by Pam Steager, Guest Blogger

Below are Pam's notes from the sessions on Sunday. They include notes on presentations by Danielle Gramm, Denise Brown, Lisa Schirch, Tricia Jones, and Frances Henry.  

• Brandeis students visit local high schools
• SPA held interfaith prayer service for peace
• Red Hot Chili Peppers concerts in support of DoP campaign.
• High school chapters now forming – will grow rapidly – started in CA
• Held Gandhi screenings,  held postcard, letter writing campaigns
• Helped organize Walks for Peace
• Kids for Peace – younger children meet with Congresspeople to discuss the bill

• Became Domestic Violence advocate after sister Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder
• Look into Gloucester, MA “Real Men Don’t Abuse” effort
• Domestic Violence stats
• Cycle of Violence (Power and Control Wheel)
• Hands are not for hitting program – also what good things hands can do

Message
A peacebuilding community already exists, body of knowledge of best practices and research-based information
Institutional platform – organize and maximize breadth and depth of this community
Provide adequate monetary and human resources for it

 
Lisa Schirch – Eastern Mennonite University

• Worked on racial justice & racial and ethnic conflict
• Seciurity is top issue for most Americans
• Borrowed framework from Canada, now Bush strategy:
• 3D Security (Development, Diplomacy, Defense)
• Bush National Security Strategy 2006:
• “A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 a day is neither safe nor secure”
• Development work in partnership with communities
• Root causes of violent conflict:
• Economic Insecurity – poverty, unemployment, socio-economic inequality, environmental destruction & scarce resources
• Political Insecurity – lack of democratic processes, institutions and skills to address conflict, human rights violations, lack of due process of law
• Social Insecurity -  a culture of violence, lack of trust, discrimination and exclusion between groups (which widen economic disparity)

 
The Foundations of Peace: Development and Diplomacy

• Dev. Programs are “weapons of mass salvation” – they save millions of lives by building schools, health centers, and creating jobs and commercial interdependence thereby lessening the tendency toward armed conflict and creating incentives for peaceful cooperation.
•  Official and unofficiall citizen diplomacy
•  Conflict Prevention
•  We spend 7 times more on defense than on all other initiatives (3-4% to State for diplomacy) Diplo, 5% to USAID for international development
• Military is trying to build capacity for diplomacy and peace building
• 71% of citizens looking for a new foreign policy
• 67% feel there should be more diplomatic and economic initiatives (bi-partisan)

 
Dr. Tricia Jones – Dept. of Psychological Studies in Education, Temple University
 

• The role of emotion in education
• Mediating in Heart and Mind – Negotiation Journal
• Good news – we know how
• No infrastructure for developing and maintaining that research and network
• Temple – founded as the first social justice university in the US (Russell Conwell)
• Acres of Diamonds commencement speech to 18 graduates of first graduating class
• Margaret Spellings (US Sec. Of Educ) quote on safe schools free from violence
• In the last two weeks:
• Vicious beating of high school girl videotaped and posted on Internet
• 80% of AZ 7th-12th grade students reported hearing homophobic statements
• Students using cell phones to call in family and friends to help with fights resulting in brawls

• 10% of students miss school regularly due to feelings of unsafety
• 1 in every 4 teens reports some sort of dating violence from peers
• Indicators
• Bullying – Across the Nation
• 90% report being bullied
• 15% are persistent bullies
• 10% of hs dropouts due to bullying

• 1/3 of all new teachers leave profession within 5 years /50% in urban areas within 3 years
• 25-45% of instruction time is spent on discipline, not instruction

 
CR Education:

• Perspective Taking and Empathy
• USDOE on-line course ww.k12coordinator.org
• Managing and Resolving Conflict in Schools
• www.ed.gov
• CD available from National Association of School Psychologists
•  
• CRE Enhances Students social emotional Development
• Decreases conflicts between groups of students
• Decreases suspensions, absenteeism and drop-out rates
• Decreases incidents of violence
• Improves academic performance

 
After School Programs

• Restorative Justice
• Peer mediation
• Diversity and Bias Awareness
• Negotiation Skills
• Bullying Prevention
• Expressive Arts and CRE
• Curriculum Infusion
• SE
• Classroom and School Practices

 
Teacher Preparation

• CRE Course in all Colleges of Education
• Provide CRE Training for In-service
• Require School Admins for Persistent Safe Schools
• Create incentives for administratiors to metor
• Provide S&E Learning programs PreK-5th grades
• Provide Negotiation and Mediation Trainings to Gr. 3-8
• Employ Bullying Prevention programs esp. in 3-8
• Create Restorative Practice Programs, esp in MS & HS

 
Links to Larger Systems

• Link programs to conflict & peace programs in the community
• Encourage sevice learning

 
“I believe that peace is not just the absence of war but the nurture of human life, and that in time this nurture would do away with war as a natural process” – Jane Addams
 

Frances Henry – Creator of Coalition on Violence Prevention

• Violence as public health issue
• Science has ability to bring out the best in people, not adversarial like law
• Science has a worldwide accepted process
• Public health science offers a valuable tool
• Stop it now – reaching people who abuse through the media
• Suicide, Partner violence, Elder violence,
• We each want a safe place to live and raise our children
• Science has:
• Eradicated small pox worldwide
• Averted 7.5 million cases of measles through immunization programs
• Averted 200,000 cases of HIV in Thailand (80% fewer cases of HIV than previous years)
• Not a one size fits all approach internationally
• Of all people murdered, 3/4 are male
• H. rates among AfAm males 12% the rate for white men

1. Data collection - Epidemiology
2. Analysis of data - risk and preventive factors

Youth violence – perps and victims often same peer group
Collective violence/war – precipitated by high levels of personal violence

3. Program design and evaluation -
4. Program implementation - Meeting standards

• WHO looks at violence under a large umbrella (excellent tools on web site)
• 192 member nations –WHO has 4 fulltime staff working on the prevention of violence
• NOT authorized to work on collective violence
• Needs to be brought together. They are out there with not much money or other resources
• Cajol, support & promote, not compete with other departments

 
Political will….social will
 
Jim Webb- “If you support this legislation, we will follow or show the way"