Peer Mediators Gather to
"Talk About It"

Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis provided opening remarks over 200 young peer mediators from elementary, middle and high schools on October 19 at FSU. The Chief Justice told his audience that mediation was a very important problem-solving technique that could be used in their schools and with their relationships with other students as well as a technique that would benefit them later in life. He said that older people get into arguments, too, and when that happens, the courts are there to mediate the problem. The Chief Justice commended the students for their willingness to develop skills that would allow them to solve arguments in their environment.

Sharon Press, Director of the Dispute Resolution Center at the Florida Supreme Court, said the event was extremely successful. “Today’s strong participation tells us that mediation is something that students want to be a part of in their schools. When disputes of any sort can be eliminated or reduced, it makes the learning experience for them far more comfortable and relaxed,” she said.

Caitie John and Jacqueline Prives were two of several FSU Peer Mediation Club members who signed the “Mediation Pledge” posted near the front of the auditorium. While Prives pointed to the logo on her T-shirt, John said, “Many times when there is a disagreement or argument you need to say ‘I see what you mean’ or ‘that is a good point’ so that both parties see that their side of the issue is being taken seriously.” Johns said that she felt confident that if she was confronted by physical violence of some sort, she could use her knowledge of mediation to stop it.

After the Chief Justice’s remarks, participants attended workshops in areas such as anger management, listening respectfully and the importance of diversity. The Mediation Day event is hosted annually by Florida State University. For FSU Mediation Day press release, go to the University's web site.

Some State Courts Administrators Staff Have a New Home

The Office of the State Courts Administrator (OSCA) has relocated a number of its departments to a new state office building. Rather unofficially referred to as the OSCA Annex, the building is now home to approximately 50 employees from the offices of the Deputy State Courts Administrator, Strategic Planning, Court Services and Court Improvement.

The additional building space is a direct result of Revision 7 to Article V of the Florida Constitution. Revision 7 provided for budgetary unification of the State Courts System through the assumption by the State of a substantial portion of funding for the trial courts of Florida. The additional OSCA staff support for the trial courts, as a result of Revision 7, made the need for more offices necessary. State Courts Administrator, Lisa Goodner, said, “We are committed to the OSCA Annex building on the Apalachee Parkway for a number of years, however we realize it is not the perfect solution. Ultimately, in the not-too-distant-future, the Supreme Court is planning for all OSCA employees to be housed in a location more convenient to Supreme Court building.”

Phone numbers and e-mail addresses for employees at the OSCA Annex remain the same. The OSCA Annex is located at 2650 Apalachee Parkway.

Constitution Day Activities Stimulate Students' Critical Thinking About Rights

The Florida Supreme Court Courtroom was filled to capacity by students from schools throughout Florida for Constitution Day on Friday, September 15. Chief Justice R. Fred Lewis welcomed the audience of middle and high school students to the Court’s 2nd Annual Constitution Day, an interactive educational program that focused attention on our fundamental rights.

Students were given option finders (hand-held electronic voting devices) that could record and quickly display for the entire courtroom their responses to multiple choice responses about constitutional rights. One of the key questions was whether students would be willing to give up some of their rights in order to be more safe.

After the opening courtroom session, students divided into seven breakout sessions, led by justices and 1st DCA Judge Edwin B. Browning and 4th DCA Judge Fred A. Hazouri. For more than an hour, the students explored constitutional rights and protections in their small discussion groups. After the justices and judges explained the basic scope of several fundamental provisions in the Bill of Rights, they drew the students into lively exchanges designed to spur critical thinking about the constitutional foundation of our society and government. 

The students then returned to the courtroom, where they were asked to decide which five rights they would keep if forced to choose. The popular favorite was freedom of speech, followed by freedom of religion, protection from cruel and unusual punishment, right to trial by jury, and right to peaceably assemble.

Family Court Conference Attendees Discover Tools to Effect a Paradigm Shift

Offering over 40 pertinent workshops and institutes and three plenary programs, the 2006 Family Court Conference, held August 3-4 in Orlando, educated and inspired the more-than-600 attendees.  Conferees represented a rich conjunction of justice system partners, among them judges, court personnel, clerks, domestic violence advocates, child advocates, parenting coordinators, guardians ad litem, law enforcement officers, and employees of a range of state agencies (e.g., DCF, DJJ, DOE, DOH, DOR). Justice Barbara J. Pariente provided the opening and closing remarks for the two-day conference.

