Community Building in Grinnell

CBIG (Community Building in Grinnell) aims to enhance the quality of life in Grinnell through enabling a more open and productive environment for decision making and by reducing anger, stress and violence. This perceptual change will evolve together with new options for resolving conflicts, such as expanded peer mediation programs in the schools, a community mediation center, and a restorative justice approach to crime. In the long term a dispute resolution system will be created for the city of Grinnell based on the needs and intentions expressed by members of the project planning teams, groups of individuals representing a broad range of constituencies within the community.

The primary goal of the CBIG initiative is two-fold: to systematically change the way young people and adults in our community perceive conflict and how they respond to and resolve disputes.

The initial CBIG conflict resolution training has already had an impact in several areas of community life. Teachers who were interested in a conflict resolution program for the schools, on learning of the wide-spread support for conflict resolution education, have been inspired to include this into their regular curriculum. The entire High School faculty voted to support the CBIG initiative. A member of the City Council is now working to have the option of mediation offered to city employees involved in personnel disputes.