Commitment to Equity

In this time of America’s struggle to address the painful realities of its history, we are all obligated to examine where each of us has stood on the issue of social equities. As an agency committed to supporting individuals’ efforts to have a voice in the matters that affect their lives, we, here, express our commitment to ensuring that our clients have a full and fair opportunity to define their own outcomes and advance their own needs.

New Justice Services’ programming philosophy is rooted in the agency’s Founding Executive Director’s academic and personal background in the social change movements of the 1960s. Since its inception, the guiding principle of our service delivery has been a deep and abiding commitment to equities on all fronts, whether the issue is related to an individual’s Race, Gender, Sexuality, Identity, or Culture.

Our services are based upon an uncompromising commitment to the American ideal that…

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [people] are created equal, that they are endowed… with certain unalienable Rights… Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In keeping with this commitment, our program offerings focus on the empowerment and self-actualization of clients, staff members and volunteers alike.

We believe that Justice should be rooted in our communities as much as in our courts. Our history of service delivery, whether it be in Mediation, Violence Interruption, Restorative Justice Programming, or Pro-social Skills Training, reflects this commitment to providing our clients with their right to equal access and equal treatment in any program we offer.

No disparities, barriers, issues of access or inequalities will be tolerated within the service delivery of New Justice Services, Inc.

Any individual who walks through our door will be treated with the dignity and consideration that every human being has the right to expect. If anyone involved with New Justice Services — as an employee or a volunteer — is incapable of meeting that standard of conduct, then they will no longer be involved with this organization.

New Justice Services’ Core Mission:

New Justice Services has always operated with the core intention of providing individuals in conflict with the opportunity to speak with their own voice and in their own words as they advocate for their own needs and own best interests. We are simply the communication channel between people as they work to discover their own best outcomes.

The agency’s identity has always been based upon its mediation services. At the heart of the practice of mediation is a deep and unwavering commitment to a strict neutrality on the part of the mediator in relation to the disputants and their disputes. This neutrality requires that a New Justice mediator be…

Non-Partisan regarding the individual disputants.

Non-Judgmental as to the behavior of the parties.

Non-Involved in the content of the dispute.

Non-Directive as to particular solutions.

Adhering to this level of neutrality is the highly challenging and uncompromising responsibility of all New Justice staff and volunteers to maintain.

A failure to adhere to this standard will result in an immediate dismissal, whether staff or volunteer. Mediators’ personal opinions, expectations, goals, values or belief systems are completely irrelevant while they are mediating and have no place being displayed while in the mediation room.

Radiating out of this core perspective, the same demand for disconnecting personal values from any Alternative Dispute Resolution process provided within the agency is to be found in the agency’s Arbitration and Formal Hearing facilitations, as well.

Agency Service Commitments:

As Mediators, we are committed to assisting and supporting any and all of our clients with a full and fair opportunity to actualize their self-expression, self-advocacy and self-determination.

As Hearing Officers, we are committed to providing our clients, regardless of who they are or what they stand accused of, with a full and fair opportunity to present their evidence and testimony and to then render a ruling without favor, fear or bias influencing the decision-making process.

As Skills Trainers we are committed to providing our clients with any and all information, guidance and support that will allow them to make whatever positive choices best address their particular needs and circumstances.

Agency Standards and Expectations of Program Practice:

To seek out community gatekeepers and cultural guides so as to be educated in the dynamics of a particular cultural group and supported while designing programming.

To be sensitive and respectful to each individuals’ cultural and personal frames of reference.

To openly demonstrate acceptance of other cultural or social perspectives within all of the agency’s programming and practices.​

To consciously seek to uncover moments of inherent or unconscious bias and determine if the agency has hidden areas of inequity or disparities.

Agency Standards and Expectations of Organizational Practice:

To maintain a commitment to Racial and Cultural diversity among the Board and Staff.

To openly articulate the organization’s cultural climate of transparency, inclusiveness and respect for self-determination, and to both articulate and defend these values in the agency’s daily operations.