Though the new Chief Justice, R. Fred Lewis, was not able to attend the conference, he sent a thank you letter to participants, which Justice Pariente read from in her welcome. In it, he implored everyone to remember that “Our dedication and determination to enhance our capacity to serve Florida’s families and children must be unwavering. We must build on the past and share our visions of justice for the future.” The chief applauded each of the 20 Florida circuits for implementing family court elements and said he looked forward to “continu[ing] the momentum this approach has been building since its inception in Florida 15 years ago.”

Beginning in July 2004, when Justice Pariente began her term as chief, she stressed the need to invest in the front end of child welfare to prevent children from ultimately graduating from the juvenile justice system into the adult prison population.  Now, two years later, with the theme of “Tools to Move Forward” as a backdrop, she re-accentuated her commitment to social justice and enkindled participants with her passion. She urged those in attendance to choose workshops or institutes that were unfamiliar to them so they could discover new ideas and best practices. As she emphasized, “There is no ownership of these ideas, so you can take them back with you.” She challenged everyone to continue the progress already made in the area of family courts, “not because the Supreme Court says to do that, but because we owe it to the children and families that we work with.”

The hour-long workshops and in-depth institutes that Justice Pariente alluded to gave conference participants a wide and varied range of program choices. Among the topics covered were “Making Drug Courts Greater Than the Sum of Their Parts,” “The Adolescent Brain and High Risk Behaviors,” “Family Violence—Intersection of Domestic Violence, Dependency, and Delinquency,” “Creating a Culture of Change,” and “Family Courts and Drug Courts after the 2006 Legislative Session.”

Opening plenary speaker William R. Byars, retired judge and present-day director of the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice, discussed the concept of and the need for a “paradigm shift”—a theme that was echoed throughout the two days. When dealing with cases that involve children, he urged listeners, “Operate on a child’s time frame, not on the adult’s,” for, as he reminded everyone, “A year is an infinity of time for a child.”  Byars proclaimed to listeners that they did not create the system of juvenile justice, so they have no need to defend it; rather, their obligation is to change it to make it better. And, to make it better, they need to prompt a paradigm shift “by viewing the system through a child’s eyes.”

Michael Nerney, former director of the Training Institute of Narcotic and Drug Research, Inc., and currently a substance abuse prevention and education consultant, gave the afternoon plenary address. Nerney, an expert in the areas of psychopharmacology and adolescent chemical dependency, focused on the effect of drugs and alcohol on fetuses and on children; pre- and post-natal exposure to drugs and alcohol, he warned, “changes brains in substantial, measurable, structural ways.” He also discussed issues like “procurement,” which happens when adults tell their children to “get my cigarettes out of the car,” or “get me a beer out of the fridge.”  Nerney said that these kinds of demands on a child lead to broader, long-term problems: for instance, children 13 and under who are made to procure alcohol for their parents have a 47% chance of developing a lifetime dependency on alcohol themselves.
 
The words “The answer is yes” were projected on an overhead throughout the presentation of second-day plenary speaker John McNeil, the vice president of the Pacific Institute in Seattle, Washington, whose goal is to teach clients how to “harness the power of your mind to achieve bottom-line results in yourself and your organization.”  Evoking the “paradigm shift” concept, McNeil implored listeners to “change your default drive—your natural, habitual operating system”—in their quest to improve the justice system for children and families. To do that, he instructed participants to envision the new picture they want to see and take the steps necessary to make that picture a reality.  In order to effect a paradigm shift, people need to focus on and talk about the answers, not the problems, he asserted; they also need to be willing to take in new information and listen to those who don't share their opinions.

In the final session, Justice Pariente left the podium to circulate among the twenty Florida Circuit Roundtables in the ballroom, handing the microphone off to circuit representatives who gave a synopsis of their successful circuit initiatives as well as of their goals for the coming year.  In her closing, she declared, “If we do not collaborate, if we do not see the world from each other’s perspective, then we cannot move forward.  We need to change the culture of our family court because the children, our children, deserve nothing less.”  She commended those in attendance for their continued commitment and hard work, and, waving a small card that had two dimes taped over its surface (a memento given to everyone during Judge Byars’ opening plenary), she urged participants to “Take your ‘paradigms’ [i.e., “pair of dimes”] back to your courts to realize the changes you want to see.”

Article by Beth Schwartz and Phillip Pollock