994 was developed by the Temple University Beasley School of Law’s LEAP Program and Temple University, as well as other area institutions of higher learning, are possible partners for the various schools initiating Project PEACE. Training for attorney partners will take place in the fall of 2004 and will be lead by PBA Pro Bono Coordinator David Trevaskis, the developer and head trainer of Project PEACE, using a team of trainers from across the nation, who have worked on this project. Local trainers, and resources within the school district, will support the training and develop expertise with the approach so that the program is self-sustaining after the first year. Project PEACE conducted similar trainings for all of the schools in the Indianapolis Public Schools and that training bubbled up to middle and high school buildings, a goal that might be achieved in Philadelphia after the elementary base is developed.

Following a year of implementing Project PEACE, a closing Mediation Showcase Event will be held city-wide in May 2005 to celebrate a year of making a difference against violence.

1. Please see http://www.pabar.org/projectpeacehome.shtml for a list of the schools that have gone through the Pennsylvania Project PEACE training. The Indiana Project PEACE program on which the Pennsylvania effort is modeled has reached more than 450 schools at all grade levels (see http://www.doe.state.in.us/sservices/peace/welcome.html for more information on the Indiana effort).

2. Please see http://www.leap-kids.com/news/peaceeval.php for a summary of research based on Indiana Project PEACE, as well as links to the full reports which summarize the national research on peer mediation programs and conflict resolution education in the schools.

3. Please look at http://www.leap-kids.com/programs/projectpeace.php for more information on the Project PEACE model.