U.S. Department
of Justice
Facilitation
CRS facilitation services include both structured programs and customized facilitated dialogues that are led by a CRS conciliation specialist or co-facilitated by a local, CRS-trained volunteer. These programs and dialogues increase mutual understanding among parties, identify issues and solutions, and develop actions. Topics of discussion frequently include race, police-community relations, perceived hate crimes, bias incidents, tribal conflicts, and protests and demonstrations.
Strengthening Police and Community Partnerships (SPCP) is a one-day, in-person facilitated program, which engages local law enforcement and community leaders in a dialogue to identify issues and collaboratively develop solutions that improve police-community partnerships.
The School-SPIRIT is a one-day, student-focused program which engages students, school administrators, teachers, school resource officers, and other school and community members in identifying issues impacting their school and developing and implementing solutions to resolve those issues.
The Campus-SPIRIT is a one-day or two half-day program for college and university communities that helps diverse student leaders, campus administrators, faculty, staff, campus law enforcement, and external community leaders identify issues impacting their community and develop solutions to address those issues.
The City-SPIRIT is a one-day, program which brings together diverse community stakeholders such as local government agencies, community groups, faith‐based organizations, civil rights organizations, and law enforcement to identify issues impacting their community and develop collaborative solutions to reduce conflict, improve communication, and minimize the potential for future conflict.
The Bias Incidents and Hate Crimes Forum is a half-day session that provides community members and law enforcement with information related to the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, as well as state and local hate crimes laws.
The Dialogue on Race program is an interactive, facilitated process that opens lines of communication and fosters mutual understanding to help address racial conflict and decrease racial tensions.
The Protecting Places of Worship forum is a half-day session that provides faith-based leaders and congregations with information about religious hate crimes, state and federal hate crimes laws, law enforcement threat assessments, and ways to protect places of worship from potential hate crimes and other threats of violence.
Conciliation Specialists provide facilitated dialogue services to help communities open lines of communication by listening to the issues of each stakeholder group and learning from each party about the problem and underlying issues of the conflict.